photo credit: liquidnight
Something to seriously consider: If you find yourself not working productively – don’t do any work at all!
A rudderless speedboat at full throttle
It’s very easy to begin your day or week with a mental list of all the important things you want to accomplish; some of this work may should even qualify as contributing mightily to your actual success. But what happens if you don’t document your planned work and then conform to some sort of schedule to do the work? You’re like a speedboat without a rudder. You dash to and fro in the oceans of information and diversion called the internet without focus and end up being far less productive than planned.
Doing things that look like work is not a good replacement for actually accomplishing meaningful things. Have you ever heard yourself saying, “Arrgh! I’m sooooo busy!” when you’re really just being…well…busy?
There’s no deeper feeling of satisfaction planning an important and meaningful piece of work and then making a focused effort that leads to its completion. Conversely, knowing you need to get stuff done and then consistently frittering away your time feels like you’ve just kicked your best friend in the balls and cussed out your mom – you feel pretty lame.
Medicine for your troubled mind
So here’s an idea that serves as a kind of reset button for your work life: If you find yourself aimlessly working on mostly unimportant work, stop working and do something totally different and unrelated. Your productive work time will then contrast sharply with your unproductive work time. And if you do something non-work related you’ll convert what would have been time wasted into time well spent. The hope is that you’ll serve a mild rejuvenating penance while clearing out the jumbled up backlog of unorganized and unprioritized tasks in your head.
There are three steps to the “No productivity = No work” experience:
1. Get away from your work – Run, don’t walk away from your computer/office/desk/shop/sewing machine/backhoe.
2. Do something unrelated to work – This is how you’re being “disciplined” by yourself into not making the same mistake twice!
- Go for a brisk walk around the block.
- Go home early and play with your kids.
- Visit a bookstore and read random magazines about random subjects to expand your knowledge.
- Watch an art film that’ll make you think.
- Pray.
- Exercise vigorously.
- Journal.
3. Plan your work for one hour per week – No hard science here, just basic planning advice. One hour of planning per week should give you a pretty solid outline of what’s important to do and when to do it. Try to group your niggling little tasks into bigger blocks of time.
Sure, your spouse may wonder what the heck you’re doing home at 11:45 am on a Monday but it’ll be better than wasting your time. (In my humble opinion.)
If you’re looking for some more on this subject read my post “How to plan your work quickly” from last August.
Thoughts or insights? Share them in the comments below.
