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Category: Productivity

8

Published on 8 Comments on It’s Not Perfect

I think that like many people, one of the reasons I was drawn to teaching and coaching was to learn more about how to do my own work and find ways to go through or around or over my own stumbling blocks.

One of my biggest stumbling blocks is perfectionism. That's true for so many creatives! What is it with our brains?! That's a question for a longer post, though.

Lately, to help me conquer my perfectionist tendencies, I'm working with the ideas in Jon Acuff's book and course Soundtracks. This week I have been practicing a new soundtrack for when I get frustrated because something is imperfect and not been working out. I've especially been using it as I'm trying to put together a version of that master to-do list idea I wrote about the other day. I've tried a couple of ideas that just aren't working for me, but instead of giving up on the idea, putting it aside for later and probably never getting back to it, I've been saying, "This one isn't quite working out for me. What else can I try?" And it's been pretty awesome.

My brain loves questions, so as I work more with these soundtrack ideas I'm seeing more and more that putting in questions with my statements is a really good way to go for me. My brain instantly starts coming up with answers when it gets a question, and that seems to be helping me not get stuck when things aren't working out. It's just a matter of finding the questions that really get to the heart of what's holding me back.

How do you keep yourself from getting stuck or quitting when things aren't going as you'd hoped? Do you like questions? Or does something else do a better job of getting you rolling again?

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4

Published on 4 Comments on One List
Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on unsplash.com

I really wanted to write "one list to rule them all." Who thought that when they read the title?

Anyhow, I'm playing with a new way of doing to-do lists that won't leave me with undone things on a daily list or feeling like I didn't put enough on my list. I'm thinking about a master list of things I want to do that I add to when something pops into my head. Then every day I would make a list of the things I did from the master list and cross them off on the main list.

So every day I get what we call in Kaizen-Muse coaching a ta-da list. I get to see what I accomplished and feel good about getting some things done. Plus I get that great feeling from crossing things off a to-do list.

I don't have all the details worked out (I may be overthinking this--it's a hobby). Will I keep it in a notebook? Or just the main list in a notebook and the daily list on an index card? Or the main list on one of my cork boards and the daily in a notebook or a planner or on index cards? Something else I haven't thought of yet.

That's what's on my mind today. I really want to do this and see how it feels, but I may make myself hold off because I'm getting ready to start the new two-month gig tomorrow, so things are feeling a little overwhelming which isn't the best time to add one more new thing. But I'd love to hear what you think or if you do anything like this.

Happy Sunday everyone!

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12

Published on 12 Comments on Keeping Track
My Habitica avatar fancied up with a few filters

I wanted to talk about one more way I keep track of things because I really like this site and app a lot. It's called Habitica, and it's sort of a role playing game as well as a productivity tool. And it helps me remember all the daily tasks and routines I want to do as well as work on building habits I want to have and tracking to-dos. And it's really cute and fun. You can play on a team, join guilds, participate in challenges. Or you can just use it solo (what I'm doing right now--I'm not even hatching eggs for new companion animals and mounts right now, but that's another thing you can do) to track your stuff.

Why do I love Habitica? Because of the three categories of things to track (and they're all on one screen on the website, although on the app you do have to move between them). Plus, it's pretty and whimsical and makes me smile.

The Three Categories:

Habits--you can track when you do certain habits you want to build. You can set it up so that you give yourself a plus if you do it and a minus if you don't, or you can just do a plus for every time you do the habit. Currently I use the habits column for studying Spanish, cleaning my kitchen sink at night, reaching my daily Fitbit goal, and a few other things. I just give myself pluses, but you can experiment with how you want to do it.

Dailies--this is for things you want to do every day. You can edit it so that they only show up on certain days. For example, I have meal planning show up for me on Sundays so I can get ready for the week. I have "take probiotic" on every day because otherwise I forget. This is also where I put temporary dailies like the 30 days of blogging I'm doing right now. You can also add checklists to your items--I have an evening routine with things like set out clothes, set up coffee maker, wash up and others that I want to do before bed. I have exercise set up for every day, but I've created a reward where I can buy skip exercise for some gold coins. It's a pretty nice and flexible system.

To Do--This is your basic to-do list. You can make single items or items with checklists so you can keep track of one-time things you want to get done (I really like this for projects I'm doing). You can set deadlines on these to help encourage you to get them done in a timely manner.

There *is* a learning curve to Habitica, but they walk you through it in small steps to help you learn it. And there's a guild that's all about helping out and answering questions, so the learning curve is easy enough to navigate. . If you're looking for something fun and a little different to help you get things done, I definitely recommend trying this out (it's free!).

Let me know if you try out Habitica. And what other apps and things do you like for helping you get things done? I'd love to hear about what you use.

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Published on
First tomatoes from the garden in our new house (2015).

I love working in timed bursts. Working with a timer focuses me and keeps me going. I also love knowing I have a finite amount of time until I'm finished (even if the whole project isn't finished). I think working in timed bursts is a really effective way to get things done even if, or maybe especially if, (like me) you're highly distractible and unfocused.

I first started using a timer to do creative work when I read about it in Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. She recommends different amounts of time (or alternately writing for a certain number of pages) depending on circumstances, and this has worked amazingly well for me ever since I started doing it way back in the late 80s.

At some point, though, I heard about The Pomodoro Technique, and I was pulled in by the promise of productivity and focus. It was so simple, too. Get a timer. Pick a task. Work for 25 minutes then take a break. Every four sessions, take a longer break. I was going to do all the things!

Turns out it didn't quite work that way for me. For some tasks (okay, a lot of tasks), 25 minutes was too long for me. I couldn't hold my focus for that long. I couldn't maintain momentum for that long. Most of the time I couldn't even do one Pomodoro let alone get to that longer break after four of them.

I still liked the idea of it, though, so I experimented. I tried out different intervals. I even tried out some longer ones (every once in a while I can do a 30 minute writing sprint if I've warmed up with some shorter sprints). I tried really short ones (even two minutes--you can do a lot in two minutes!). I found that my best interval is 10 minutes with a 3-5 minute break in between (and a longer break after a few sessions).

How can you use a timer to get more stuff done? Experiment!

Things to try or to keep in mind:

  • Have a specific task in mind before you start (even if you're doing writing sprints, having at least a vague idea of what you're working on helps you focus).
  • Make sure you have everything set up (including your timer) before you start.
  • Try a variety of time intervals (including changing the length of breaks).
  • Try working with music, in silence, with ambient sounds (there are apps for that!), and in various locations to see if any of them make it easier to work.
  • Unless you absolutely hate working in a particular length of time you try, give each interval a few tries before deciding if it works for you or not.
  • Do not skip breaks! (The one exception is if you're really on a roll with a creative project and you just want to keep writing, painting, sculpting, whatever because you're in a good spot and know where you're going next. Give yourself permission to follow the Muse.)
  • Have a plan for what you'll do for your breaks. Try playing with your dog or cat, checking in on the other people in your house if you don't live alone, refilling your water bottle, checking social media (but only if you're sure you can stop after the allotted break time), anything that lets you relax a little and reset.
  • When it's your longer break, get up and do something. Get yourself a reward (cup of tea or coffee, take a dance or stretch break, do something that gets you up and away from your work spot.

That's it. Get a timer (if you have a smartphone or tablet you already have one) and see what you can do!

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