Friday Feature: Drawing a Line

I seem to be on a productivity roll -- at least when it comes to the articles that attract my attention. Last week, I wrote about a seven minute start to the day touted for increasing productivity (Tried it. Liked it.) but, in the same post, I commiserated with a commenter who'd had enough suggestions on productivity.

And yet, here I am again this week. Partly, it's January but, mostly, the semester starts next week and a lack of productivity is no longer an option. Perhaps most important, this article by Gwen Moran not only addresses the elephant in the business section from the start ("There is no shortage of advice about and strategies for performing optimally and enhancing productivity"), but goes on to share two pieces of information that I seriously need to take to heart: do one thing (the research on multitasking is clear: don't do it) and stop working all the time.

I can give you a million excuses about why my work days bleed into evenings and weekends, not the least of which is that neither writing nor teaching is not a nine-to-five job, but all that does is reveal how embarrassingly difficult it is for me to draw the line.

I'm working on it. Both of those things, as a matter of fact.

If you, too, are "working on it," check out the rest of Gwen's Fast Company article. Your top pieces of advice might be different than mine or you, like me, might just find a cool new name for your favorite kind of day ("serendipitous days"). Either way, making it a point to develop a better relationship between ourselves and our work is never a bad idea.

Friday Feature: 7 Minutes to Productivity

The other day, I stumbled across an article on Twitter about a morning routine that would change my work life. It looked interesting, so I retweeted it, mainly so I could find it again. In the process, I found a comment another reader had left for the author:

"Jokes on you. I don't fall for this click-bait anymore."

Point taken (even though the reply wasn't meant for me). There are a ton of "habits of the most productive people" articles out there and I, too, have stopped clicking on them. No matter how many times I read about people meditating at 6 AM, that is not a habit I will replicate. I'm also not convinced that the same stuff/different day plan works well for everyone (although I do cherry-pick some worthwhile ideas from some of these pieces). As for me, I like changing up my routine from day to day.

But some days, a routine -- any routine -- just won't click into place. When I had one of those days earlier this week -- a not-quite-enough-sleep, not-nearly-enough-motivation day -- I went back to my Twitter feed to re-read the article.

And I tried it.

And I liked it.

Because it allowed me to step out of lockstep productivity mode (or, in my case, the lack thereof) and included pausing to tap into what was going on internally (which is usually why I'm procrastinating in the first place), it worked. There's a lot of research to back this up, too -- research that encourages us to let our minds wander first in order to focus them later (or, what we called "brainstorming" when I was a kid), and to delay the start of a project in order to allow ourselves to consider the possibilities.

The process was also a good match for one of my 20 in 2020 list items -- be mindful -- without requiring a huge, schedule-busting time commitment (my busted schedule was why I was trying this in the first place).

I'm not in the market for a morning routine overhaul, but this is one I'll keep in my back pocket for days when I should be. It gave me permission to just chill while also corralling my wayward thoughts in a time-limited way that got me off my duff and back to work.

Not a bad way to spend seven minutes.