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: Handling Information Overload

Do you feel overwhelmed? Too much information, too little time to take it all in?

Given the amount of information available to us, either by choice or seemingly floating freely, it's almost inevitable that we become overloaded from time to time, if not on a daily basis. More and more, research tells us that multitasking is not the answer; in fact, rather than helping us get more done, multitasking makes our brains work harder because we toggle between tasks.

In her article in Fast Company, Lisa Evans offers four low-tech, common-sense solutions to managing information overload. (Spoiler alert: one is to avoid multitasking). In addition to keeping the flow flowing, these strategies have other, broader payoffs as well.

How do you manage the constant, insistent flow of information?

Friday Feature: 10 Habits that Hinder Productivity

Yesterday was the last day of spring semester classes. Today is Reading Day, that miraculous day where I don't have to set an alarm and, when I get up, I have the whole day ahead of me to plan as I wish. I want to be productive as I have a number of deadlines looming, but today is also the perfect day to strive for balance.

While any day is a good day to do that, I find it harder to achieve this in days that are scheduled for me. Today, I get to choose and organize my priorities. For me, this is often a recipe for not only success, but also a feeling of accomplishment.

Several months ago, I saved an article from Success magazine about habits that hinder productivity. From the first tip (stop saying yes when you want to say no) to the last, the article (which takes less than five minutes to read), has great advice not just for productivity, but for balance as well. I'm working on that first tip, and I've definitely made some progress, simply by making it a goal. I've also gotten better at prioritizing my day (#10- another goal), and though I've become more mindful of some others like protecting my recharge time (#8), not multitasking (#5) and striving less for perfection (#7), I definitely have room for improvement in those areas as well.

Don't get me wrong. I don't intend to use this article to start a "what's wrong with me" party -- more like a "how can I make myself less stressed?" assessment. I don't fully agree with all ten items all the time, but overall, the advice is worth considering and, in some cases, implementing.

Revisiting this article reminded me that I let the beginning of May slip by without setting my monthly goals. Later on today, I look forward to settling in with a cold beverage, my calendar and this article to plot out the rest of the month. I've got lots of things to look forward to in May, along with a number of deadlines, and maybe adopting some of these habits will enable me to enjoy both more fully.

What detracts from your feelings of accomplishment?

Friday Freebie: What I'm Reading in Ten Minutes or Less: Multitasking

William Iven, via unsplash.com

Yesterday, I finished a piece I'd queried about so long ago I'm embarrassed to tell you (so I won't). Suffice to say it was long overdue.

So long, in fact, that I needed to update my information. The piece was on multitasking, something we convince ourselves is a good thing, but, as it turns out, isn't. When we multitask, we don't actually do two things simultaneously; instead, we force our brains to switch back and forth between tasks rapidly, exhausting ourselves and interfering with learning and memory in the process. I wrote a blog for CatholicMom.com about this almost two years ago, sparked by information I'd heard on NPR. In working on this more recent piece, I came across an article on slate.com that applied this specifically to multitasking while studying.

If you have a teenager in your house, or are addicted to multitasking yourself (especially multitasking that involves electronic devices), the Slate article is worth a read. Though it doesn't qualify as an update to my information (it was written two months before I wrote my blog post for Tech Talk), it definitely expanded my awareness on the topic.

I should warn you that although you can read the article in ten minutes or less, if you click on all the links in this post, it will take you more than the allotted ten minutes to get through everything -- something that becomes increasingly more difficult for chronic multitaskers to do.

Can you do it? Or have you been outsmarted by your smartphone?