The Danger of Focus
Over the past few years, I've been putting a heavy emphasis on GTD. (For the purposes of this article, GTD ('Getting Things Done' means attacking large lists of tasks and completing them as efficiently as possible). This year, however, I'm trying to learn how to instead direct all of my energy into ONE project at a time and really pushing to expand my boundaries and abilities. I'm trying to knock myself out of a comfort zone and achieve a higher level of ability with my Work.
It's been going okay. I mean, it's been very hard, and draining, and I don't think I've progressed much, but I have been successfully putting a sincere effort into it. I do feel as if I'm actively climbing the right road, even if the road is super steep and I'm tripping a lot.
One thing I've been noticing, however, is that when I channel all of my energy into fighting the Resistance, my GTD efforts suffer. (In other words... I'm behind on a lot of mundane chores).
Motivation is an exhaustible resource.
When I put my all into a challenging creative project, I'm exhausted and unable to GTD. When I switch and put a ton of energy into GTD, I'm too exhausted to push myself creatively.
Making a standard webcomic update no longer scares me creatively, and so I'm not usually exhausting my scarce motivation resource. Now that I'm actively attacking the Resistance, I no longer have the energy to maintain my lists, keep my inbox clean, and stay on top of my chores.
This is a new level that I'm seeking and it's not something that's going to come instantaneously. I'll need to work to find balance because this is a looooooong big project and important aspects of my life will suffer if I continue to fail at keeping up with the mundane tasks that fill our days.
Tactics to Try:
1) GTD for one hour per day. In the past I've been trying to use the 'one hour' rule to chip away at creative efforts, and used the rest of my time to GTD. Now I've swapped: I spend about 4 hours in my evenings at this creative project, and almost no time at GTD. I need to make sure to spend at least one hour on my lists, maybe that will be enough. I worry that even an hour of GTD will exhaust me creatively, but hopefully it will work out. It's all about habits.
2) Alternate days: If the daily GTD hour doesn't afford me enough time/energy to keep up, I might try an alternate-days tactic. Mondays work on Big Thing. Tuesdays work on GTD. Wednesdays work on Big Thing. I have a few worries about this tactic: for one, I feel that the only way I've started to make progress on The Big Thing is by attacking it every single day. You can't schedule your muse: "Ok I'll see you Tuesday at 6pm." The muse shows up when it wants to, you just have to give it enough time. I worry that if I try this, I'll either lose my momentum on the Big Thing, or get so wrapped up in momentum that I'll fail to GTD on the days I'm supposed to!
3) Early riser GTD: I still think this is a good tactic but, brother, every time I even THINK about waking up earlier I fail SO HARD because of my sleep problems. Originally I was thinking of waking up earlier and working on The Big Thing but it TOTALLY wasn't working out. To make matters worse, I find that I've been putting out my best creative work between 10-1am. YEESH. Still, it might come down to 'do or die'.
I'll let you know how it goes.
6 weeks off. 2 hours to inbox zero.
I'm back from my honeymoon! I'm sure most of you are out enjoying holiday festivities and stat days off, but I wanted to share a quick email tip.
Even though I was away from the office for almost six weeks straight, when I got back I was able to get caught up on email in less than two hours. How did I do it?
1. Manage expectations
The first - and probably most important - thing that I did to combat being overwhelmed by email was that I actively told people that I was going away for a significant amount of time. I made sure that everyone who regularly emails me knew I would be away. I set up delegates for different components of my work (if you need help with x, contact y...) and made it clear that the blackberry was off: I wasn't going to be checking email while I was away. If they want my attention, they will be able to save the question for when I get back.
2. Prevention
When I set up my out-of-office alert in Outlook, I also set up a rule to filter out global emails. I set up a new folder called "Auto Archive", and using outlook I set up a rule that went like this: when my name is not in the To: box, move it to the Auto Archive folder and mark it as read. Messages where I'm not in the to: box could include company wide distribution lists, announcements from the front desk about people who were parked in the wrong place, or messages that I'm just cc'd on. Either way - if I'm not in the To: box, nobody has an expectation that I will reply.
Some people would automatically delete these messages, but I didn't want to in case the email filter caught something I actually DID need to see. It's also nice to go through the corporate messages quickly to catch up on big organizational changes you might have missed, or any other interesting news.
Marking it as read prevents "sticker shock" when you come back from holiday. Even if these are the emails that aren't urgent, seeing "(1000+)" in a folder NEVER gives you a good feeling.
3. Block out the time
The third and final most important thing that I did to combat being overwhelmed with vacation email is yet another thing that you can do before you even turn out the lights and board that plane.
My first day back at work was blocked off completely with a "fake*" meeting. Things DO come up while you're gone, and when people need to talk to you, they'll look for the first available timeslot in your calendar. It's not their fault, it's just the automatic thing to do.
Unfortunately, this can mean that the first day you're back, you're scheduled into back-to-back 9-5 meetings, including breakfast and lunch, and with a few conflicts at 3pm! Tuesday won't be much better, and as people realize your back, your email will be flooded with REGULAR messages that need your attention TODAY! You'll either ruin all your vacation destressing by working through nights and weekends to get back on top, or you'll miss something important and never get back to inbox zero again.
The fake meeting reminds people that you need some time to get back up to speed on things (and you do), and allows them to decide whether the meeting really IS urgent enough to take up your first day back from vacation. If all goes well (and it did for me), you'll have at least a few hours of peace and quiet reserved to focus.
It doesn't hurt to come in an hour early, either 
(*By "fake" meeting, I mean I set a meeting with nobody (but myself) and I titled it "hold". If you opened the event, it read "I just need some time to get through my email." I wasn't trying to pull a fast one on the boss or anything, I just wanted to make people stop and think twice before booking into Monday)
4. Inbox zero
We're finally into post-vacation tips! This one is just a link to my inbox zero strategies: sort by to:, delete what you don't need, reply quickly and then flag what needs your action.'
5. Remember that extra folder!
When all was said and done, I had about 200 or so emails unread in my inbox. There were over 500 in the auto-archive folder!
As predicted, 80-90% of the emails in AutoArchive were completely ignorable... I really didn't need to know about that bake sale 3 weeks ago. Being able to focus on the inbox first meant that I wasn't being distracted by these less urgent matters, but there were one or two chains that I did need to rescue, and a couple of interesting organizational announcements that I was glad weren't deleted.
[Before we get into competitions here, 700 is really not that much email, I know. I'm not a big player in the company, and I do a lot on a regular basis to mitigate the email I receive.]
For Email: An Ounce of Prevention Truly Is Worth a Pound of Cure
I know that not every company is as understanding as mine (not remotely!) and this much time off usually isn't possible for people. But illness and emergencies do come up, and for some people a week away is enough to get their inbox completely flooded. No matter how much email flows in, these steps will help you quickly sort out what needs your attention and gets you back to work faster.
Climbing a Mountain of Work – part 2/2
This is the second half of a series of tips for making headway on a BIG HUGE SCARY PROJECT. Check out part 1 for more great tips and a rundown of what the heck BIG HUGE PROJECT is anyway!
Take all your problems and break them apart
Be like the squirrel, girl, be like the squirrel
If you're climbing a mountain of constant, similar tasks, find a way to divide it into chunks. If it's a novel, break it into sections, chapters, or 500-word chunks. Write it all out in one big list:
Chatper 1
- 500-word chunk #1
- 500-word chunk #2
- 500-word chunk #3 ... etc. You might mis-estimate. no big deal.
Chapter 2
...
CROSS IT OFF WITH SATISFACTION WHENEVER YOU FINISH A NEW CHUNK.
The key is having a VISIBLE way to see your progress. It motivates you. BIG HUGE PROJECTS are often so big they fall out of our field of vision. That makes the goal always feel soooo farrr offff.
When I had to draw in 200 artist editions of my book, I divided it all into 15 book chunks (10 was too easy, 20 too scary). I set up the little piles on my table, and brought them 15 at a time to my nest. When I finished 15 books, I wrapped them up for shipping then got the next batch. What was an invisible, impossibly massive task before now had a visible progress bar and that was enough to keep me motivated. I met what seemed like an impossible goal!
Make it Public
The great thing about having a blog or a webcomic is- compared to a book that you write by yourself in isolation-you can publicly show when you've finished a chunk and get feedback. It's AMAZINGLY motivating!! Once you've chunked your work out, find a group that cares, and a way to announce it.
Even if you don't want to show the world your rough drafts, sometimes it helps just to update your status: "finished 3 500-word chunks today! Onward to chapter 4! 
". A few "likes" reinforce that good feeling make it easier to repeat the feat tomorrow.
Dance Break
Sitting and concentrating for hours can get exhausting. I like to find a really upbeat song, play it really loud and DANCE VIGOROUSLY. It's a good way to break up the day.
Silence
Most people like to work with some kind of noise: a movie, a podcast, some music. If you're finding the music still too stimulating, try working in complete silence for awhile.
Make it a Party
Working on BIG HUGE PROJECT can be quite lonely. Especially if you're doing it day in and day out. Even introverts get lonely sometimes! It's nice to have a group of friends to call who ALSO have BIG HUGE PROJECTS of their own.
Of course there's a balance to be struck here. Make sure you all understand that you want to have a WORK party, where primarily you will be sitting in silence and working. You're basically just there to have the presence of another human and to keep each other from losing the day to time traps. Different people have different thresholds, sometimes one person will be too chatty, another will have too low a tolerance for any kind of talking at all! Experiment: if it makes you MORE productive with a partner, keep it. If not, ditch it.
Batch Processes
Say you need to sew 20 toy rabbits. They all have the same steps: first you sew the body, then you sew the ears on, then you sew the eyes, then the details... Instead of working on them one at a time, start-to-finish, try working on two or three at a time. First you sew 3 bodies, then you sew the 3 pairs of ears on... Batching processes like these can help prevent the "between chunk" downtime. We finish one chunk and then AUGFghgg... we go get a cup of tea. And then hey, I wonder what's on facebook...
"Rule your board" as soon as you finish
Similar to batch processing, I found this helped me a lot to reduce between-chunk downtime: once you finish a chunk, instead of IMMEDIATELY going on your break, FIRST do the VERY FIRST STEP of the next chunk. In the case of comics, my first step was "ruling the board". This is where you measure out and draw all your guidelines. It's very simple, and takes no creativity, but even the simplest first step helped to prevent the 'empty page fear' and it was easier to get back into my groove after the break.
Channeling Inspiration Away
Inspiration ALWAYS seems to strike when you sit down to do BIG HUGE PROJECT doesn't it? I mean... inspiration for anything BUT your BIG HUGE PROJECT! It's distracting, and infuriating. The first line of defense is to write it down. OH! I have a great idea for a new story! WRITE IT DOWN. As fast as you can, just enough so that you can remember what you meant later, and GET BACK TO WORK. If it's still bugging you an hour after that and it's DRIVING YOU CRAZY, take an "inspiration break".
SET YOUR TIMER for one hour. (Again, you don't want to lose TOO much time to this - inspiration distraction is a CLASSIC lizard brain tactic.) Use the hour to burn yourself out on the inspiration. Whatever it is you were desperate to do. Wanted to paint? Cool. Paint something. For an hour--- then get back to work.
BIG HUGE PROJECT is usually the project that is closest to your heart, which is why it's the scariest to work on. Your lizard brain desperately wants to do ANYTHING IT CAN to keep you from working on it because it's afraid of failure. Or success. Know thy enemy, and use these tips to get back on track.
Hope it helps!
Climbing a Mountain of Work PART 1/2
Many of the tips that I've described so far (action lists, perfect project planning, prioritizing) work great when you have a large variety of different tasks to do.
But what about when your primary project -your next most important task- is a single, monumental task. There really aren't many little tasks to climb over to motivate yourself, you're just getting them out of the way to carve out times of day for you to work on BIG HUGE PROJECT.
What's a BIG HUGE PROJECT?
- It's long: something that will take weeks and months of solid constant work to achieve
- The work is always the same, with little variation.
- examples:
- Writing a book, or drawing a graphic novel.
- Reading a textbook, or studying for a final.
- Knitting 20 scarves as Christmas Presents for relatives
- It's either really boring or really scary to you
- It's generally something you need to sit alone and CONCENTRATE on
Quite often, you can get quite good at carving time out for the BIG HUGE PROJECT, but when it comes time to just sit down DO IT it's so hard to motivate yourself.
You stare at the blank page and can't seem to make the pencil move.
All those amazing thoughts you had running through your head have conveniently run off to find something better to do. (Yeah, thanks guys, while you were totally keeping me distracted when I had that expense report to do! JERKS)
If you can just GET INTO THE DAMN GROOVE of it you know you can do a good job and you can make yourself happier for having made progress, but right now you just want to... make another cup of tea. Check facebook. Get zoned into just one more episode of Dr. Who. Clean the stove.
ANYTHING BUT THIS!
What do you do!? How do you keep yourself on track!?
Of course if I had the secret to this I'd be a brazillionaire by now. Below are a bunch of things that I've tried that sometimes help to get myself un-stuck. Try them in isolation or in combination, see what works for you!
Build a Nest
You sit down to write and.... oh, damn - you should have your phone in here. Just in case. Oh! you forgot to get some tea. Oh!and you need your reference book. Augh! Why is this chair so uncomfortable... Where are my notes?
When I'm working on BIG HUGE PROJECT, I try to always go to the same place, physically. Setting this place up for the task at hand is a bit of a ritual. A way to tell my brain "okay, we've arrived at the place. Now we are setting it up so everything is ready. Now we are working."
Your nest needs to be:
- comfortable: but not so comfortable that you drift off to sleep!! Comfort means not too hot or too cold, and ergonomically set up.
- set up with everything that you need within reach: with practice, you'll build the habit of collecting everything you need to work so you're not constantly getting up to fetch something.
- AWAY FROM THE INTERNET
- If this is a problem for you (and it is for most of us) find a way to unplug. For me, working in a different room from my beloved internets is enough. Of I course drift over to twitter when I need a stretch, but I am (usually) disciplined enough to wrench myself away. When I have to do computer work, on the other hand... that's a totally different story.
- If you know your personal time trap websites, add them to a blocker using this tip: http://lifehacker.com/146448/geek-to-live--ban-time+wasting-web-sites
- Or you can use this Chrome extension http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/stayfocusd-block-time-wasting-websites/
Of course, there are ways for your lizard brain to get around anything. You can turn off your computer, but you still have your phone. You can block facebook, but oh! Didn't block wikipedia... eventually you're just going to rely on motivation. Remember why you're doing BIG HUGE PROJECT. Remember that you really WANT to do this, and it's worth more to you than random wikipedia article #35.
The key is to STAY AWAY FROM TIME TRAPS. If it's too hard for you, you may need to build an ISOLATION ZONE. For me, the cafe made a great isolation zone. Being in public means I can't just flop over when I want to. Surfing the internet is *just* inconvenient enough. Libraries and friend's houses also make great isolation zones.
Warm Up
If you can't quite break the silence of the page and just GET MOVING, treat yourself to a warmup period.
SET A TIMER (you don't want the entire precious block of time you saved for yourself to get wasted on something random!) 20 minutes usually works well.
Use this time to be ridiculous.
If your BIG HUGE PROJECT involves drawing, use the time to draw crazy looking monsters. Sexy ladies. Weird cartoons. Whatever you want, who cares if it's good or not.
If your BIG HUGE PROJECT is writing, use it to write stream of consciousness, or try to write the opposite of what you NEED to write. If you are trying to write an amazing drama, write THE WORST melodrama. Write as BAD as you possibly can.
Be LOOSE and FAST.
I like to write outlines, point form thoughts, random threads at the top and bottom of the document to warm up and then stitch the piece together slowly.
This list of tips ended up getting too long, so check back next week for part two!
I’m Back with a New Work Flow!
Hello, Internets! Just as promised, I'm baaaaaaaaack!
I honestly missed writing quite a bit! Taking the break was the right decision but I'm very glad to be back. Thank you all for being so supportive of my mini-hiatus.
First things first, I have a confession to make. When I started this blog, I promised that I would share with you how I organized things, and that I would let you know when I discovered that something isn't working. This is one of those times.
At the beginning of the year, I set a new process flow:
- Priorities were identified and SMART Goals were RANKED
- Success Metrics would be TRACKED weekly
- I assigned different goals for every month of the year. In January I would focus on this. In April I would focus on that.
Well, here we are, in July. More than six months of the year have drained by. Don't get me wrong, I have managed to accomplish a few things.
First and foremost: I have a frickin' BOOK (Wasted Talent Book One, currently at the printer). So much of my energy has gone into this, it's not even funny. It was worth it... except that it took way WAY longer than I was hoping it would. Thinking back I don't think I could have worked harder, but it's just depressing when I think of the sum-total of time I spent on this book.
I got frickin' MARRIED. Again, another thing that I am kind of bashing my head against the wall at how long it took. Wayyy too much time, money and energy. But I only had to do it once and it is over now. The day was great and I am so happy to have Trevor and just be married to him. (Should the unthinkable happen to our marriage - I'm just going to elope next time 
)
I suffered through a FLOOD and a MAJOR RENO. Our kitchen was completely torn apart, walls were ripped out and rotated, floors were redone. I couldn't wash a dish for two months. When you live in less than 800sqft, any little disruption makes a HUGE impact, especially on my poor little control-freak brain. The kitchen reno was happening either way, the flood just expanded the work-zone farther than we were hoping. But it's done! Done done done! The apartment is vastly improved.
These three major things took up way more time and energy than I was predicting, and as a result all of my "timelines" are thrown out the window. I also completely failed on the weekly tracking thing. I have a few things that were tracked automatically, like traffic, and other things that I've been tracking week-to-week, like chores and whether I worked out, but I haven't saved those records. I initially built a Google Doc to track it, but I just don't spend that much time on Google Docs.
When I evaluate my current standing compared to the goals I set at the beginning of the year, it's depresing. But I decided, rather than being depressed about how "behind" I am on everything, I'll develop a new way of doing things.
NEW PROCESS
- Still using ranked priorities and SMART goals
- Not going to obsess over tracking metrics. I am still looking for a way to track metrics that will fit suitably in my life, but for now I'd rather spend my precious energy DOING rather than TRACKING.
Here is the biggest shift:
- All of my goals are now divided into "habits" and "projects"
HABITS are something that need to be done repeatedly: every day, week or month (like working out, or writing a blog post, or getting dressed nicely.) Success is determined by how OFTEN and CONSISTENTLY you do it.
PROJECTS have a defined beginning, middle and end. Success is determined by whether it's done or not (1/0).
It's a pretty clear division, but when I set my goals at the beginning of the year, habits and projects were all mashed together with varying priorities.
HERE IS THE NEW RULE
- You can only build (or break) one new habit at a time.
- You can only tackle one project at a time, and you need to focus on it until it is DONE.
I'm not going to dwell so much on the "when". (such as, in April I will learn to ride my bike to work (I didn't) or I will finish my book by March (yeah, whoops.)) The "When" will always be "as soon as possible". When you finish one habit or project, you move onto the next most important one. Immediately. The order and priority is what concerns me.
So that's that.
I'm very excited by the new set of goals I have to tackle now that these huuuuge major ones are out of the way, and I'm glad to start posting again.
I'll let you know how this goes.
Weekly Goal Review – part 3 of 3
In previous posts, I taught you what a List Binder is and how to make one, and a strategy for scheduling your Work Days. But what do you do when you go home?
Weekly List Review – part 2 of 3
How to Schedule Your Work Week.
Last week, I told you about a strategy to organize all the different projects and responsibilities you have going on in your life. Now that you have all the "next steps" that you need to do written down for every project, it's STILL paralyzing. There's so much to do, and you will still be stuck trying to decide what the most important thing you should be working on is.
This week, I'm going to help you break that giant binder full of lists into ONE LIST of actions that you are going to tackle this week.
** Note, this strategy is best for your WORK DAY, when you have eight full hours to dedicate to the tasks. I use a different strategy to plan my PERSONAL LIFE and PERSONAL GOALS, which I'll go over in part 3. If your work is more flexible (if you are self-employed for example and are free to mix up personal chores and professional obligations) your resulting system might be a mix of the two strategies.
The List Binder (part 1 of 3)
Never Let Anything Slip Through the Cracks Again!
Do you ever get the feeling that there's something important that you're NOT doing? There's something... ARGH- it was right on the tip of your brain!
Isn't it infuriating to have a spare moment to think and you KNOW you could be maximizing it to its full potential if you JUST. KNEW. WHAT. TO. DO!
Then the moment passes, and you find something else to occupy the time.
Weeks later you're reminded of a project you were assigned to and - DRAT, the deadline is coming up and now you're snowed under with tasks!
At work and in my life I have a LOT going on. A lot of different projects and responsibilities, all with different tasks, different priority levels, different timelines, different consequences and rewards. It's a lot to keep on top of, and I certainly couldn't do it on my own.
Recently I started using a system I've nicknamed the "One Note Binder" (because I designed it when I was frustrated that I couldn't use Microsoft OneNote at work) or the "List Binder". I thought I'd share my process with you all...
Perfect Project Planning
We all have things we'd like to do: things for work, things for the family, things for professional development or personal satisfaction. Often these tasks can be grouped together into "projects".
A project is a series of actions executed to achieve a certain goal.
This is the process I usually follow to plan my projects. It involves setting a deadline and then working backwards, figuring out everything you need to do and when. As an example, let's use "Planning a trip home for a family reunion".
Your Secret Weapon Against Procrastination: a Count-Up Timer
Some people might say that using a timer is taking the term "Time Management" a bit too literally, but I've found my simple count-up timer to be an invaluable asset. Here's what you need, and five different ways you can use it to get a productivity boost.