Accidentally in Code

Tag: productivity

  • Drawing Lines Around Your Day

    Lines Color
    Credit: flickr / dOOnLoL

    Arriving, stressed, on a Monday morning the other week I decided to shut the mail tab on my browser, with no intention of opening it again. This impromptu panic started a new thing – I’m checking (work) email at most once a day, if I have a meeting. No meeting days – usually one a week – are now even better than before. I think I’m more productive, but it’s hard to quantify. Those half an hour chunks which seemed only good for going through email turn out to be surprisingly productive.

    I’m definitely happier and less stressed out by my inbox. I appreciate the good things that arrived (my patent is going through! Yay!) and get less stressed by the bad things. It could be the novelty – we’ll see how that goes. People are supportive of my eccentricity with respect to my inbox. It’s hardly a secret that I loathe email, and I’ve managed to keep the volume low by sending as little as possible.

    The worse thing that happens is that I miss something important, but if it’s that important someone will IM me. I missed meeting someone when they emailed at the last minute, which was unfortunate, but hardly the end of the world. The tradeoffs that seemed so worrying turn out to not be very bad at all.

    I think, though, that what really makes me happier is that I’m drawing lines around my day, which means that I feel more in control. It’s like not taking my laptop home with me after work. I could take it home with me and not work, which a lot of people seem to, but by not taking it home I don’t even give myself the option. It’s not, “oh I could catch up on X but I want to read my book instead” – it’s “I’m home now, what do I want to do?”

    Of course, there’s a lot of things which I don’t define as work which others might – and my personal laptop carries more than it’s share of guilt. Events to attend. Talks to prepare and papers to write. This blog. What’s important to me is that whilst I might be stressed out by having too much on, I’m not stressed out by my job. I’ve drawn a clear line in my head between what is my job, and what is not – even if it’s professionally helpful to me.

    There’s a few people at work who are legendary for their balance. They probably call it something different, but interacting with them I see that they too draw lines around their day. This is when I go home. I don’t work at the weekend.

    Those people legendary for balance? Also incredibly productive.

    My view is that that I work as long as I’ll be productive, then I leave. I don’t work later than that – at best, I borrow productivity from tomorrow. At worst, I do that and mess things up that I have to fix tomorrow. As a result, sometimes I leave at 4, sometimes I leave at 7. Overall, I don’t think I do more than 45 hours a week.

    I’m not sure it matters too much what the lines are, or where you draw them. The point is, to have some – you’ll be happier for the control.

    What lines do you draw around your day?

  • Positivity Challenge

    Think Positive
    Credit: flickr / Wavy1

    I was having a bit of a crisis the other day about how much I had committed to and whether I would do a decent job at any of it to two friends and colleagues.

    They gave me a bit of a pep talk. And then set me a challenge – to stop beating myself up about being unqualified, overwhelmed, and insufficiently productive. In fact, they challenged me not to think any negative thoughts about myself, for the rest of the day.

    The sheer volume of negative thoughts about myself that I beat myself up with on a daily basis is… ridiculous. And I had grown so used to this barrage of criticism I stopped noticing I was doing it.

    The way I’m tackling this is – negative thought pops into my head. I register it, and decide on a positive action that addresses it. This is having a positive effect on my productivity, not just my mental health. I’m trying to stick at it.

    I’m also being more forgiving. Small meltdown earlier when I wailed “why are there only 24 hours in the day?!” – but then I just decided that something was not going to happen, emailed apologizing for my lateness on something else, and went for a workout.

    It has become normal for me to berate myself in a way that I would never, ever, dream of doing to another person. And then I’m surprised that I’m not as productive as I theoretically could be? I don’t respond to constant criticism, complaining and disparagement? Not really that shocking. This has to change.

    I’m working on it. Meanwhile, are you being kind to yourself?

     

  • Making Mondays Manageable

    Manic Monday
    Credit: flickr / fabi_k

    I’ve been getting really stressed out on Mondays lately. I realized why when I called someone out on doing the exact same thing.

    Monday mornings I do my “snippets” – I make a list of things I achieved the previous week. And I mentally plan what I want to achieve over the course of the coming week.

    Towards the end of the day, I start stressing out and berate myself for not making a big enough dent in the list for the week.

    I’ve got a number of things happening this week. I’m nervous about one of them in particular. But, I’m trying to reframe Monday as a day where I set myself up for a successful week, rather than day in which I complete a week’s worth of tasks.

    Happy Monday! What can you do today to facilitate a productive week?

  • Giving Up On Goals

    Post-it Monsters
    Credit: flickr / zarprey

    I’m not doing my weekly review at the moment. At first it was in part because I was ashamed to admit that I hadn’t yet unpacked my apartment (it’s done now). But also, I showed up to the coffee shop to work with my mentee and something exciting had happened to her, and she said, “I just had this feeling, when I woke up, that I should get here as soon as possible”. So she did. And she was there in time to make a great connection with someone.

    That exchange inspired me to go with my feeling of leaving the week open to see what happened. In fact, a meeting came up and Ali (my TA who is taking over) and I ended up writing a proposal for a conference on my workshop. It was good – I had a productive week.

    I’m using Health Month to track my health and fitness goals, and what I’m realizing is that I used to use my weekly plan to balance the different areas of my life. Volunteering, work, studying. At the moment, I have no different areas of my life. It’s pretty much the gym, my thesis, and hanging out.

    This is pretty nice – and probably very necessary at this stage in my masters. And it makes goal setting in that way overkill. There’s something freeing about deciding the day before what my one important thing is, and then working on that.

    I still believe in goals. I still believe in structure. But – if there is only one significant thing to work on, arbitrary goals can be a distraction. It’s actually about progress. I don’t know what I will get done on my thesis next week, but I do know what my next task will be.

    Meanwhile, I’m just going to keep ticking along, carving out my space and routine in this new place. AY has this idea called “restful acceptance” – I love it. She says, your todo list will still be there tomorrow. I just think, I can make a new list, tomorrow, if I need to. But when what I need to do is this clear, and I don’t. Why bother?

  • Maintaining Optimum Stress Level

    stress free zone
    Credit: flickr / thornypup

    At Ignite Waterloo a guy gave a talk about “Why All My Ex-Girlfriends Are Crazy”. Of course, I was dying to know why.

    The reason? They were women who having achieved at university and then started their career had got to a point in their lives where they no longer had the same level of stress professionally, so were creating it in other areas of their lives. Really, what the talk was about was that we all have a level of stress that we like to operate at and we seek out new stress if we are at a level that is too low.

    This resonated with me, to the point that when I went to the chiropractor the following week and they asked what my stress level was I said,

    High. And that’s how I like it.

    Cue two people looking at me in absolute horror!

    However, it’s completely true! Knowing this, I can be more aware of where I am creating stress and try and do so productively – i.e create stress in ways that does not negatively affect others (e.g. not by arguing with my significant other, but by taking on some new challenge instead).

    Because of this search for stress, I’m always looking for the next challenge, the next thing. When things seem too good (by which I mean, quiet, post-achievement) I worry that everything will come crashing down. Maybe that’s why I focus on what’s next, rather than what is.

    Sacha wrote a lovely post after our conversation last week about feeling like you’re living in a Greek tragedy – that things are too good and everything is going to fall apart. She is an inspiration because she thinks that things can just get awesomer and awesomer. She’s is a genuinely happy person.

    I am not. At the moment I am – optimistic, productive, energized – about what I’m doing.

    I wouldn’t describe myself as happy. I have happy moments, but I don’t know if I want to be happy in general. In fact, I worry that would kill my drive. Recently I wrote about how I’d prioritized an interesting over a happy life, and I still do. I think I fear an awesome life, because I worry that I would become complacent. Content. I’d stop jittering from task to task, inspiration to inspiration, and just be.

    Oh the horror.

    I realize that this may sound ridiculous. But I regularly have conversations with people where they say, “Cate, you do so much” and I look at them in blank bewilderment because compared to what I want to be achieving, what I think I should be doing. What I do barely registers. Because I’m always pushing forward to the next new exciting thing, the next challenge I rarely stop and take stock of what I’ve actually done.

    So I fear being happy because I fear being in this moment rather than chasing the next moment.

    Yes, OK, bizarre – but it seems to be what works for me.

    Optimistic. Productive. Energized. Sounds about optimal.

    See also: Sacha’s perspective on whether you can be driven and happy

  • The Ultimate Productivity Boost

    Some times I believe I can fly
    Credit: flickr / R'eyes

    I checked off everything on the list last week. It wasn’t even down to the line – at 1400h on Friday all that was left was one kickboxing class. I hung out, caught up on some reading, watched an episode of Scrubs and then went out for dinner.

    And I thought about how it was that I’d achieved this, how far I’d come since I wrote this post. Had I scheduled better? Been more realistic? Said no?

    Yes, possibly all these things. But here’s the biggest one:

    I’m happy.

    Things are coming together – submitting my first paper, getting this internship, nearly being done with school (next week I will complete the tedious seminar requirement – I can’t wait). But more than that, I’m full of ideas for this summer and looking forward to it so much. I’m engaged in my research – I know exactly what my next paper will be about and I’m looking forward to writing it. The classes for the course I’m taking are a little dull, but I genuinely enjoy testing so the assignment I’m working on is fun and I like the readings too. My fitness has improved too – I kickboxed (at 7am) Tuesday and Thursday, again on Friday and went to Body Pump Saturday morning. I’ve realized that with the amount I have on and the aggressive goals I have, I need to work out first thing in the morning because later in the day I start thinking “no I need to finish this before I go to the gym” – and that’s OK, because getting up at kickboxing at 7am is not as unpleasant as I’d remembered.

    All that stuff – the organization, the lists, the goals. They help keep what I need to do in mind when I’m discouraged or overwhelmed. But I’m so excited by life right now I wake up every morning knowing exactly what I’m working on that day. And I’ll keep on top of them, because I do have a lot going on and it’s quite possible I’ll need them again soon.

    But being happy, and feeling progress being made in every aspect of my life – that’s the biggest productivity boost of all.

    Having thought all this through, I came across this article – The top 5 new Rules of Productivity – I’m not alone in this feeling! And next time I’m feeling overwhelmed, maybe instead of thinking “how can I be more effective”, I can just think about how I can be happier, instead.

  • A Diet of Live Frogs

    frog closeup
    Credit: flickr / Sakurako Kitsa

    Monday: Going to the DV and exchanging my license – surprisingly painless.

    Tuesday: Going outside.

    Wednesday: Laundry, paying bills.

    Thursday: Dealing with insurance people.

    Friday: Going to Carleton

    How Was It?

    Not as bad as I thought it would be, most things were less awful than anticipated (apart from going to Carleton). Even though I never want to go outside in the morning, I enjoy the walk into school because of the thinking time it gives me – also, it’s not been that cold this week!

    I couldn’t go with the exercise live frog because I’ve been ill all week, but I realized that my live frogs were often just things I wanted to procrastinate on because I think they’ll be unpleasant. In some cases that was justified – in others it was nowhere near as bad as I anticipated.

    Worth Continuing?

    Yes, but maybe on a smaller scale. Just taking one thing I want to procrastinate on and forcing myself to do it first may be helpful for me.

  • Eating Live Frogs

    orange eyed green tree frog
    Credit: flickr / rainforest_harley

    Reflecting on Sunday’s post on Effectiveness and Time Management, and my reluctance to eat live frogs in the morning, it’s occurred to me that:

    1. I don’t tend to have a “most important task”, because most of my tasks are fairly open ended. Each day I have something that I want to make some progress on, and normally I do. This is working OK.
    2. I don’t tend to start the something in the morning, either because it requires me being in my office, or I have other things that I want to clear out the way so I can focus on it.
    3. In general, the afternoon is my peak work time for these kind of tasks – provided the morning goes well.
    4. Whilst my most important task may be a live frog, there are other live frogs that are not necessarily the most important task.
    5. Getting better at eating live frogs first thing, may improve my self-discipline and this will flow to other areas of my life.

    To this end, I’ve made a list of my live frogs. And I plan to eat one first thing in the morning every day this week. Here they are:

    1. Exercise. I like exercise, I do, but not first thing in the morning because I worry it means I don’t start work until too late and it makes me hungry all day. Also, I think my metabolically-optimum time for working out is mid afternoon (ideally around 4ish). But I can’t always work to that so I should just get up and go swimming instead. Normally, though, I don’t – I did this morning though, and I feel better for it.
    2. Going outside. The thing that stops me starting on my “most important task” earlier is often that I have to psych myself up to go outside because it’s sooooo cold. That’s the difference between fall and winter for me, in the fall I can make it into my office by 10am easily. In the winter, I’m doing well to make it in by lunchtime.
    3. Grocery shopping. I hate the grocery store, and this also involves going outside, so double whammy. Thing is, the quickest time to make the trip is in the morning because the store is less busy.
    4. Dealing with people. There’s a reason why, where possible, I schedule all my meetings for afternoons. I don’t really like talking to people in the morning, so I avoid them.
    5. Laundry and other household chores. We have a washing machine in our apartment (rare in Canada) so I don’t get to moan about this too much, but I hate hanging it up and putting it away when it’s dry.

    Looking at this list, it strikes me that none of these are “work” tasks. But they are things than can potentially take me away from my afternoon productive time, if I let them. Or cause problems if they don’t get dealt with. It annoys my boyfriend that I can’t have a conversation in the morning, for example, and it’s a pain to have no clean clothes or have to stop work early to clean the apartment because people are coming over.

    Your list will be different, of course. Join me in the Live Frog Challenge? I’ll check back in with you on Friday to let you know how I’m doing.

  • Productivity for Minions

    Google this, there’s nothing useful. Someone needs to write a book on this! I’d buy it, would you?

    If not, hopefully it’s because you’re not a minion.

    by drewdomkus / flikr
    by drewdomkus / flikr

    Grad students are basically minions. I am the minion of my supervisor (luckily he’s nice), the minion of any prof whose course I take (to a lesser extent) and the minion of the prof I TA for.

    My supervisor is the reason I have a place at the university. He gives me a scholarship, too. So if he asks me to do something, I do it. It becomes my priority.

    If I’m taking a course, we get assignments and deadlines which obviously we have to complete on time. The course I’m taking at the moment has set us in the region of 100 hours of homework, which finally ended last week. Now we have a project to complete, but the deadline is fairly early in December – reflective of her schedule, not ours. When she decided that it was not OK for me to code in Haskell (despite saying any programming language) I had to rewrite it in Java the following day – this was not what I’d originally planned to do then, my priorities had to change.

    This is the least of it. I dropped a course, because the prof said openly that he wanted the “source code” to anything we did (including, say, word documents) so that he could use it if he wanted to. Lately, I’ve heard another prof doing a similar thing. Grad students are minions.

    Then, there’s TA-ing. Being a bit tender-hearted (also, and probably correctly described as a “people pleaser” I end up as the minion of my students. I see them on their schedule, help them longer than I get paid for, and respond to their emails as fast as I can. Then there’s the stuff the Prof asks me to do – at the end of the semester, I have four consecutive weeks of marking (an assignment a week), plus students being sent to me for tutoring, plus… these things have to become my priority.

    Lastly, there’s WISE. As President, you’d think I wouldn’t be a minion here but I am – I’m the minion of anyone involved who doesn’t do their job, because then I have to do it for them. My priorities have to change.

    This wasn’t meant to be a long moan, just example of how, whilst I set my priorities, being a minion means that they get changed because other people’s priorities are more important than mine.

    Lurching from crisis to crisis, panic to panic is not productive. It’s not effective. 7 Habits talks about this – your deadlines, your priorities need to reflect your values, not just be jerk reactions to events.

    But what if you’re a minion? Because I try to do that, I make my list every week. I try and incorporate the minion activities (like marking) that I know I will have to do. But then I can get a request and have to rejig everything. Recently I came home to an email (at 11:30pm, sent at 6:30pm) asking for something to be done by the next day at 10am. Of course, it didn’t happen. But I did have to abandon everything else the next day to get it done.

    Productivity for Minions – someone should write this. How to balance living a productive, effective life, whilst continually having to respond to others knee-jerk reactions.

    Advice welcome!

    By drewdomkus / flikr
    By drewdomkus / flikr