On Monday I had a giant list of stuff I had to get done. I’m travelling a lot over the next month so I have to be on my game. For some reason I just couldn’t get my head in gear in the morning. I floated around the internet for a while, I half-heartedly poked around my inbox. I looked in the washing basked about ten times. After wasting almost 2 hours not really doing anything, I gave up. I just wasn’t having a productive day. I went for a run, I crocheted for a bit, I cooked a yummy dinner and called a few friends. It ended up being an excellent day. The key here was admitting I was dicking around realising the solution to this issue isn’t always forcing myself to do stuff and being okay with the fact that I’m having a shocker of a day. When I’m not on my game, here are a few things I do to stop myself from wasting time…
Set timers
I have two different techniques I use. One is the Pomodoro technique were I set a 20 minute timer for short tasks. This is great for things like replying to comments on the blog or spending time on Instagram. I also use a Japanese method called the 52:17 – I set an alarm for 52 minutes and I work my butt off and then I set an alarm for 17 minutes and I do whatever I like. It’s the perfect way to escape that horrible just-got-hit-by-a-truck feeling at the end of the day.
Give up and walk away
No one is perfect every day. Even geniuses have off days. The important thing is to recognise when you’re having an off day and to embrace it. For instance I had an off day on Monday and instead of forcing myself to sit in front of my laptop and pretend to get shit done, I walked away. This made my Monday a lot more pleasant and set me up for a killer productive Tuesday. Win.
Choose three things
Sometimes the reason why we dick around is because there is too much stuff to do and it’s difficult to focus. This happens regularly when you’re working on ongoing projects. It’s a hard slog keeping up the momentum on something that might take you a year to complete. The trick is to break each day into three mandatory tasks to complete that day. You might choose filing, emails and writing 1000 words on your report today and tomorrow might be sending thank you notes, organising your tax information for your appointment next week and clearing out your desk. If you only have three things to complete and they’re not-negotiable it’s a lot easier to get them done – otherwise you’ll keep putting these tasks in the ‘someday’ box and they will never get done.
Let music be your muse
This is my favourite trick for cleaning the house. I crank my favourite play list and I challenge myself to complete a task before the song finishes. Unloading the dishwasher = one song. Changing the sheets on the bed = one song. Dusting the shelves = one song. You can do almost anything in one song and it stops you from being all ‘La la la.. cleaning the toilet… oh look! Someone did something on instagram!’.
Set yourself a pleasant deadline
If I have a big content day planned and I know I’m in danger of slacking off and leaving it until the last minute, I make lovely plans that I can’t break. I’ll book dinner with a mate so I have to be finished my work by 6pm. It saves me from watching cat videos all day and then working until the wee small hours trying to catch up.