Slow, Steady, Progress
Back to productivity.
As a parent with a day job, I do not have unlimited time during the day to work on projects. I have even less time on computer screens, so computer projects are very limited indeed.
As someone who was used to having more-or-less unlimited time for projects and loved chasing any and every shiny new interest that crossed my path, it was difficult for me to make the adjustment. But I’m there now, mostly adjusted.
And it turns out, the limitations have lead me to this simple set of rules:
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Pick a thing to work on.
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Work on that thing in its time-track (project-time).
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Don’t work on other things.
If you can make yourself do it, this method is guaranteed to work.
Here’s how I do it:
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I have a notebook on my desk with current and future projects mapped out (subject to change!)
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When I hop on my personal computer, I know what I’m going to work on.
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If I get the idea to work on something else, I write it down, but keep working on the current thing.
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UPDATE: I now use The Project Stack! (an actual paper stack)
What’s interesting about this set of restrictions is that it starts to make you think much more seriously and intentionally about what to work on.
Slow Productivity
I just finished reading Cal Newport’s Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout and here is my review and notes.
I’ll copy a particularly relevant quote here:
A key tenet of slow productivity is that grand achievement is built on the steady accumulation of modest results over time. This path is long. Pace yourself.
There are some great ideas in that book.
Equanimity
I was initially inspired to write this card because I just read Equanimity is the real productivity hack (substack.com) by Karla Starr.
She writes:
Equanimity is emotional sobriety, the ability to keep going despite all of that other crap that life throws at you. Being comfortable making whatever progress you can today, wherever you are right now, is the real productivity hack.
I think this is a remarkable insight.
I’m not going to claim I’ve achieved anything close to a consistent state of equanimity, but I’m making progress. And like the work itself, making slow and steady progress on ourselves is the One True Life Hack.
More about this in On Acceptance (of emotions) and This too shall pass.