{"id":32,"date":"2016-04-14T15:40:48","date_gmt":"2016-04-14T15:40:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/linelightgame.com\/blog\/?p=32"},"modified":"2016-04-14T15:42:21","modified_gmt":"2016-04-14T15:42:21","slug":"how-to-productivity-april-2016-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linelightgame.com\/blog\/2016\/04\/14\/how-to-productivity-april-2016-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Productivity: April 2016 Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Look at that big-ass task list. Just\u00a0look at it<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m overwhelming!\u201d it crones. \u201cYou\u2019ll never amount to anything and your breath smells like fingers!”<\/p>\n

Your eyes well up with tears. Your hands are trembling. \u201cWe used to be friends, Task List. You used to keep me organized and on track. What\u2019s going on?”<\/p>\n

\u201cGloop glorp!\u201d it hoots, \u201cI\u2019ve sucked the FUN out of all your tasks! I\u2019m nothing but a graveyard for hope! Wheeee!\u201d And with that, Task List zooms around, knocks over a chair, and shits on your keyboard before giggling its way out of the room.<\/p>\n

You sit there, your body filled with the familiar hollowness that accompanies a friend shitting on something you own. After a moment, you look down at your hands. They\u2019re not trembling anymore. They\u2019ve become fists.<\/p>\n

Your body is tense, your enthusiasm gone. Your once-fun-but-now-unpleasant task list\u2019s cackle still echoes in your mind. What do you do?<\/em> You resume work like you\u2019re supposed to, your\u00a0soul sluggish and your mind cluttered. You try to keep typing, but typing with fists is nearly impossible.<\/p>\n

And scene.<\/i><\/p>\n

This happened to me a bunch over the last few weeks, and I dealt with it, but I didn\u2019t understand what was going on until now. The technique that’s been working the best is this:\u00a0any time I felt overwhelmed by tasks or guilt,\u00a0I’d ask \u201cWhat am I in the mood to work on right now?\u201d and then have fun doing that thing.<\/b> That\u2019s it.<\/p>\n

Somehow, as if by magic, my productivity soared. But it\u2019s not magic; it\u2019s the fact I\u2019m enjoying<\/i>\u00a0and interested<\/i> in what I\u2019m working on. Once I separate a task from its priority, perceived difficulty, how much I\u2019ve been putting it off, and so on, I can actually see what makes it fun<\/i>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to note that what I think<\/i>\u00a0I’d want to work on is often not<\/i>\u00a0what I want to work on: I can\u2019t use logic to deduce what I\u2019m in the mood for. I\u2019ve gotta look through the whole menu and see what whets my brain-appetite. Remarkably, I found myself tackling tasks I\u2019d been putting off for months because I\u2019d built up a picture in my head that they were harsh and intimidating. I completed them, did them well<\/i>, AND enjoyed myself<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The coolest unexpected effect I found was that I\u2019d complete tasks I didn\u2019t expect to enjoy (but did), then\u00a0I\u2019d ride that\u00a0momentum to complete harder<\/i>\u00a0tasks. Now that\u2019s pretty cool.<\/p>\n

Caveat time: It\u2019s easy to take breaking the rules of doing tasks in priority order too far. If I let myself slide too deep down the carefree-attitude slope, I\u2019d gradually bend other rules (e.g. sleeping in on a work day because I stayed up late\u2014 a cardinal no-no). Whenever I float towards this cycle,\u00a0I lose sight of my goals, I start drifting, and I feel crappy\u00a0and unproductive. So this specific rule-bending tactic is simply one productivity strategy in a toolbox of many. I\u2019ve been oscillating regularly between excessive rule-breaking and excessive rule-following over the last year (each bout a reaction to the other), and I gradually find myself spending less and less time in the extremes as I work towards hovering around the sweet spot in the middle.<\/p>\n

TL;DR: When you start dreading all your tasks, stop, and only work on whatever task interests you in that current moment.<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026Hey,\u201d says Task List, waddling back in. \u201cI\u2019m sorry about what I said earlier. And for shitting on your desk.\u201d You watch as Task List shuffles over to your computer\u00a0and sucks the shit back up into its butt.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s okay, Task List,\u201d you reply, “It\u2019s my fault for taking you too seriously. Friends?”<\/p>\n

Task List sizes you up with a mysterious smile.<\/p>\n

\u201cYep. Friends. Now let\u2019s get back to work.”<\/p>\n

-Brett<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Look at that big-ass task list. Just\u00a0look at it. \u201cI\u2019m overwhelming!\u201d it crones. \u201cYou\u2019ll never amount to anything and your breath smells like fingers!” Your eyes well up with tears. Your hands are trembling. \u201cWe used to be friends, Task … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-emotions","category-human-development","category-productivity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/linelightgame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/linelightgame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/linelightgame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linelightgame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linelightgame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/linelightgame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40,"href":"https:\/\/linelightgame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions\/40"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/linelightgame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linelightgame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linelightgame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}