My New Productivity Philosophy

Decisions, decisions. If you call the new set of guidelines you came up with for yourself your philosophy, you sound like Charlie Brown’s little sister. If you call it a manifesto, you sound like Marx.

For lack of a better word, since the resolutions I’ve put together are (I hope) more serious than Sally’s commitment to “So what?” and far less meaningful than a political call to arms, let’s just call them a plan.

1. No Internet after 9pm.

Confession: the thing that most contributes to making Yom Kippur tough for me isn’t the fasting; it’s the yom tov. Among other things, that means no computers, no electronics, no writing, and definitely no Internet.

Second confession time: I don’t keep many parts of yom tov, even for the High Holidays. But the electronics part is one of the ones I do. And I find that when I turn off the screens for a while, I suddenly have oodles more time and clarity of thought. I don’t waste hours tooling around on memebase or I Can Haz Cheezburger, which I don’t even find that amusing but still somehow allow to suck me under.

Well, I’m pulling the plug on this undertow. I’m not going to be strict about it — that is, if someone texts or calls asking me to check my email or start a chat, I’m going to go online. But setting myself an Internet curfew — that I can totally break because I’m a grown adult setting this restriction for myself — seems like a good step toward sleeping better, reading more, writing more, playing more video games, and being more productive in general.

2. Wake up early every weekday, whether I work that day or not.

I am a paradox: a morning person who likes to sleep in. I get diminishing returns on work I do at night; I’m far better off doing the heavy lifting before dark and relaxing after dinner. But I also like to sleep. So here’s my vicious cycle: I stay up too late because the longer I work, the less productive I am. Then I sleep in too late because I stayed up too late. Then I have to stay up late to finish my work because I didn’t have time to get it done in the morning… You get the idea.

One summer, when I was doing my undergrad, I developed a system where I’d get up early, write for three hours, eat lunch, go to the gym, and then relax for the rest of the afternoon/evening (hey, it was summer vacation). I have more work to do now and can’t afford a break like that, but the principle still works for me.

3. Get better curtains.

The curtains in my building are this flimsy kind of gauze thing. Apart from making me wonder constantly if I’m being indecent, they also let the light through in the morning. I think I might sleep better if they didn’t. Hello, IKEA!

4. Get rid of everything I have that I never use…

No matter how much I love that book. No matter how much I think that maybe someday I’ll need that shirt.

I’m never going to do this thoroughly, because I just don’t have the guts. But baby steps. I just have to remind myself that a) I haven’t watched this DVD/read this book/played this game in the 5+ years I’ve owned it; b) even now, faced with the prospect of getting rid of it, I still don’t want to; and c) someone else could get joy out of it, but instead it’s sitting here on my shelf.

My instincts are hoarding instincts: BUT WHAT IF I NEED THIS LATER I DO THEATRE IT COULD TOTALLY HAPPEN.

No! Back, fiend!

5. .. or else start using it.

If I really can’t part with it, there’s gotta be a reason, right?

Hey there, croquet set.

6. Bed is for sleeping, chair is for reading and playing Nintendo 3DS.

All those “how to fall asleep better sites” must be onto something when they say that you should train yourself to think that the only time you tuck yourself into bed is when you’re about to sleep, right? And since I have two chairs in my bedroom, both under the better lamp in the room, both with better support for my back than my pillow, both less likely to do the thing where I try to lean against the wall and then my bed with wheels starts sliding in the opposite direction… this seems like a no-brainer, actually.

7. Breaks are OK.

About thirty minutes after I start working on something, I always want to stop and take a break. If it’s something I don’t like working on, like (usually) marking, well, duh; but sometimes even if it’s something that makes me happy, like writing, I get so excited by whatever it is I’m working on that I want to get up and listen to music.

I’m learning that what works for me is allowing myself to take those desired breaks. I have to plan around deadlines to make sure I have enough time to allow myself time off, and I have to limit my breaks to one level or chapter or song, but if I’m not feeling it, I’ll get diminishing returns until I recharge.

The corollary is: break means anything that’s not on my computer. Staying at my desk doesn’t recharge me; regardless of the hilarity of the cat macro, neither does messing around on comedy sites.

8. Use the USB keyboard even if it annoys the heck out of me.

I hate adjusting to new keyboards. I always make typos until a month or so later, when I finally get accustomed to the spacing and the force with which one needs to strike the keys. So although I bought this full-size keyboard half a year ago (I think), I used for only a short time before I relegated it to my drawer. No more!

Using this keyboard, no matter how much I detest the adjustment period, lets me prop up my laptop on my… uh, Tupperware file folder thing so the screen’s at about eye level. My physiotherapist said my arms have to be at desk level, but I shouldn’t have to hunch over my screen either. So here we go.