2011 – A Fresh Start

New tools and methods that I am ready to apply starting tomorrow, the first work day of the new year:

• Procrastination Log – I will record every instance of procrastination, including the attendant thoughts and feelings.  This will help me to identify my particular triggers and the misapprehensions behind my avoidance behaviour.
• Morning exercises plus activity breaks throughout the day, to keep my mind fresh.
• The Unschedule – guilt-free play time is scheduled into my week and will not be subverted by work pressures.
• 30-minute periods of focus on work, instantly rewarded with more guilt-free play.
• Positive self-talk at the ready to counter those self-defeating mumblings.
• A meditative exercise that precedes work, for quietening the self-critical hemisphere and bringing my creative side to the fore.
• I’m also trying out the Autofocus method of tracking tasks and projects.

I expect my first day to be mostly anti-procrastination exercises, and Fiore warns us not to expect more than four solid hours of productive time per day for the first few weeks (even that would be an improvement!).  The objective is not to instantly become a perfect “producer” (opposite of a procrastinator), but to work on defeating misapprehensions and developing new positive attitudes about work.

I’ll keep you posted on progress!

-Johnny 0.

Use Your Intuition – Autofocus

Have you ever spent a morning initiating a fancy new task tracking system, carefully entering, prioritizing and sorting all your to-do’s and projects according to a foolproof systematic method… only to find that you don’t like the answer?  What it’s telling you to work on next just doesn’t feel like the most important thing you should be doing right now?  Yeah, me too.  And then a week later, you’re back to that cloud of reminders on sticky notes that surround your monitor.

Numerical task prioritization is for large projects.  Intuition is a powerful tool, let’s use it.

Autofocus

Mark Forster has developed an interesting new system of tracking to-do’s that takes advantage of our natural intuitive understanding of importance.  It is also designed to minimize the amount of time and brain-cycles required to use it (meta-work).  Simplicity is good.  I think it looks really promising and I’m going to give it a try.  You can read about it here:

LifeHacker: The Autofocus Productivity Method: Stop Maintaining To-Do Lists and Start Getting Stuff Done

I’ll let y’all know how it goes.  If you try it, let me know, or tell us what works for you!

-Johnny 0.