My Answer to Debra Conrad’s Question: How Do YOU Spell Productivity?
Debra Conrad from DebraConrad.com asks:
Hey Dan… I know you like to find the humor in every day work at home life, but when do you find time to work? It seems like you have a full schedule of “at home” duties. Give us a few clues on how you “get ‘er done”.
Ahhhh, Grasshopper…the trick is not in finding time to work, but in enjoying your working time.
Oh yeah, I have the whole work at home lifestyle in full gear here: kids, pets, wife, household stuff, the works. That’s pretty much the standard deal everyone makes who chooses to stay at home.
As much as I like to complicate stuff (isn’t it fun to drive yourself crazy?), I do valiantly strive for the simple approach. I tried scheduling everything: Blog post, 8-9 a.m., Laundry, 9-9:10 a.m., Coffee break before finishing blog post, 9:11 – 9:59 a.m., Listing and planning future blog posts while watching Looney Tunes DVDs, 10-12 p.m. Not real effective in my case, for some reason.
I did find some help in three methods: the use of timers, backwards planning and plain ol’ pen and paper…and one red marker.
Sounds like a lot for a guy who wants it simple, huh?
Work Time Productivity
Timers are great things. The loud alarm my son sets to blare annoyingly early each weekday morning and yes, sometimes weekEND mornings 
always manages to get my attention, although he still sleeps through it so I can do the daily morning drag-and-toss into the shower to get him going. Funny how the hot water always runs out at that same time each day…
The issue I had with your common everyday kitchen timer was rewinding each time I used it. I mean c’mon, physical effort in the work at home workplace? Always ding, craaaaaank, ding craaaaaank. I think I was developing some kind of repetitive motion injury, but I’m a guy and we never go to the doctor anyway. At least not until I’d lost all use of the arm.
In the interest of avoiding a “Now you’ve gone and lost the use of your arm” lecture from the wife, I happened upon a real find that solved the problem nicely. I use a downloadable program called The Action Machine now that allows me to preset a whole bunch of different timers for doing different stuff right online. It’s both cheap and easy, which suits me perfectly as a cheapskate non-techie. And no more repetitive injury worries. Not that I had such worries, but then I’m a guy.
I’ll tell you why that works for me in particular in just a minute.
Work Goal Productivity
The other cool thing I discovered is something called the Backward Planner at a place called Simpleology. It too is cheap – really cheap actually, it’s free – and easy to use, another plus. I enter what I plan to do on a regular basis broken down from the last step to achieve a goal BACKwards to what I need to do first. Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it, it really clears up the entire planning process a lot. Which is good in my case, because planning’s always been a bit of a dirty word to me. It has that workish sound to it. As an added and still free bonus to that, Simpleology 101 is a nice way to get your day in order each morning. It’s not too physically involved. My kid’s on the scrawny side, but even so, dragging and tossing a teenager into a cold shower every day (occasional Saturdays just for fun) takes a lot out of you first thing.
That leaves a few things I have to do on a day-to-day basis. It may be something as glamorous as preparing for my Oprah show appearance, calling any day now for sure, to stuff not so glamourous like giving the dog a flea bath. Both the fleas and the dog are OK with it if it doesn’t happen, but the wife…not so much.
Daily Task Productivity
So now that I’ve dazzled you with my super cool Internet-y type tactics, here’s the one you’ll really love: I write them down on an ordinary piece of paper on a clipboard with an ordinary black ink pen.
Remember, cheapskate non-techie here.
I limit this list to 3 to 5 items. Usually three. With three I can include at least one chore my wife mentions before leaving so I can counterattack the “You haven’t done ONE thing I’ve said today”. Got my proof, I’m covered.
With five there’s sometimes leftovers, and like most leftovers, they’re often better the next day anyway. Why sweat it and cause yourself unnecessary stress? Do what you can and carry the rest over.
The big clincher comes when I finish an item. As the dog stands trembling and the last flea crashes to the floor or an Action Machine timer runs out, I grab the red marker and draw a nice red line right down the length of that item.
Why red? Red’s in your face, unmistakable DONE. Unless you run lots of red lights while driving, you know in your mind that red means STOP.
With red, you also get that nice warm fuzzy feeling that you’ve done something. A real sense of completion can seem rare in this type of work, so create those opportunities whenever you can. Take it a step further by putting the day and date on each sheet as you go along so you can look them over at week’s end and see in no uncertain terms what you’ve done and not done. Then you’ll know to step a little closer to the plate on those undone things in the future.
Not to mention proving to people that you actually do something. :
P.S. My dog wanted me to tell you how much he appreciates my
ActionMachine. He’s still not talking to me. Can’t find the cat either…
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