Mondays are productivity days at SimpleProductivity blog.

One of the challenges to staying focused is interruptions from others. Being pulled off task can result in anything from loss of train of thought to major interruptions that pull you off task for hours. Since we can’t lock ourselves into a room to avoid distractions, we have to learn how to deal with them. Here are three strategies I use to deal with interruptions.

1. Turn Off

Phone, email and instant messenger are interruptions on our end, but the people calling and sending might not realize they are interrupting. My solution: turn them off.

Before you start working on a task that requires time and concentration, exit your email and instant message programs, and send your phone to voice mail (or turn it off). The email and instant messages will be there when you return; and the phone calls will go to voice mail.

If you feel you need to let people know you are concentrating on a task, and not say, out fishing, you can use some tricks to do this:

• Email auto-responders: every modern email program I have seen has some form of out-of-office feature. You can turn this on and let people know you will be checking your email at a certain time, and will get back to them after that.
• Instant Message Tag Line: Most instant message statuses include some way to put a tag line in. Before you exit the program, change yours to indicate your are busy but will be back online at a certain time.
• Phone Greetings: Setting up voice mail greetings is not difficult. Change yours to indicate that you are busy and you will return all calls after a certain time.

2. Postpone the People

One interruption that is hard to ignore is people popping up at your elbow when you are working. If you have an office with a door, close it. Or as one of my co-workers does, schedule a conference room and hide out there for a few hours.

If you work in an open cube arrangement, post a sign that you are busy and will be free at a certain time. Since some people may not see that, follow that up by putting in headphones. (Pink noise work well for blocking out sounds).

For those truly clueless people who will ignore all of the above, quickly determine the nature of their business. If it is work-related, tell them you will look into it and get back to them; if it is social, ask if you can meet them for lunch (this is a great tip from one of the readers!)

3. Make a List

The hardest distraction of all to turn off is the chatter in your head. Persistent thoughts of things you need to accomplish can derail a task as surely as if you had tap dancers on your desk.

The best way to deal with this type of distraction is to make a list. As soon as the first distracting thought occurs, write it down, and get back to your task. Repeat as often as necessary. Deal with the list as you would the other distractions, when your focused time is over.

Being interrupted doesn’t have to turn into a major detour. By turning things off, postponing people and making lists, you can get either prevent interruptions or prevent them from destroying your focus.

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Fridays are tip days at SimpleProductivity blog.

Most people I know, myself included, have things we want to get done. These are not the ordinary things like “do the laundry”, but bigger things like “write a book”. Yet most of us don’t make much progress on these projects.

The Advice Out There…

I’ve read a whole bunch of advice on how to do this over the years. “Balance your roles”, “only work on the important stuff”, “delegate everything that doesn’t move you forward”,”do your work first thing in the day”. These are all pieces of advice which individually never set well with me.

After all, I can’t delegate everything, because I don’t have a June Cleaver waiting around the corner to take over my household duties. I can’t balance my roles without adding more to an already overburdened schedule. I can’t only work on my projects, because that would leave things like earning a living out in the cold. And I can’t do my work first thing in the day because that is generally when my employer would like me to be working on their projects – the ones they pay me to work on.

The Pickle Jar

A few years ago I heard about an analogy that made a lot of sense. If you have an empty pickle jar, a few large rocks, some pebbles and some sand. If you put the items in the jar in order of increasing size, you will not have enough room to get the big rocks in. The way to make it work is to put the big rocks into the jar first, then fill in the gaps with the pebbles and then the sand.

So goes our projects. If we work on the small stuff which is most plentiful, we won’t have enough time for our big rocks, or the projects that matter the most to us.

So the question becomes, how to get to the Big Rocks?

Getting To The Big Rocks

While I can’t use any method that I talked about above to fit my life, I can apply the principles together.

Identify The Rocks

First, I have to decide what the big rocks are. Unless I can recognize them, I won’t find room for them. My big rocks are taken from my lists that I made with the 2012 Creating Your Goddess Year. These are the things that would rock my world (no pun intended). Writing and publishing a book is one of my big rocks right now.

I also look at these big rocks during my weekly review. I have pages in my planner listing what I want to do and by when (if there is a firm deadline). I make sure that I include these projects on my target list, and I mark them with a star, so when the item is complete, I know to put the next thing to do on my list. In the case of writing the book, I simply have to write every day.

Plan 3 Must-Dos Every Day

My problem with most project and task systems is that there is too much going on. On the flip side, I have seen systems that say once you’ve done three things, you’re done for the day. So instead of going to one extreme of the other, I list out tasks in three categories: Must Dos, Would Like To Do, and If I Have Time.

Every night, I pick out the three Must Dos for the next day. These are usually big rock items, but sometimes a big rock falls into the Like To list. Big Rocks never get onto the If I Have Time list, because they won’t get done.

My rules is that I may not get to the Must Dos first thing in the day, but they absolutely have to be done as soon as my time permits. They take precedence over the items in the other lists, and definitely before any minutiae that repeats itself (such as laundry, cleaning, reading, television).

Evaluate Daily

As part of my nightly planning session, I also look at where I am on the projects. Am I getting done what I want to? Do I need to move in another direction? Do I have the supplies I need?

By asking myself these questions, I am less likely to procrastinate doing something for whatever reason may pop up.

I find that by following these steps I am able to make large amounts of progress on whatever I am attempting to do.

Do you have any tips about how you get your important projects done? Share below.

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Mondays are productivity days at SimpleProductivity blog.

Last week we talked about 5 Habits That Will Boost Your Productivity. Today I’m going to look at the flip side.

Lack of Clarity

Being productive is a combination of doing the right things in the right way. If you don’t know what the right things are, you will not be as productive.

For instance, let’s say your task is to clean a bathroom. If you spend an hour washing and ironing the curtains in your bedroom, that doesn’t bring the overall goal of a clean bathroom much further.

It is better to know what you are trying to accomplish, and making sure that your actions are in line with that goal.

Multitasking

I often feel like a broken record, chanting about how most multitasking is bad. However, if you are in the habit of doing things requiring the same facilities at the same time, you are wasting time as you jump back and forth.

Give yourself the gift of focusing on one thing, completing it and then moving back to another. You will lessen brain thrash? and get more one.

Procrastination

What is one of the major causes of underproductivity? Procrastination. We put off doing things for a multitude of reasons, and in the end things don’t get done.

Learn to break yourself of procrastination. There are many books out there that can help you get to the root causes of procrastination (none of which are because you are lazy or stupid), including “The 7 Habits of the Prolific”.

What are other habits that can destroy your productivity? Share below.

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Did you ever feel stuck? Unable to move forward or blocked?

Or did you make a New Year’s resolution to tackle a project that has been laying dormant for some time?

In her newest book, The 7 Secrets of the Prolific: The Definitive Guide to Overcoming Procrastination, Perfectionism, and Writer’s Block, Hillary Rettig tackles the issues of blockages, procrastination and perfectionism.

Even though this book is aimed at writers, I believe that the core information on procrastination, perfectionism, time management, and tempo apply to everyone out there, who are writers or not.

Procrastination

In the first chapter, the first of the book, Ms. Rettig gets right to business: procrastination is out there. And guess what? Laziness and lack of will power and symptoms of procrastination, or under-productivity, as she refers to it. They are not causes. So stop beating yourself up and learn to get beyond it! If you’re procrastinating, she shows you how to recognize it, get to the bottom of it, and move on.

The 7 Secrets of the Prolific

Another feature of the book is that the secrets touted on the cover are available in the first chapter. No digging around to find out what they are. And the differences between the under-productive and the prolific are highlighted, and a path drawn to show you how to get there

Did you know that if an under-productive person has too much noise in their environment, they are likely to try and ignore it? Prolific people will remove the distraction, either by removing themselves or eliminating the noise. Every barrier is dealt with quickly so the prolific can keep producing.

Perfectionism

It doesn’t matter why you may be a perfectionist, or in what areas. Perfectionism can paralyze you and keep you from doing anything.

In the second chapter, Ms. Rettig goes over various causes of perfectionism and how it plays out, and then gives an alternative that is gentler and easier to live with.

Time Management

The chapter on time management gives us a great method to find time to achieve our dreams. While it is geared at writing, these techniques can be applied to anything you want to achieve.  As she says,

“The purpose of time management isn’t to stuff as much as possible into your schedule, but to remove as much as possible from your schedule so you have time to get the important stuff done to a high degree of quality with as little stress as possible.”

This chapter on time management is worth the price of the book alone, simply because it tells you how to get to the point where you are getting the important stuff done with high quality and low stress.

Who doesn’t want less stress in their lives?

Summary

This book picked me up and shook me. I started working on my novel again, stalled because I was thinking I hadn’t plotted it right (perfectionist anyone?) I also began to finish a quilt that has been languishing for 4 years because I was afraid to do it wrong (again? perfectionism?)

While I read every book that I am asked to review, rarely do I find one that is so immediately and thoroughly applicable to my life.

If you are a writer, this book is an absolute must read.

If you’re not a writer, this books is still a read that should not be missed.

Book Information

Book:The 7 Secrets of the Prolific: The Definitive Guide to Overcoming Procrastination, Perfectionism, and Writer’s Block (Kindle)
Non-Kindle formats:Author’s Website
Author: Hillary Rettig
Publisher: Infinite Art
ASIN: B006J7BZ8E

Disclosure:

Hillary Rettig provided me with a free copy of the book enable me to write this review.

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Mondays are productivity days at SimpleProductivity blog.

Who doesn’t like that feeling of being productive while expending little energy? I sure love feeling like I’ve gotten a lot done without feeling like I’ve been through the wringer. Here are five habits that I use to boot my productivity.

Plan The Night Before

One of Murphy’s corrolarries says that work will expand to fill all available time. I find that if I don’t have a plan, everything takes too long, and I never get to the stuff that I have vaguely in my mind tagged as important.

By making a plan the night before, I know what the things I want to get done are. This gives me a starting place in the morning, and allows me to tackle the “big rocks” (see Put the Big Rocks First) first.

Taking it one step further, I limit what I must do to three items. Leo Baubata of Zen Habits calls these “most important tasks (MITs)”. I call them “must do” tasks. These are the things that I must do to call the day done – even if I have them done by nine in the morning! The rest is, as they say, all gravy.

Check Emails At A Set Frequency

Having email constantly pinging and distracting you is a good way to fragment your attention. Since we as humans don’t really multitask, but rather slice our attention, having email notifications come up will derail what you are trying to do – particularly if you get many emails every hour.

Set your email checking to be specific times of the day. Choose the frequency you can check, and stick to those times. I know this sounds easy, but it is actually difficult! This will give you a chance to focus on your email without sidetracking you from other tasks.

I find it best to have two different types of checking schedules: one for home, and one for work. For home, I limit myself to twice a day. This keeps me from checking emails when I should be doing something else (like writing blog posts, for instance). Work is another matter – I need to be more responsive, so I check my email every hour. I may keep it running, but I turn off notifications and minimize it to my system tray so that it is not distracting me, but at the same time saves me having to restart Outlook (always a slow process) every hour.

This strategy can also be applied to social media.

Leave Your Desk

Sometimes being at your desk, with access to your computer, is actually a distraction. Even if you’re not working on the computer,it is still here, beckoning you to check Facebook or Twitter. Removing the distraction can actually make you get more done.

Example: a friend and I trade daily emails about a book we are both reading. I generally read it first thing in the morning, but if I sit down at my desk to read, I will naturally gravitate toward my computer, and the next thing I know it’s an hour later and I still haven’t done the reading. By reading the book away from my desk and taking notes on what I want to talk about on (gasp!) paper, I actually get through it much quicker.

If you don’t need to be at your desk, try another space and see if you don’t get things done quicker.

Extend Your Focus Depth

In this world of constant distractions, many of us find it is hard to concentrate. The tactic most people use is to put this distraction to work by multitasking. Unfortunately, multitasking doesn’t work, but it seems like we’re really productive because we have a lot demanding our attention.

You can work on focusing on one task, but most people these days have a really hard time doing that. Myself included, since I have been distracted five times while writing this article thus far. By working to extend how long you can single-task, you will find yourself able to focus longer and get more done as you concentrate deeper on a task.

How do you get there? A book I am reading, which I will review tomorrow, gives a great method using a timer. Set your timer for 5 minutes and work that long. When you can easily do 5 minutes, move the timer up.

Switch Off 30 Minutes Before Bed

One of the most detrimental things to productivity can be fatigue. We can avert fatigue my making sure we eat right, exercise, drink enough water and sleep enough. Common sense, really.

But most people are looking at screens until right before bed. And screens can actually keep you from falling asleep, cutting into your sleep time (see Lifehacker’s Screen Reading Before Bed Still Bad for Sleep, and We All Still Do It).

By switching off 30 minutes before bed, you give yourself time to unwind, de-screen, and settle into a comfortable place from which to sleep.

A few simple habits: planning your day, limiting email, leaving your desk, extending your focus and switching off can net huge productivity gains. Do you have any to share? Let us know below.

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Once I have a monthly plan, I take it down to the level of the week. I do this on Friday afternoons, and set up what I want to accomplish over the week. This doesn’t take the form of a must-do list. This is merely looking at what is on the schedule, and deciding what my targets are.

First Step, Put In The Activities

My first step for the week is to put in the scheduled activities. I look at my calendar, my husband’s calendar, and my daughter’s calendar, since my husband and I have to coordinate to get my daughter where she needs to be.

This overview of the week lets me know what I will have time for, allowing me to set a reasonable expectation for myself. Otherwise, I will go into super-hero mode and try and do everything.

It also gives me an idea of what days may have to have routine tasks bumped to another day.

Special Days On the Fly

I like to inject some special time in my schedule as well.

Routine Items Order Up!

The next thing I do is print out my weekly overview from Remember the Milk. I put in the routine items that need to be done. Some things are daily, like habits I am trying to get down; some things are weekly, like housework tasks and Girl Scout emails; and some things occur less frequently, like the reminder to change my contacts or swap out the batteries in the smoke detectors.

Looking at the routine items as I am writing them in gives me a perspective. If the activities are heavy, I’m not going to have time to do the routine items, so they get distributed over the rest of the week. If there are no activities, but the routine items are heavy (like all the ones that came up on Jan 1), I choose the ones that I think can be done, and distribute the rest.

This allows me to balance the load between what needs to be done in a routine fashion, and those things I want to do to move my projects folders. It lifts me out of the trenches of the day-to-day into a different level.

The Target Is Up

My next step is to take a new piece of paper and make my target list. I go through my project list, considering if there is stuff that must be done this week, or just things I would like to do to move it forward. Even if there are multiple things on the list for a project, I list them.

As things come in during the week, I put them on the target list too. For example, I found out today that I have to run out to Girl Scout Council offices to pick up some paperwork relevant to cookie sales. This is on my list because I have to do it, but the date isn’t fixed.

Having a target list lets me plan my day. Every night I sit down and select the three things that I must do, from the target list or pressing issues from the repeating tasks. Usually I aim for the target list, because the repeating tasks always seem to get done, even if I do the projects. However, if I take care of the repeating tasks, I rarely get to the target actions.

By sitting down and looking at my week, I have a better chance of choosing what to do instead of blindly wading through tasks.

Do you plan weekly? What do you include? Share below.

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Many productivity systems focus on the task list. You might have a calendar, but that would be only for fixed appointments. If there aren’t any fixed appointments, the calendar gets ignored so you can focus on your task list. It is far too easy to slip into a pattern of glancing at the calendar, then plowing through tasks.

This is a formula for burnout. I lived like this for several years, and I find myself slipping back into this mode if I don’t have two things: a monthly plan, and a weekly target list. Today I’ll talk about the monthly plan.

“But I Have A Calendar…”

A calendar is fine and dandy, but it will tell you only what you have committed to. I like to have a general overview of things in the month so that I have a roadmap of where I am going. It isn’t enough for me to just focus on projects, but more on the progress I want to make in different areas of my life.

Special Days

I have started incorporating planned downtime and special activity days into my monthly plan. I got this idea from my first planner from Leonie Dawson, and I like the idea.

For instance, I am conscious of a need to get away from the computer. So on Sundays, unless there is a real emergency, I don’t turn the computer on. It’s called “switch-off Sunday”.

I also have days for crafting, retreat, going to be early, date nights (both with husband and daughter), game nights, and home spa stuff.

These special days remind me that I am more than a doing machine, and give me space to enjoy and appreciate my life.

Planning The Month

The Sunday before the month begins (because Sunday is my thinking day, without computers), I lay out the month, I put in various activities, and look at what is coming at me so I know what I need to prepare. I make sure these preparations get put into my task book, so I don’t lose sight of them.

I will then sprinkle in the special days, just as if they were scheduled activities. It is a lot harder to ignore “switch off Sundays” when it is written in big letters on my calendar!

Deciding on Targets

Once I have an idea of how busy my month is, I look at some things I’d like to aim for. (I will also find ways to clear out the schedule if it is too busy for me to make progress on my dreams) I may choose to wrap up a project, or set an intermediate goal.

For instance, in January, my goal is “to finish the *#^$ quilt”. This project has been in progress for three years. It’s not a big project, but my perfectionism has stalled it. I will finish this quilt as a lesson to myself in “done is better than perfect” and to get it off my mind.

As an intermediate goal, I have told myself I need to finish plotting the book from NaNoWriMo 2011. I have many ideas, and I need to get them into a plot order so I can commence writing again.

There may be a need for me to block out time to work on some of these items. Over the holidays, I blocked out a morning to finally clean out the garden and get the hoses inside. This isn’t something I could do in little bits; it needed to be done in one go, so I made the time available to do it.

By planning out the month ahead of time, I set myself a direction to go in. I may not make it entirely, but I have something to aim for. And that makes the weekly and daily planning much easier.

Do you do any sort of monthly planning? How? Share below.

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Some of the largest amounts of time in our days are taken up by routine activities, such as commuting, household tasks, personal care and things dealing with sustenance. If we can streamline some of these activities, we can cut out wasted time and free up time to do other things. Just as cutting back on our inputs can free up time, we need to also cut out excess time in our day-to-day activities.

Analyzing the Routine

All of us have routine tasks. We just may not realize it because they are routine and they don’t catch our attention! After all, do you consciously think about brushing your teeth? It’s automatic, so you may be aware that you do it, but don’t have to schedule time to do it.

Most routine activities can be found in the following areas. Pay attention for a week and make a list of things you do on a weekly and daily basis.

• Housework. This includes things like cleaning, dishes, laundry, taking out the trash and caring for animals.
• Shopping. Grocery shopping and general errands.
• Self-care. Dressing, bathing, exercise.
• Food. Food prep, cooking and menu management.

Streamlining

Each of these areas has ways to simplify and consolidate. I will be going into detail on my tips and tricks in future articles, but here are some things to consider:

Housework

Combine. Combining tasks and batching them can save time in prep and execution. It is easier to vacuum all of the rooms on one floor at once than to drag the vacuum out for every room.
Automate. There are many tools that can help you automate household tasks. I use my Roomba to handle the vacuuming for me.
Go against convention. Grandma said you had to sort laundry by color and do separate loads. Not any more. Using color catcher sheets, you can wash darks with lights and not have to worry about bleeding colors.
Batch. If you feed your pets dry food (and they can be trusted to self-feed), consider a bulk feeder. You load it up, and they eat when they are hungry. (Note: this does not work well with dogs who are walking stomachs, such as my beagle who would eat herself to the point of exploding)

Shopping

Bulk shop. If you have the room, shop in bulk. Buying bulk staples such as toilet paper and soap can save many little errands
Plan. By planning a two week or month menu, you can shop for the majority of it all at once, and cut down your shopping for the rest of it. I do all my food shopping every other week.
Outsource. There are many options for personal shoppers. One local grocery store will pull my order and bring it to my car for a $5.00 fee. I also used a personal grocery shopper for many years.

Self-Care

Combine. Consider using combination products, such as conditioning shampoo, or by combining activities, such as brushing your teeth in the shower. (Although I admit I can’t bring myself to do that).
Simplify. Bring your wardrobe to simple things that require no ironing or fuss. Get a haircut that does not require much more than a wash.
Multitask. In a good way, that does not require using the same resources. Listen to books while you exercise, for example.

Food

Use appliances. Use a crockpot, bread machine or other modern appliance to simplify your meal cooking. If you resist because you’ve never had food that tasted good from one of these machines, find other recipes.
Shortcut. Not all food has to be cooked from scratch with fresh herbs and served like something out of a fine restaurant. Find suitable shortcuts, like a bottled spaghetti sauce that you add some seasoning to.
Plan. Having a plan to follow can cut down a lot of time that would be otherwise spent figuring out what to do last minute.
Bulk prep. We may not have sous chefs to call upon, but we can food prep in bulk. If you know you use chopped onion in 75% of your recipes, chop up a bunch and put it in the fridge to use over the week. Or make extra of something to be used in another recipe, like doubling a batch of mashed potatoes.

By streamlining my routine tasks, I can free up a lot of time. This time I can use for pursuing special projects, or just relaxing.

What are things you could streamline in your routine activities? Share below.

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One of the best ways to swamp yourself is to have too many things coming at you from too many directions. If you were in a canoe and the waves started coming at you from all sides, it is guaranteed you would go for a swim. It is also the same with the information we take in.

Why streamline inputs? Besides being a way to free yourself up mentally, you also free up time. And with extra time, you can tackle other things that may have significant impact on your life. If one of the things it took to pursue a lifelong dream was to eliminate 1000 emails, wouldn’t it be worth it?

How Many Inputs Do You Have?

This exercise is based on one that David Allen sets forth in Getting Things Done. The goal is to figure out where the information is coming from and how to minimize it.

How many inputs do you have? Here are some categories, and my list of how they fit into my life:

• Email: email is everywhere, and it can be accessed from everywhere. The last time I did this exercise you had to be at a machine. Now with smart phones, email follows us everywhere. I have multiple email accounts: blog, personal, Yahoo (used for mailing lists) and work. I access the blog and personal emails from all my PCs (home, work and netbook) as well as my iPod Touch. Yahoo and work email I access only from my home and work PCs.
• Mail: I currently get mail in two places: my home and the PO box I maintain for my blog. I check my PO box once a week.
• Phones: I currently have access to four phones: home, work, cell and Google Voice.
• Voice mail: all of my phones have voice mail.
• Texts: I receive text messages through my cell phone and Google Voice
• Magazines/newspapers: I have three magazine subscriptions, and our family gets the Sunday newspaper (of which I read the comics)
• Online reading: I have 176 feeds in my feed reader right now. Not all are active.
• News: this would normally include television, website and radio news.
• Oher papers: this would be the category of bills, receipts, school papers, appointment cards, etc.

Did you have a lot of inputs? More than you thought?

Reducing Inputs

The goal of reducing inputs is to have fewer places you have to remember to check. The more you consolidate, the less you will need. And you will also find ways to eliminate some of the inputs as well.

Another goal of reducing your inputs is to limit the time spent looking at something without taking action. I feel that this is overlooked. You may think it OK to scan all your emails once an hour, but if you do that for five minutes without taking any meaningful action, you will have lost 40 minutes over a whole workday!

Here are the ways I am consolidating my inputs:

• Email:
  • Work: My work email needs to be open all the time, so there is not much I can do as far as reducing the frequency. I do have notifications turned on so that I can see when a new email comes in. I make it a point that when I am processing email, I touch it once and complete it if it can be done in under 2 minutes. If it contains information to be filed, it gets filed immediately. If I need to respond, it gets done. Things that require more than 2 minutes are flagged and attended to mid-day.
  • Yahoo: My Yahoo email has been flooded with lots of email newsletters that come from the various lists I have signed up for. I have spent some time unsubscribing from these lists. I check this email once a day; nothing is ever urgent.
  • Gmail/Blog: Both my personal and blog emails run out of Gmail, so I have them set up so that the blog emails dump into my main Gmail account, with a label. Everything is in one place. (I also back up the whole mess to my home PC once a month, just in case.)

  I don’t see too much room for improvement, other than trying to cut down on the amount of junk I am receiving.

• Mail: I can’t stop the Post Office from delivering, so the only improvement I can make here is to eliminate the amount of mail I receive. Most of my regular bills offer online statements/bill pay, so that eliminates those. I have also worked hard on the Catalog Choice website to bring my mail to as low a level as possible, free of catalogs and phone books.
• Phones: My work phone can’t be altered. My home phone can’t be altered. My cell phone can’t be altered. Google Voice, however, can streamline everything. By giving my Google Voice number to people, they will reach me wherever I am. I have it set up so that during work hours it rings my desk phone and cell phone simultaneously. During non-work hours, it rings my home and cell. So I don’t miss calls, and no matter which of the phones I pick up, it is as if they are one.
• Voice mail: Google voice has also simplified my voice mail. (Although I have voice mail attached to the home phone line that simply says “call back”). When a person calls my Google Voice, it transcribes the voice mail and sends it to my email. I can also have Google Voice be the voice mail for my cell phone, which cuts down on one place to check.
• Texts: Texting on my cell phone is a recent addition for me, put into place after having a deluge of spam that I was having to pay for. I have solved the problem of multiple texts by giving my Google Voice number out, which sends the texts to email. Even my husband knows that if he needs a response, to go with Google Voice.
• Magazines/newspapers: The three magazine subscriptions I receive I read. All the others are now gone. I have not been successful in convincing my family we don’t need the Sunday news, so I content myself with using it for weed blocker in the garden.
• Online reading: When I examined my reading, I was shocked at the number of feeds I was purusing. Even worse, I had a category called “zzz” at the bottom, which I used to put subscriptions I was no longer interested in, instead of deleting them outright. Those 46 subscriptions were deleted outright. I also went through and purged the rest of my feeds. I had many stuck in a “probation” status, and more that I was just not connecting with anymore.
• News: I stopped readng the web news, watching television or listening to radio news a few years ago. If something important happens, someone tells me. And I find that I miss all sorts of distractions (such as I didn’t know what a Kardashian was until about a month ago, much less that one of them had a really short marriage).
• Oher papers: I confess I do a double-sort on these papers. The first time I determine if it needs to be dealt with before the next Monday. If so, I deal with it. Otherwise it goes into a folder on my desktop called “process” that gets worked through once a week.

Streamlining your inputs will free up and amazing amount of time and resources for you.

Are there ways that you cut down on your inputs? Or inputs I haven’t mentioned? Share below! I’d like to see how people handle this issue.

Photo by neilbetter

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Since we have a computer metaphor going here for revamping your life, I wanted to talk a bit about thrash.

Thrashing is, by the Wikipedia definition:

“A situation where large amounts of computer resources are used to do a minimal amount of work, with the system in a continual state of resource contention.”

Computers get into this state usually because they are trying to use the same resources at the same time. Too many things are vying for the attention of one processor or memory, and the computer gets confused and starts rapidly switching between things, causing delays due to lag time.

In the end, the only solution to thrashing is to remove the demands for the resources so that the computer has a clear path of what is important.

Humans can thrash too, except we have a nicer word for it: multitasking.

The Dreaded Multitasking

Let’s set this straight before we go any further: I do not consider it multitasking when you are doing two things that do not engage the same physical requirements nor place others in danger. For instance, listening to music while walking on a treadmill is not multitasking to me (it is sometimes challenging for me, though). Putting on makeup while driving is. Cleaning up the kitchen while dinner is simmering on the stove is not multitasking, since the stove is doing the simmering while you do the cleaning. Listening to how your child’s day went while trying to read the paper is multitasking.

Multitasking is not truly possible for us humans. What we end up doing is attention splitting, or shifting rapidly from one task to another and back again. Add a few more tasks in, and what do you have? Human brain thrash.

Hey, LJ, Why Do You Dislike Multitasking So Much?

Multitasking may seem like you’re being more effective, but in the long run, you are actually taking more time and energy. And that goes against both my beliefs in simplicity and productivity.

Let’s look at it mathematically.

Let’s say you’re doing Tasks A, B, and C. Let’s say it takes your brain 5 seconds to readjust when switching to a new task.

So if you switch from A to B, that’s 5 seconds wasted. A to B to C, that’s 10. A to B to C to A to B to C is 25 seconds.

You might think that no big deal, except that the transition time between intricate tasks is way more than 5 seconds. And if you routinely spend time and concentrate, you will get far more done faster.

How To Get Rid of Brain Thrash

The best way I know to eliminate brain thrash is to stop multitasking. Focus on one thing at a time, complete it, and then move onto the next.

This is not easy, especially when we have been conditioned by alerts and beeps of all sorts of devices to distract us.

So the first step to focusing on a single task is to turn of the distractions. Turn off the phone. Turn off the texts. Sign out of Twitter and Facebook and email. The world won’t end if you’re not connected for 15 minutes. Trust me.

Now focus on the task at hand. See how quickly you can get through it.

Using A Timer

If you’re having a really tough time eliminating distraction, try using a timer. Pick a certain amount of time you will work on a task, followed by an amount of time you can do anything. I personally like to work 10 minutes, then take a two minute break, and repeat this 5 times. This gives me 50 minutes of work every hour, but I don’t feel deprived.

How is your brain thrash level? What do you do to get rid of it? Share below.

Photo by Spec-ta-cles

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