Productivity Lessons From Nine Months of Unemployment

Posted on August 18, 2011 by GuestPost
Categories: Productivity

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If there’s one thing that we could all use more of, it’s time. There are dozens of things that we have to do in a day, and simply never enough hours to do them all. So what can we do to increase the amount of work we do, and the amount of free time we have, without magically increasing the number of hours in a day? This is a question that has been bugging people for centuries, and even now, for all of our technology and social advancements, we still don’t have an effective answer.

I first really started noticing this about two years ago, when I lost my job for the first time in my life. I figured I’d have it really easy; I was lucky enough that I could live off of unemployment, while searching for a new job and I’d have plenty of time left to start writing my book, a goal that I’ve always had. Nine months later, starting my new job, I had written a grand total of three and a half pages in my novel, and had very little to show for it.

What Takes Up Your Time?

Think about everything that we have to do in a day,even not considering things like commuting, working on the job, and everything else that not everyone might have to do. My short list included cleaning the house, doing laundry, cooking meals, shopping for food, exercising, reading, and relaxation/entertainment time. Not that that’s all I had to do; I also had to take my wife out for dates, make occasional phone calls to family members, search for jobs, fill out paperwork, and so forth, but as a bare minimum, I still had at least seven things which I considered to be of great importance to living a happy, healthy life.

Those seven things took up at least 70% of my day, every day.

Now, granted, being unemployed meant that we ate incredibly high-quality meals that came direct from Food Network, so not only was my cooking time increased, but so was the clean-up afterwards. Since I was unemployed, and had little money, I often found myself walking to the store for groceries, and to the gym, and to the library, but still, to have 70% of a day taken up by doing what I considered basic activities was astonishing to me, and when I started up my new job, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to handle going back to life the way it was before.

This happened a little over two years ago, and I have come a long way since then. What I did was ensure that in going back to work, I made the absolute most of my time each day, every day. Not only am I more productive now, but I’m doing more now with a job than I was able to without.

Optimizing the Essential Activities

Audiobooks

The first thing on my to-do list was to compromise reading, which was essential to my daily activities before. Since then, I’ve all but put down traditional books, and I have since read over 30 books. I do it now on my iPod. Audiobooks are an unbelievable time saver, and can be worked into all kinds of other activities, from working out at the gym, to listening while cooking and cleaning the house. While the lack of titles at my local library is somewhat slimmer than I’d like, I found that I was able to request titles from nearby libraries thanks to inter-library loan, so almost anything that has been released in audio format is available to me.

Not only have audiobooks saved me an hour of reading time every day, but they’ve increased my motivation for going to the gym (so I can get through that last disc), and have increased the length of my workouts (because I import disc by disc, and make sure that I don’t leave until that voice says “This is the End of Disc Number X,” which usually marks a little over an hours time).

Batch Cooking

In addition to that, I have found that it’s very easy to cook all of my week’s meals on Sunday afternoons. I no longer buy very many frozen items because of their increased cost and lowered nutritional values, so my freezer is now full of homemade casseroles and soup which are simple to grab on the way out the door to lunch, or to put in the oven right after arriving home. I eat just as healthily and just as well as I did while cooking five-star meals on unemployment, when I could spend 3 hours marinating and basting a roast for dinner.

Ways To Maximize Your Time

There are two basic ideas here. The first is to combine activities and to engage your brain and your body together whenever possible. I’m sure that almost anyone who has taken the time to read this article will attest to the power of reading and writing as a way to improve yourself, but finding the time for that alone is not always easy. Therefore, by teaming an activity that requires your attention with something that you can do rather mindlessly (turning the pedals on an exercise bike, scrubbing the kitchen floor, doing the dishes), you will maximize your time.

The second general tip is that you should try to do a task all at once. Doling out a task in small amounts every day is fine for a lot of things, but sometimes, it’s incredibly advantageous to do it all at once. Taking a large section of your free time, or on a day when you have no expectations of turning something in, and dedicating a large amount of your time to a big project for the week.

Not only will you save the time and energy of switching from task to task, but you will gain just as much time back in organization as well. In my example of cooking, I found that cooking six meals in one day took me around three hours, plus another half hour to forty five minutes of time to spend on doing dishes. However, if I had done the same thing, but only cooked one meal a day and then packaged the leftovers, it would take an hour or two per day on the average.

These were the two major lessons on productivity which I learned when I had to struggle with unemployment. Now, I think that that experience was one of the most important ones in my entire life. It really has improved the quality of my life, reduced my stress, and given me a structure that has helped put me in the best shape of my life, both physically and mentally. And I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

Have you learned any lessons that make it easier to optimize your time? Share below.

Bob Watson is currently a mathematics and history teacher, working at a hospital with students with Emotional Disabilities. He was, and remains wholly committed to self improvement, particularly personal productivity, and created an online speed reading test to try to encourage interest in this with his students.

Photo by kanu101

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