A combination of being busy, lazy, and distracted has led me to neglect my productivity system. I need to regroup, reform, and rebuild. Do first the things that I set out to do, then I can allow myself to wander.

What’s Been Going On

I have accepted that I cannot create a perfect system in an uncertain world, so I will naturally let disorder take over if I let it. To account for my imperfections, I must understand how things have changed.

A few months ago, when I was really building steam with my productivity hobby, I was on a fairly regular schedule. I went to work early in the morning (7 AM) and came home early (3-5 PM). This allowed a good portion of my waking hours to be devoted to a single task.

Lately my life has been devoted more towards work, where I go in around 9:30AM and come home between 9-10PM. This leaves me about 4 hours maximum in which I can do things that are not work related. With such a small window to do things, it has become fairly easy to neglect the things I ought to be doing.

What Should I Do?

With such a small window to actually do the things I need to do, I need to stay focused. Working on things that will help me to make money are good, but doing things that will enable me to do more (i.e. be more productive) is even better. This means I probably should work more on my forms and developing my system than even writing this blog.

With that in mind, this blog is probably going to turn more into a way to process my thoughts about how I can achieve the things that I desire. I think it is probably better anyways to relate my struggles and solutions than to try to tell you something.

Now I am starting on a clean slate (as in I am not using a system) and can rebuild. Do not confuse my status as being back to where I began. No matter how many times I need to refresh, I am continually building knowledge and the cycle of reconstruction should move faster each time.

What I Am Doing

As of right now, there are three really crucial things that I need to build up speed:

1. Sleep Less
I am not sleeping less to have more time. Rather, I have found that when I sleep around 6-7 hours there is a higher probability that I will do the things I set out to do. When I sleep around 8-9 hours, I tend to relax more. Maybe the stress keeps me feeling motivated?

2. Use my Hipster PDA
For a while I wasn’t even carrying around my Hipster PDA Case. That meant whenever I thought of something to do, I didn’t have something to record. It also meant I had no to-do list telling me what my next actions ought to be. This wasted a lot of time and resulted in a lot of stuff not getting done.

3. Plan my Day the Night Before
I am forgetful about many things, so sometimes I forget the things I need to do throughout the day (including appointments). Planning my day the night before allows me to have a plan of action, so I know exactly what I will be doing. I don’t have to waste time thinking about things, but can move from task to task. It also makes it easer to organize any materials I may need throughout the day.

The Future

I think these three things are more than enough to get me started. As I adopt these behaviors as habits, then I can introduce new elements to refine my system. When I introduce something new, I will announce it here.