Being More Productive

[DragonHeart]

I am a world class procrastinator when it comes to certain things. I figured it would be interesting to post a thread about what kind of tips and techniques you use to get shit done. "Just do it" isn't a tip, btw.

Lately I've been using what I call the three task method. Basically, I do whatever with my time as long as I do three things. What those things are varies and it doesn't matter if I complete them, as some projects are long term. All that matters is that I do three productive things.

For an example, the three things I did yesterday:
Two loads of laundry (only counts as one task)
Ran the dishwasher (actually did this one twice as well)
Figured out why I'm having a problem authenticating Java on any browser (conflict with my firewall)

The three things I did (well, am in the process of doing) today:
Three loads of laundry (before you ask, one is my work clothes for tonight, another is my tablecloth which I accidentally dumped a ton of sand on when I knocked my beach bag over, and the third is towels)
Cleaned the litterbox
Took out two bags of trash (necessary after cleaning the box)

If I do more than three things in a day that is awesome, but it doesn't carry over to the next day. So far it's been working and I'm actually getting stuff done. Usually I let things sit for too long and then end up wasting one of my days off cleaning everything up.

So, what do you do to get your shit done?

[Taco-Calamitous]

Have someone call you and harrass you about the thing you are supposed to get done. Of course, it helps if they are not a procrastinator also. "Moral support" seems to help for me, though. Dodie held my hand took me step by step in order to get me to get ad block plus. Yay, teamwork~! ^^

Also contemplating the consequences should you not get done what you need to get done helps. "If I don't exercise, I am going to be fat. If I don't vacuum, I am going to be stepping on torn up bits of paper/carpet/kitty litter and tracking it into the bed. If I don't clean the litter box, it will stink, and the cat will probably do her business elsewhere. If I don't do this job right, the boss will yell at me."

Baby steps/one thing at a time helps too. "One more lap around the track. Okay, one more lap around the track." Or if you are just running, "left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot... I am not tired, I do not acknowledge my body telling me it hates me right now." Or "Do this menial task. Okay, do this menial task. Okay, do this menial task. Lookit how much we're getting done, team!" (Team consists of me. I talk to myself.)

That's all I can think of right now. Anyhoo...

Wuv, Yer Mom

[midgetbob]

Join the military. lulz.

[Pete]

Lists. When I have a ton of stuff to get done, I'll make a list and just start knocking things out, piece by piece. It's a huge motivator when you do even a few mundane things and it puts a dent in your list. I would do it with school assignments, bills to be paid and all of that. I felt like a boss.

[Order]

I find the hardest thing is getting up to go do something.
Especially on the weekend, I dont want to do anything. That is, until I get up and start getting my sh!t together.
My motto is "punch today in the face."
Find a face,
Punch it.
Then go find another one.
That gets me pumped to take on anything. Even dishes.

[Merlin]

I wouldn't imagine punching dishes to be very cost effective though.

I have the problem that I am an efficient worker and will work on a task until it is complete, but only if I'm in the mood to do it. For example, if I need to write documentation for something and I don't feel like writing, I can stare at it for hours and it will never get done. But, if I have the urge to write I can complete the documentation without fail, even if it means working late or not eating lunch. It really isn't procrastination, but more of my own quirk on how I get things done. I accomplish everything I need to on time or early, but don't get your panties in a twist if I don't work on what YOU want me to when YOU want me to. It drove my mother bonkers.

Also, the more someone bothers me into doing something the less likely I am to do it or the longer it will take me to get it done. So if people keep bugging me for stars, they will never get them because they keep asking.

[Pete]

also, the more someone bothers me into doing something the less likely i am to do it or the longer it will take me to get it done. So if people keep bugging me for stars, they will never get them because they keep asking.

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[Unknown Entity]

A list is usually a good starting point, but to tell you the truth, I usually get shit done. ^^;

I have my lazy days of course. So a list it is, that's if my mother hasn't yelled at me for leaving something unfinished.

[Azuteor]

The faster and earlier you do it, the better.
Plan to reward yourself when you finish a task.
Imagine all the awesome things you will get when you get things done.

If you want something structured, commit to a planner or a planner app on your phone. If you have an iPhone and are in still in school, I recommend iStudiez Pro. It has made my life easier.

I'm lazy no matter what. I just couldn't be bothered to do anything unless there's an extreme consequence I don't want to deal with. For example, I'll do my daily chores to avoid them piling up and getting chewed over for it. I don't have a choice to be lazy in my final two years of college because I'll be getting my BSN, which means I get to have my own life. I don't even want to know what will happen to me if I fail.

I really like the sound of the "The 3 Task Method." Hope you don't mind me stealing it, lol.

[Alpha]

Keeping a diary. Not a 'dear journal' diary, but a day/week/month planner. I write things that I have to do on the day that I first find out about them. I write the day it is due next to it. In another colour, I break down the things I have to do to get that 'main' thing done. For example, the day I find about an essay for my 'English class', I'll write that in, and the day it is due. I may decide that on Wednesday, I'll go to the library to get some books so I can prepare. I'll write that in on Wednesday: "Get books for English essay".

It's really just a list, except I break things down a lot more, and can track progress over time clearly, see whether I am on track, and ensure that every aspect of it is done by the time the whole has to be done. I've only handed something in late once.

The key is to take some level of 'enjoyment' in crossing shit out of your diary. Personally, I can't relax unless 95% of it is crossed out.

[Hobaginator]

I have an imaginary drill instructor that yells at me in my head. If I ignore the one, more show up and it gets more brutal. It's best just to listen to the first one.

[Heartless Angel]

A great way to motivate yourself to get something done psychologically, is to tell your friends you're going to do something by a certain time, that way if you're thinking about putting it off past that, you start to feel that you've let them down, even when in reality, it likely had nothing to do with them anyways and they wouldn't actually care... but the human brain isn't always logical.

[Diyala]

I just figured out that whenever I think of Time as a specific amount of numbers within which you are allowed to do something until you reach a specific point where only 00:00 is left for you, I feel I must push myself to do something valuable in it , that can make me feel as if someone is actually chasing me or something , but I just notice that when I think that I won't manage to have time to do this and that I just end up doing far more than I expected or than I usually do . Colorful stickers on the wall is a good method after arranging your priorities and a little determination that others would think someone is really chasing you ^^

[magewarrior]

I find writing things down usually helps me to remember to do something productive the next day however if that fails I have 4 task management apps on my iPod that usually does the trick. Sometimes if something's bugs me enough (like the dishes filling the sink) I'll take care of it just to get it out of the way. I sometimes use social network, logging, and note taking apps to help me with the rest it helps to have something to motivate me.

[DragonHeart]

It's been awhile, so I'm circling back around with an update. I've been trying multiple different techniques to get myself back on track and I thought I'd share the one that has had the greatest impact on me so far, to the point where the other things are useless if I do not do this one thing.

Here it is: waking up.

See, normally what happens is my alarm goes off, I turn it off, grumble and go back to sleep for an hour or sometimes two. Then I'd get up, drag myself downstairs to make coffee and turn the computer on. Two to three hours later, I might pull myself out of my chair and shamble off into the shower. That's basically half my day right there, as I work mainly night shifts.

So this is what I do now: my alarm goes off, I turn it off, get up, get a towel and jump in the shower immediately. After I'm dressed, then I make my coffee and turn the computer on. Instead of screwing around for a few hours, I spend maybe 20 minutes checking up on things. Facebook, forums, etc. I also have breakfast even if it's just a snack and spend a couple of minutes thinking about what I need to do for the day. After I finish setting my system up, that will be a paper list.

Then at 8:00 I start my first "sprint" of the day, which is generally my workout. That goes for about an hour, usually. Including the actual workout, cooldown and water/snack break at the end.

So by 9:00, which is usually when I'd still be drinking my coffee, I'm at basically the same starting point, just in a much different state. I'm still working on refining my routine but at this point, it's debating minutiae, as the absolute most important thing is that I am up and ready.

[Cyanist]

Urm, I'm not sure how I learned to do what I do. I think, though, that ultimately I owe my fine scheduling and motivation techniques to my mom, not because she's great at it, but the complete opposite.
Motivation: Non-existent other than the oft repeated phrase: "Do it now, do it now, do it NOW!" (apparently she went to some kind of seminar in her youth) Also, there's no saying 'no' to this woman, no reasoning with her, if she wanted something done, even if it was utterly wrong, she STILL wanted it done exactly that way. That caused me to realize that if I didn't get everything done before she got to it, that things would be bizarre: (Like a deadbolt lock installed on the wrong side of the gate, or the dishes being put away in strange places...) I constantly had to scramble to preserve order in the house.
And so my responsibility began...

Scheduling: I would need to be somewhere and she'd always get me there either wa-ay too early, or too late.
Soon I learned how troublesome that can be for other people.

My mental motivation: The sooner you get up and work now, the more relaxing you can do later. (Or you could just find tardy people and follow them around)

[Sean]

Let's see...

I'm fat, I'm out of shape, I'm constantly ill (irritable bowel ftmfw) and typically grumpy.

I'm as far from productive as possible, and I'm so good at procrastinating I might as well be considered professional.

The problem is procrastination has yet to bite me in the ass. Came close, once, last semester. Large chunk of my grade was the final paper, that I'd not yet written and forgot about until the day it was due, ~ 2 hours out. I started writing it around 10:30 (due at midnight) and finished with about 20 minutes to spare. Was an A- paper.

Procrastination, if anything, rewards me. >_>;

[Lacquer Head]

...I just do it >_> if I have something I need done, I do it. I'm OCD about that kind of stuff. Also, if I'm getting paid to do something, I will drop what I'm doing at the moment and go do it lol when you don't have much for entertainment or money...getting stuff done isn't an issue.

[Order]

My problem lately has been that I have plans to get a bunch of stuff done over the course of the week, bills, hobbies, getting ready for college, etc...
Ill get it all done in a single day usually. Then Im lazy for the rest of the week, only to realize the following monday that there was plenty of other stuff I could have done, I just didn't think about it because I got all the urgent stuff accomplished and never bothered to consider the smaller stuff I could do (like get groceries, or detail my car).
I dont need a list for bigger tasks,
I need one for the little things that end up annoying me when I forget about them.

Ive been smacking my forhead every time I stop at a gas station and forget to get fog-x for my windows.

[DragonHeart]

One of the things I've tried is to keep a running list of 17-20 things that need to get done in the immediate future, say two weeks or so, either small tasks or parts of larger ones, like calling the doctor to make an appointment. At the end of the day I cross out all the things I've completed from the list, copy all the things I haven't done over to the next day and add more things until my list is 17-20 items long again. Rinse, repeat. The act of physically writing the list out makes it easier for my subconscious to trigger the action when I am where it needs to happen, like say buying Fog-X at a gas station.

Personally though, what I've found to actually be more important to me is the maintenance of a completed task list. Sometimes I even substitute it in place of my to do list, because seeing what I've already gotten done is both motivating and allows me to focus on other things that do still need to happen. Because sometimes completing one item on my to do list generates one or more additional things to add to the list. Like buying textbooks yesterday, they didn't have one of them so now I have to call them next week to make sure it's in, then drive down to the college (again) and get it before classes start. Trying to get even one thing done and having it turn into a project, literally, can be quite demotivating.

One other thing I've been doing lately--scheduling "out" days ahead of time. Errands, basically. Most of the time I'm doing things in and around the house, but one or two days a week I plan on being out and about (after my workout of course), doing anything that needs to happen somewhere besides home. Yesterday I went to the college to buy textbooks, then stopped at the local office supply store to buy some other needed school supplies, a clothing store to make a return, and the market to pick up a few baking supplies I needed to restock on. Was still home in time for lunch and to make another batch of cookies before work. (The latter I don't do often, it was a request by a coworker lol.)

[Dranzer]

I just crossed off the last thing on my to-do list and now it feels weird that I finished everything. School-wise anyway, IDGAF about straightening out my closet.

I have to write stuff down, otherwise it won't get done until two weeks after I was supposed to do it when I have that OH SHIT moment in my car driving to wherever and remember I need to do whatever it was I'm OH SHITting about.

I also have different notebooks for different things, one for school shit, another for everything else such as doctor appointments, work schedule, interviews, birthdays I should remember, etc. etc.

[DragonHeart]

I have another update. I bought a notebook specifically for managing my day to day stuff. Not a day planner, just a regular old notebook. I needed some for classes anyway.

This is what I write every day:
The date, obviously. Including day of the week.
My schedule, as in class and/or work and any appointments.

My workout, if I did it or not and what the workout was.

Completed task list. No to do list, just a running tally of what I've accomplished for the day, no matter how small.

Notes. This is where I put stuff that needs to get done. Yesterday's notes includes the homework I need to get done before next class. I look at the previous day before I start writing the current day's overview, so I have a general idea of what's going on. Anything I finish gets bumped up to the completed list, and I simply copy the remaining items into the notes at the end of the day. There's also a lot of miscellaneous stuff like ideas for upcoming blog posts, stuff I need to buy, phone calls I need to make, etc. Kind of a catch all.

Something else I've just started doing: no matter how busy I am and what's going on, I devote one hour each day to working on my own projects. At the moment that means my current writing project. This hour is usually reserved as the last full one hour block before work as a way to recharge and transition. I'm also using my first hour of each day (well, after waking up, working out etc) to clean. I pay particular attention to my workspace because if it's messy, I find I'm not as likely to get a lot done simply because the mess makes me feel unproductive. Clean space, clean mind. Or something.

So yeah, overall I'm doing pretty well. I'm still having trouble getting up and going first thing, but I'm working on it. I figure as long as I'm still getting things done it's not really a main priority right now anyway.