Some productive thoughts

I messed up and didn't include the image credit/license for the 'jumping brain' picture in my original posting - sorry folks! (image: Emilio Garcia, cc by-nc 2.0) Also amended below.


I've been thinking a lot about my personal approach to productivity and organisation, recently, and have come across some interesting research and methodologies. While my personal routine hasn't settled back in to accommodate these (and to see which actually stick), I wanted to share some of my what I've been experimenting with. 

Let your brain run free! justdontthinkabouthehorribleconnotationsofthattakentooliterally Free!
(image: Emilio Garcia, cc by-nc 2.0)

As with all this stuff, there's an element of the nebulous - there's only so far we can go with all the theory. At some point it has to boil down to what works for different people. But I think it's important to experiment with different approaches so we can discover what works for us and what doesn't. Sometimes, the very act of innovating or embracing change and the disruption that causes to our routine can be enough to bring about benefit. 

The first thing is something I came across via this Lifehacker article (for the record, if you want ideas about personal productivity or just an interesting read, that 'How I Work' series is fantastic). The basic idea is that our brains operate very differently between more 'day dreaming'/'free associative' modes and focussed, 'executive action' modes. Here is the NYT piece on it.

This is not particularly revolutionary or surprising - it makes complete sense. But seeing it laid out so clearly resonated with what I had been finding recently in terms of two completely opposing mental states.

I don't know many people who still claim that daydreaming is inherently 'bad' (it really isn't), but it's interesting that identifying and harnessing these two modes for different things is so powerful, and that jumping too much between them (or neglecting either) is detrimental.

This dovetailed nicely with something I've been experimenting with for a while, the tried and tested Pomodoro technique. For those not familiar, you break down any task into 25 minute 'chunks' and then run a(n ideally physical) timer for each, focussing singularly on that one task. The idea that singular focus is good for getting stuff done is, again, unsurprising, but the 5 minute interludes built into the technique to give the brains break play to the same ideas as the above research, rather than trying to bang your head against a task for extended, unbroken periods. The 25 minute block is the right length of time for maximum focus. 

The eponymous pomodoro

Changing tack slightly, the other thing I've done recently is rearrange my 'to do' lists. I jump between systems and platforms for this every few months. I've never found something that works reliably and persistently for me.

My latest trick, though, I really like. Using Apple Reminders (the platform here matters less; this is good for me as it syncs across most of my devices, but it really just has to support multiple lists), I've grouped them into lists by rough time required. Currently it's '5 minutes', '10 minutes', '30 minutes' and 'Big stuff' with a couple of overflow lists.

For the first time, I've grouped my work and personal items together. That's a bit of an adjustment, but maintaining two separate lists/systems and keeping them effective has been part of my trouble. For me, one decent to do list takes time to maintain, which is fine, but doubling that up tends to lead to abandoning one or both. 

The basic logic is that now I can approach the list saying 'well, I have five minutes while I'm waiting for this person, what can I tackle?' or 'this communte is about thirty minutes, what can I work on?' There's no reason this wouldn't be possible with a single consolidated list, but it's all too easy to lose things in the mixture. This lets you plan slightly ahead and dip in to match the time you have available, scanning the appropriate list to fill your time.

It's early days, but it's working out well so far. I don't think it's any kind of revolutionary idea, but it's the most pleasing system I've found to date. I'll let you know how it goes.