There was a spectacular moment today, where I felt like I was “in the zone.” I thought it was worth a mention.<\/p>\n
Not sure if this is really a productivity thing, but I’m definitely getting used to my gmail labels, and my jott.com. Invoicing still isn’t something I look forward to, but at least the resistance level is now so low, that when I’m doing it I feel like the check is actually around the corner. Instead of struggling to get myself to sit down and get it done.<\/p>\n
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I now take to my gmail to manage, well, my life, essentially. I didn’t realize I was even doing that before, but since I’ve added the pseudo-organizational labels, I have found my searching and combing through past mail far easier. Especially my now-key “ToBill” label, which gets me billing on the 1st & 15th of each month.<\/p>\n
I think the real key to productivity isn’t labels or todo lists – those are only tools, and they won’t work for everybody. The key is to think about yourself, and how you can trick yourself into accidentally doing more work at the right time. For me, if I’m actually reading my mail, it helps a lot to throw it into a few bins for later. I used to only do that if I found myself searching for the same email over and over. Now I capture it there and then, and I have it immediately that next time. And I was already living in GMail, so the labels were a tool that I could add without adding much complexity.<\/p>\n
Productivity means different things to different people. My mom, as an example, is a person who can (and with regularity, will) do the next steps on 100 things in a day, but if a real project-sized monster doesn’t get done, she will never feel like she did something. So the key, for her, is to open the time to tackle the next steps on one project – nix the multitasking. Then she can do those 100 steps, and finish<\/em> something. Same output, but to her, it will feel like more. It’s not necessary for her to finish something every day, but strategic completion planning<\/em> is very important.<\/p>\n I get that same feeling from putting the invoices in the mail. Something is done<\/em> now, so I can go back to my programming and blogging for a while. Feels good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There was a spectacular moment today, where I felt like I was “in the zone.” I thought it was worth a mention. Not sure if this is really a productivity thing, but I’m definitely getting used to my gmail labels, … Continue reading