Podcast Episode 43: A COVID Year Introspection
It's been a year since most of us entered isolation. What have you been doing with your time?
6 Favorite Ways to Jump Start A Task
Sometimes it is hard to get going. Like a battery left too long inactive in the cold, we can't get started on what we need to do.Here are my six favorite ways to jump start a task:
The Basics of Time Blocking
Time blocking is a great way to get things done. But it doesn't mean putting all of your tasks on your calendar. Want to make me cringe? Tell me you put all of your tasks on your calendar so that you have time set aside to do them.No. No. Just no. Today we'll talk about how to do effective time blocking.
Procrastinating Is Different Than Incubating
Sometimes ideas need time to incubate. We may need to work out details, methods, or even the feasibility of the idea itself. To the outside person, this can look like procrastination. But in fact, incubation and procrastination are very different. How are they different? Here are five ways that procrastinating is different than incubating.
Building Margin Into Your Life
Do you ever have a stretch of time where you are so busy it feels like you can't even pause to catch your breath? If so, you need to look at building margin into your life. Such a pace is impossible to maintain in the long run, and can lead us to both burnout and poor performance on the tasks we are trying to get done. I can get frantically busy. These days it is generally only for a day or two at a time, but there have been times when that busyness stretched into weeks. It's so busy that you don't even have time to consider what you need to do next. You just pick up the next thing and keep going. Sometimes these stretches are caused by over-scheduling, or an inability to say no, or forgetting that I can ask for help; but they all…
Getting Back Time: Empowering Independence
One of the things that can suck up a lot of our time is doing things for others. This is particularly apparent if you have kids that still live at home. If you can empower others' independence, you can get a lot of time back for yourself. Through various family circumstances I was placed in charge of running a household at the age of 14. While I would never wish my particular circumstances on anyone else, the sense of being independent - and more competent than my peers at "adulting" - never left me. I have tried to give my daughter the same competency, although with a guiding hand rather than the sink-or-swim method I experienced. Yes, she started young, but her knowledge gives her independence and responsibility - and gives me time.
Beating “I Don’t Have Time”
Productivity is a mental game as much as it is about doing things. One of the limiting beliefs I hear people tell themselves over and over is, "I don't have time." I used to be a chronic "I don't have time" person, but I have found that I actually do have time to do more things than I thought possible. Today we'll look at how I use those chunks of time to get more done.
Deliberate Social Media
Many people that I talk with are surprised to know that outside of the blog, I don’t use Facebook or Twitter. Some react with disdain (“How can you possibly know what’s going on?”) or frustration (“How can I reach you if you don’t read Facebook?”). It’s a deliberate choice, and the result of a long journey. I’ve had a rough journey in popular culture over the past few years. First I decided not to read/watch/listen to news. I made this decision after realizing I was angry every morning when I got to work - a direct result of listening to the news. Then, during my year of insanity teaching high school, I took a social media sabbatical because the principal monitored our personal feeds and reprimanded teachers if they wrote something he deemed inappropriate. While I resented this at the time, it gave me a break from…
