The Importance of Down Time

I'm writing this on Tuesday, after finishing my accountability and progress post for the week.  I'm blogging because 1) website updates and maintenance are valid activities that need to be done, and 2) I'm realizing that I desperately need some down time today.

The aftermath of filming with the local doll shop on Monday hit me like a load of bricks.  I've filmed with them a handful of times now, and I love it, but I'm also a writer and I love my down time too.  Filming is a lot of stimulation.  I get totally caught up in it at the time, but I think it takes a while for my brain to come down from the high.  For hours afterward, I am a buzzing, overthinking, emotionally drained mess.  The overthinking is deafening.

And then I crash.

I slept hard and deep Monday night, and slept much longer than my usual.  Although I usually don't remember my dreams at all, I remembered enough when I woke up to know that I did dream, and that they were LOUD.  I felt like my dreams had been they'd been yelling at me for hours.  It was a similar feeling to how I felt after hours of my brain buzzing following filming on Monday.

And yes, even after all of this, I still love filming, and I will still do it again.  I just hope eventually I'll get used to the high and be able to manage the aftermath a little more effectively.

Today, Tuesday, I'm managing it by giving myself permission for some down time.  It is going to mess up the plans I just blogged about for the week, since I'm not getting done what I was planning to get done this afternoon, but I'll reschedule and it'll be fine.

Right now, I need a little quiet time where I can write and be in my own head while everything slows down a little, back to a manageable level.

While filming is the most dramatic example, there are other things that cause this kind of overstimulation crash for me.  Big events and intense periods of busyness also do it.  I struggle with giving myself permission for down time, as I think many of us do, but I think it's important to push back against the guilt.  Down time is something we all need.  While some people can tolerate more of it than others, we can't be running at full throttle all the time.

So if you're struggling right now, maybe scrolling social media or searching the internet while you procrastinate, this is the permission you're seeking.

It's okay to need to go at a slower pace for a little bit.  Down time is necessary and good for all of us.  If you feel guilty, remind yourself that you shouldn't feel guilty for listening to your needs.  If you really can't shake that need to be productive, you can find something that still needs to be done, but fits the criteria for "down time."

Enjoy that down time, be sure you get what you need from it, and come back feeling refreshed when it's time to work again.

Is Your To-Do List Realistic, or Wishful Thinking?

Are you a list-maker?  I'm an avid list-maker, but not really such a great list-follower.  Every evening I get my to-do list set up for the next day, and during the day, one of the first things I do is to review my list and make last-minute changes if needed.

Unfortunately, my list is always packed, and I rarely complete more than just a few things on the list, so I'm constantly rolling everything over to the next day, and the next, and the next.

Part of it is probably that my to-do lists are often more of a work of fiction than fact: They're what I would like to be able to get done the next day.  I use Google Calendar to keep track of my tasks now, since I can see them on my calendar and schedule them for when I want to work on each thing, but when I have another task scheduled every half hour, the harsh reality is that I just can't accomplish everything that fast.

I suspect I'm not alone, and a lot of writers - a lot of entrepreneurs - do the same thing.  I've heard that being late all the time is common with optimists, because you tend to optimistically underestimate how long it'll take you to do things or get places.  I think the same goes for to-do lists.  I put a bazillion things on my to-do list every day because I optimistically think (or hope) I can get it all done.

I've seen productivity experts recommend only having a max of three things on your to-do list, but for an entrepreneur that seems unrealistic, as there are always things that need doing.  Yet when I get to the end of my day, I've often accomplished only a few things on my to-do list, so maybe they are onto something after all.

I guess it's too bad Google tasks don't have a separate list for "evergreen" tasks, ones that don't have a separate due date, but still need doing at some point.  A lot of the tasks on my daily list are that kind of thing, but I don't know what else to do with them so I stick them on a day.  If I have time to tackle one or two of them, I do.

Unfortunately, this has the effect of making me feel at the end of the day like I didn't accomplish enough.  Even though I can look back on my day and see that it was busy and full, and realize that I did do some important things on my list, I am faced with all of the things I didn't do and have to roll over to the next day.  It's demoralizing to do it day after day, but like I said, I'm not sure of another way.  And my current method of using Google calendar's task feature is actually helping me stay on task better, so I don't necessarily want to change to a different system.

What kind of list-maker are you?  Are you realistic, with just a few items on your to-do list every day?  Or are you optimistic, hoping you can conquer a long list of tasks, and being disappointed every day when you can't?  How do you handle tasks without a specific due date on your to-do list?

Productivity Tip: Reframe Your To-Do List in Terms of Goals

I've been talking a lot about productivity lately and how to maintain it, and in that vein I'd like to discuss another tip for staying productive.  In my last post, about getting moving by doing something small, I mentioned that it takes finding ways to "trick" myself into being productive.  I feel like if I didn't make myself be productive, I'd probably sit here reading my book all day.  (Yes, my Kindle is open next to me right now.)  So it takes a certain amount of knowing how to trick myself in order to get anything done.

I'm always trying to find new ways to motivate myself, and I'm a big list-maker, so a year or two ago I read a book on how to write to-do lists that work.  One of the big takeaways from the book was that to-do lists work best when you write them in a way that reflects your goals.  The author recommended writing everything on your to-do list as a sentence that includes your goal at the end, which seems silly to me, but the message was valid: We are more likely to follow through when the items on our to-do list are meaningful to our larger goals.

For instance, I might have it on my to-do list that I'm going to update my website today, but that alone doesn't mean it's going to get done.  But if I reframe that to-do list item in terms of my goal - in this case, growing my business, which I want very much - I'm likely to feel more motivated to do it.

It works for client work too, and not just personal goals.  For instance, if I want to write an article for a client today, I'm more likely to do it if I'm thinking of both the benefits of doing it and the consequences of not doing it: I want to get paid sooner, have more time for other things later, and continue to grow my business, versus having to make excuses to my client or having to shuffle my bills in order to make up for the delay in pay.

Your goals don't have to be epic life goals, they just have to reframe how you're thinking about that task.  For instance, I want to clean my kitchen so that I can cook dinner and not feel like a slob.  They're not epic life goals, but they do the job of reminding me why I wanted to do that today.

Speaking of which, I'd better get going... I have some things to do.  But in the meantime, let me know in the comments: How do you make your to-do list meaningful and motivating?

Productivity Tip: Start with Something Small

I know I've mentioned before that sometimes I really struggle with my productivity.  I'm a vicious procrastinator.  For me, deadlines are targets, not last resorts, and quite often they're my main source of motivation, too.  Most writers know the power of a looming deadline to break them out of writer's block.

It's not always ideal to wait until the eleventh hour to work on something, though.  For me, working on it sooner requires a little bit of tricking myself.  Basically, I need either motivation or momentum, so when the motivation is lacking I need to find a different way to build up some momentum.

For me, a good way to get going is to start with something smaller.  Like this blog post.  Blogging is often a good "warm up" exercise for me, since it's a way to get my writing muscles going, so to speak, without jumping straight into the deep end.  (And yes, I'm blogging right now as a way to warm up to writing an article for a client.)

Another trick I often use is prioritizing my to-do list.  Lately I've been keeping my to-do list in Google Calendar, which works well for me as it puts my to-do items and my schedule all in one place.  If my day gets hijacked or I find myself having a hard time getting to work, it helps to rearrange the items on my to-do list so that I'm thinking about what's most important to do next.  Once I'm thinking about what I need to do, often it's a little easier to slip right into doing it.

The final trick that I find helps sometimes is working on something in small bites.  I've found if I tell myself, "I'll just work on it for ten minutes," I get myself moving and often even forget I was only going to do ten minutes-worth.  Or, if I know I have a lot to do and the size of the project is overwhelming me, I'll work in small chunks of time with short breaks in between.  

Of course, sometimes none of these tricks work, and when that happens, I rearrange my to-do list, try to shake off my feelings of failure, and hope the next day will be better.  I think we all have off days, and it helps nothing to be hard on yourself about it.

What tricks do you use to get yourself moving when you're struggling with your motivation?

Lessons from Do Nothing: The Down Side of Productivity

My last post talked about what productivity tools I use to keep myself from losing momentum and focus.  And it's true, I feel pretty good when I'm busy and productive, but I also forget that I need down time to recharge.

I'm already forgetting the lessons of a very interesting book called Do Nothing, which I read a couple years ago now.  It's all about how modern society makes us feel like our worth is in how productive we are at any given time, even our "down" time, and how modern an idea this actually is.

Unfortunately for me, it's not just society that makes me feel I need to be productive all the time.  It's also partly the fact that I've chosen the life of an entrepreneur, where hustling is literally how I get paid.  If I slack off, that's time I'm not getting paid for - possibly the biggest pitfall of self-employment.

The rest of being self-employed, I love.  I love that I'm up at nearly 3am writing this just because I felt like doing it.  I love that I get to sleep until late morning tomorrow, and even though I will feel a little guilty, I also know that it's primarily society's attitude toward night owls that makes me feel that way.

I also love that I can work wherever I need to.  The past few months, with my horse being sick, that's been especially helpful.  Before that, before covid, it was helpful because I could sneak work into odd pockets of time: when I was charging my car after taking my nanny kid to school, for instance.

But the productivity demands, the pressure to always be on and always be working, is definitely the most difficult thing about being self-employed.  I can always use the money, so it makes it hard to say no to any work or any chance to work.

I do try to take my rest where I can get it.  I sleep late, as I noted already.  I read every night before going to sleep, even if I'm too tired to read for very long.  I do things with friends and spend time with my horses (and I mean doing fun things, especially lately, now that my horse isn't as sick anymore).  I pursue my other hobbies, such as collecting and photographing dolls.

But it's good to remind myself sometimes that I need to slow down on occasion and give myself a little extra rest, that productivity isn't everything and it's okay to do something for fun rather than having to accomplish things all the time.

What about you?  How well do you manage the work-life balance?  If you feel like you struggle with it, or are too hard on yourself about getting things done, I highly recommend reading Do Nothing!