Productivity – Harrison Hansford

You can’t always work at 100%

At placement months ago we were talking about fatigue and managing fatigue as a clinician and our supervisor said there are days we all have where we simply just aren’t all there. Whatever reason it is, be it lack of sleep, personal issues or just feeling a bit off, these days are inevitable.

No matter how well we schedule our lives or how productive our habits are, we all have days where we feel bad. Our supersivor said it’s important to permit yourself to give 70% some days, because that means you’re able to recover and get back to giving 100% quicker.

Today is one of those days for me, I’m just feeling a bit all over the place today and rather than beat my head against a wall trying to get stuff done, I’m just going to chill out and recharge for tomorrow. These days are important and shouldn’t be a source of angst or produce a feeling of failure

Do we really need deadlines?

At the end of a brutal interval running session I was thinking, “I should set myself some deadlines for getting X done.” I thought to myself, why, if doing X is something I enjoy, should I set myself a deadline if there is no external reason it needs to be done at a certain time. This whole idea goes against my whole notion of productivity and I thought I’d challenge myself to write a blog post essentially playing the devils advocate against myself.

There are a few assumptions I’m going to spell out first, I’m assuming that the task you’re doing is not an assignment or any other task which is ‘due’ at a certain date. This automatically disqualifies a lot of scenarios, this post is about work we tell ourselves we ‘want’ to be doing. If we want to do something, it should get done in our free time, it should be something we enjoy doing, therefore, doesn’t need a deadline.

What does having a deadline do to something we enjoy? First of all, I think deadlines create pressure on ourselves, which can be a very good thing, challenging us to get things done more efficiently, so we have more time to do other things we enjoy blah blah blah, you’ve heard the spiel a thousand times. Deadlines create pressure which can turn things we genuinely enjoy, into tasks we have to do and I’ve never met anyone who loves to HAVE to do something. Furthermore, if it is a creative task we are doing, deadlines create a very end-product focussed lens at which colours the way we see our work. Anything that we enjoy doing, creative or otherwise, should be enjoyed for the love of undertaking the task, not completing it. The endpoint is not the goal, the endpoint is merely a consequence of the goal, enjoy doing the task. Simply having a deadline inevitably makes the endpoint the goal.

Deadlines can mean ironically nothing gets finished. Many times I’m sure we’ve all not done something because it wasn’t quite right in the end and we weren’t happy with it, or that we didn’t think we would be able to produce something perfect, so we produce nothing at all. This is so common, especially when we are attempting new things, we must learn by trial and error. Our first 100 of anything will be bad, it is only after that we begin to get good at whatever it is we’re doing. This is precisely the reason why I’ve challenged myself to post a blog every day, because it forces me to get the first 100 out of the way without trying to make each post perfect. It’s an unreasonable expectation to be able to produce something perfect without practicing. Imagine you’re in a pottery class and there are two groups of people, one group who get told they have a month to work on one pot, and they can spend as much time as they want on it, the other group is forced to make many pots, at least a pot each day, who do you think will produce a better pot in the end? I know I would learn so much by making many many pots, much more than if I were to make one ‘perfect’ pot. The same applies to any skill, by setting deadlines, you create the internal expectation that something needs to be perfected by a certain time, lending itself to group one, spending a lot of time on one pot, not learning through trial and error.

So what is the solution? I believe rather than setting deadlines, you should simply set time goals for doing the thing. This shouldn’t be too much of a shift, rather than saying, “I want to have written an essay on X in 2 weeks time”, tell yourself you want to spend 20mins writing, every day. You can always spend more time if you’re in the zone, but 20 minutes is something we can all find somewhere in our days.

Writing this was an interesting experience and I’m sure that reading this back you can see me convincing myself that this was the right way to be, and I came out with a conclusion of what I actually do, even though at the start I thought this was going against my beliefs. It is interesting to pick a counterpoint to a belief or set of beliefs you hold closely and try to fight for it, it solidifies your understanding of where you really stand on the view. Give it a try, I really enjoyed doing it.

My New Morning Routine

After several months of having little control over my time, I have decided to make the most of not being at work full time. I thought long and hard how I wanted to start my day, and came up with: twenty minutes of meditation just after I wake up, forty minutes of reading and thirty minutes of writing. This takes an hour and a half and I think I could fit it in even when I start honours and am going into ‘work’ five days a week. So why was this the schedule I came up with?

Twenty minutes of meditation (6 am)

I have liked the idea of making a habit of meditating for almost a year now but I thought deep down that it was a waste of time, because you aren’t ‘doing’ or achieving anything by doing it. I’m not sure when the switch flicked but once I finished placement I meditated for an hour every day for a week. I soon realised that this was a very long time to meditate and I simply couldn’t stop myself getting distracted during it. I cut the time back to twenty minutes and have done that every day for the two weeks since. I’ve really enjoyed meditating, I am using Sam Harris’ ‘Waking Up’ app, which is pretty pricey but undoubtedly worth it. I was always resistant to the idea of meditating because of the religious and spiritual connotations but Sam walks you through it very agnostically and this really had me hooked.

Forty minutes of reading (6:20 am)

I love reading and I read every night before going to bed. Reading at night is very different to reading at any other point in the day. It is meant to relax you, give your mind a rest and ultimately put you to sleep. I’ve often been so excited by what I’m reading that I struggle to go to bed, defeating the purpose of reading in the first place! I decided to read in the morning because there is so much I want to read and my current 30minutes isn’t letting me read as much as i’d like. Reading in the morning also has the benefit that it doesn’t have to be strictly ‘enjoyable’ and can involve journal articles and other more didactic works. I’ve decided it might be a good idea to have, every week or fortnight, a new topic to read up on and familiarise myself. By doing this, in theory I’ll be well versed in at least 26 different topics by the end of the year, which sounds ridiculous, but is actually very achievable. I’m not too sure what these topics will be just yet, but I’m going to start planning this the week before (ie. now) and then every Sunday, review what I learned in a blog post; consolidating my newly attained knowledge.

Thirty minutes of writing (7am)

Writing is something I’ve enjoyed doing throughout the later years of high school and university although it was my least favourite thing to do prior to year 10. I was convinced I simply couldn’t write creatively and I hated it, until a teacher convinced me I could make myself a better writer. That is exactly what I did and my year 12 creative writing piece was then used as an example for other classes. Throughout university I fell out of practice and my essays were always okay and would get good marks but they were never amazing. I noticed probably a year ago when studying for the GAMSAT that my punctuation was absolutely shocking and this made me realise that I need to start some deliberate practice. I remember sitting down for the first time to write a blog post and had the classic writers block and couldn’t think to write anything. I had this several times in the first week of writing every day but since pushing through that, I’ve had no issues writing; a testament to the idea from Seth Godin that practice is what breeds creativity, not the other way round. So i’ve decided to practice every day and see what comes of it, if nothing else I’ll improve my writing.

This is a routine that will definitely change overtime, especially once I go back to university full time, but one of my goals for 2020 is to keep time reserved for doing what I want, even when I’m most busy; these are the things I want to continue doing.

Overcommitting isn’t getting out of your comfort zone

As always when approaching the end of the year, I’ve had the rumblings of my goals for the new year building up inside my head. I was riding my bike this afternoon and thought “how can I challenge myself next year” and my mind immediately jumped to “how many research projects can I help out with” but I quickly knew that was not going to help me grow. It may help my publication count grow, but it won’t help me to grow as a person. This year there were periods where I probably overcommitted myself and wasn’t able to do everything as well as I would like. Whilst this did challenge my ability to organise my time efficiently, beyond that it didn’t help me much, other than surviving and getting what I needed to done. Next year I really want to be continuously challenging myself to be out of my comfort zone, because then no matter if I pass or fail (metaphorically), I will always be growing as a person.

Growing comes when you initially think “I can’t do that” or “I shouldn’t do that,” but you don’t listen to that incessant voice inside your head, and do it anyway. That voice is the voice of self-consciousness, or self-doubt, two things which will do nothing but hold you back. These can be very powerful voices, and we often cede defeat to them, but true growth comes when we ignore them and push on.

The reason I’m so keen on growth at the moment is because there is nothing else I need more. I’m lucky enough to have savings so I don’t acutely need money and I don’t really need to focus on my career or keeping my job. The long term gains from pushing myself out of my comfort zone will reveal themselves as career gains, and gains in long term ability and happiness.

I feel lucky to have realised this quite early on, before I have too many sunk costs to my name, ie. a long term career, kids, a mortgage etc. I’m still able to be flexible and risk a lot, for a lot of gains until I find something I really enjoy doing and am passionate about. I don’t think I’ve found that yet, but the next year is about putting myself in a position for it to reveal itself to me.

The Yearly Review

I’ve talked previously about the power of the weekly review, looking back at your week and seeing how it was. Today I did my yearly review, looking back on my goals for the year and grading myself on how I went. I would also reflect on the goals and justify to myself the grade I got. This was a really enjoyable experience. I blocked out 2 hours in my afternoon and just reflected on my year.

I realised that I actually have had a great year, I have grown so much as a person, which is one of my biggest indicators of success. I also realised what the gaps in my focus have been.

The reason I think that everyone should be doing this or something similar is that it allows you to realise what you have achieved or haven’t achieved. This can be lost in the moment when you’re only reflecting day to day or even week to week. I believe that examining your life is crucial to being successful and growing as a person.

Four steps to slash your social media usage

A while ago I found myself getting sucked into the vortex of the news feed on facebook way too often, wasting countless hours on it. You know how you just go to check one thing, and 3 hours later you’re watching Gordon Ramsay say “you’re an idiot sandwich,” that kind of vortex.

I’m a firm believer that to change something you have to know what you’re actually doing first; kind of like a before and after assessment. So I downloaded a Chrome extension called ‘Webtime tracker‘, which simply measured the amount of time I spent on different websites. Feeling accomplished at having downloaded this I forgot about my resolve to escape the clutches of social media for a few weeks. I later looked back on the stats and I was spending something like 12 hours a week on Facebook alone.

This was when I was just beginning to make the most of my time being ‘productive.’ 12 hours seems like a very long time but if you were to track your usage I’m sure it would surprise you as well. This was step number one, tracking my usage. This shocked me but I knew I didn’t have the strength to just stop the reflex of typing f when I opened Chrome and facebook.com autofilling. I then found another extension on Chrome called ‘Block site‘ which enables you to block any website on Chrome, so that what I did. I blocked Facebook, but I only blocked it between 8am and 6pm so when I was meant to be studying it was harder to access facebook. Sounds great right?

There was one major flaw in this extension, it had the option to put in a password to unblock the website. I didn’t want this to become another thing I did reflexively so I made the password “stopdontuseme” thinking the length and message would stop me. This worked for the first week but I ended up getting so quick at putting that password in the Block site didn’t end up working. I had to make it even harder for myself.

The next step was to, rather than just have a page with a password come up, I chose to redirect the page to something else, something productive (like my ‘write’ page on my blog). This was the final step which worked, in order to access Facebook I had to go into the extension, put the password in, then go in and unblock Facebook. This was enough barriers to stop me accessing it. Now, in the past 90 days I’ve been on Facebook for a total of 2 hours!

Now, you must be thinking, “what about your phone?” Well, I overcame that hurdle as well. I simply deleted the app. “But what about messenger? How am I going to talk to people?” Luckily, on Mac you can download the messenger app and have it on your desktop so you don’t need to go through Facebook.

Now, the most common reason I used to tell myself I need to access Facebook; “my work uses it to communicate.” This one is simple, just check it every now and again on a browser on your phone, this may sound like it defeats the purpose but I’ve found I’ve cracked the addiction of it, meaning I am able to just check the news from work and be done.

Now, I’m not saying this is easy, it’s probably taken me 2 years to do this but I’ve essentially created more hours in my day to spend on what I really want to be doing.

In summary, to help with reducing your social media usage (or any behaviour change for that matter) you want to:

Identify and quantify the problem (track your usage)
Increase barriers to usage (block the website and delete the app)
Further increase barriers if needed (redirect the blocked website)
Break the habit and choose when you WANT to use it, not doing so reflexively.

I hope that my experience helps you reclaim your time, stopping you getting sucked into the vortex of Facebook, Youtube or Instagram (when you don’t want to go down it).

Days off

I vowed to take my Saturday off studying, I had just submitted my final assignment and ostensibly had nothing to do. I was going to chill out and just take the day off. That was great until I couldn’t help but jump back on R to do some more coding for my manuscript which we’re planning on publishing soon.

It wasn’t because I was bored, I just couldn’t help myself. I realised I had nothing else to fill the void. I realised I didn’t have any hobbies. Being me, I sat down on Sunday and tried to brainstorm what hobbies I should have, which obviously is ridiculous.

I realised I haven’t put any time aside for myself to think and enjoy myself. I need to do more of that, or do less of everything else and have some blank time, not filling every minute with tasks. No conclusion other than my own realisation that there can be such a thing as too much ‘productivity’, which when your task ends, leaves you feeling pretty empty.

Seek Setbacks

I recently read Richard Koch’s Unreasonable Success: and how to achieve it which was an okay read, a little preachy at times but there were a few key ideas I took away, one of them being to seek out setbacks.

A setback is often our worst fear in life. It is usually a reason we don’t try new things, put our hand up in class or go out on a limb. Koch argues that setbacks are crucial to being successful, as long as you learn from our mistakes. Picture this, we’re working incredibly hard on a project for a year, convinced it’s going to be a great success, but when it comes to presentation day, it’s a flop. Most see this as the end of the world, becoming embarrassed and upset. This might just be the best scenario possible.

A common proposition is that we shouldn’t view setbacks as the end, rather a redirection. Setbacks give us an idea of what doesn’t work, it may be that our great idea really wasn’t that great and we should pivot on a new path, which may eventually lead to our truly great idea.

Another reason Koch argues setbacks can make us great is that they can validate unconventional views. “If you follow the heard, you are unremarkable. If you are controversial, you are noticed.” This was a great line and validates why setbacks are crucial. If we don’t stick out foot out and take a risk, we will never fail. Similarly, if we dont stick our foot out, we will never be great.

Furthermore, the simple act of repeated setbacks builds resilience, it makes us more likely to take bigger risks in the future. With bigger risks come bigger rewards, and eventually, with enough persistence, you will break through.

It may be controversial but I don’t see constant success as a good thing. I feel as though if we continue from strength to strength we aren’t taking enough risks, therefore, may not be reaching our potential. I have repeatedly said on here that I don’t take enough risks, I know this because I haven’t had many failures, and I want them.

Don’t commit, value your time

Have you ever committed to an event, meeting or agreed to do anything in advance, and regretted it? I know I have.

I heard a story of Warren Buffett showing Bill Gates his diary in an effort to impart some knowledge on how he organises his time. You would expect the diary of one of the richest men on earth to be packed to the brim. It was empty; with only a few engagements in the following months.

When I heard this it didn’t initially resonate with me. I thought, “but I’ve got to do all these meetings and have all these things on so that’s impossible for me,” dismissing it. That was until today when I was thinking about my honours year, planning on committing myself to all these different projects well in advance. I realised this was the exact trap Buffett was talking about when he passed Gates his calendar. By committing to anything in advance you’re assuming that what is important right now will continue to be important then. I know that what’s important in the morning will be different to that afternoon, so why do I expect that things will have the same importance in the coming weeks and months?

It is impossible to know what you will want to do in the future or what opportunities may be presented to you. This is why it’s important to keep your options open, so you can embrace new opportunities as they present themselves, rather than regretting committing to yet another meeting.

Spend your time where it matters

I’ve begun setting aside an hour every morning I’m not up early for work or placement working on the things that are important to me. I started doing this a week ago because I realised that I was just getting overwhelmed with my work for uni and wasn’t spending any time doing what I actually want to do. I set aside the first hour of the morning, before I start the urgent work which is my university study.

This concept came to me in one of Ali Abdaal’s email newsletters where he discussed this matrix.

It is so easy to get swept up in your ‘urgent work’ which seems to be ever expanding, I didn’t like that. The beauty of the urgent work is that it always gets done, as anyone who has done an assignment last minute knows.

This impelled me to sit down and figure out my “important, not urgent” tasks and start doing them at the start of every day. This is when I decided to write 50 blogs in 50 days, because writing is an area I want to improve in, and all that takes is practice. I do this every day I’m not at placement because sleep one of my highest priorities, and not worth compromising.

I feel it is so important that I spend my time where I truly want to and this was another way to do this.