productivity – Turtleduck Press

Posts tagged "productivity"

Why Does My Brain Hate Productivity?

Howdy, friends! How’s the new year treating you? We’re supposed to have a massive snowstorm starting tonight, so that’s fun, she said sarcastically. I think I told you guys this at some point, but at the end of 2021 I sat down with myself and had a heart to heart about what I was doing with my life, and I came out of that knowing that a lot of the things I’ve been working on for the last decade have been to either avoid or to justify a story I’ve been working on for literally ever. (Decades.) Because it’s scary, to put something you’ve put a lot of time and heart into, in case it fails. Because sometimes it’s hard to separate what you create from yourself, and if something you worked really hard on does badly, you can take it as a reflection of yourself. Anyway. I have, traditionally, set many different goals, normally on a monthly basis. Writing goals, drawing goals, reading goals, video game goals, workout goals. We’re talking, like, twenty goals per month. But what I’ve found, recently, is that I do these other goals instead of working on the above story, because hey, I’m being productive still! But I’m also still avoiding the main thing for the same reasons. So, for January 2023, I set just a single goal: work on my revision. Surely putting all my focus onto my main goal would make me do it, right? Well. I mean, I am working on…

Too Many Projects, Not Enough Time

I feel like I say this at least once a year. But I’ve done it again. Except it’s worse this time, because my COVID productivity has been terrible and I’ve spent a lot of time not doing anything productive (mostly playing Among Us, coloring on a phone app, and watching a LOT of YouTube videos–but not useful YouTube videos). So my productivity time has been stifled AND I’m trying to get my too many projects done. Great combination, she says sarcastically. We’ve been super busy this summer, camping and road-tripping and the like, which admittedly is not helping the productivity problem, but now things are somewhat settling down. Which means that it’s time to do random sewing crafts with the small-ish, mobile ones. I think this comes from a vague idea that, before offspring, I liked to sew, and that I should pass the knowledge on and whatnot, but in practice I do all the sewing and generally get grumpy at every one else for being absolutely no help. So then we don’t do any more sewing projects, until I get the whole passing things on idea going again approximately 12 months later. (The past couple of years we made worry pets and small owls that can be heated up in the microwave.) This year we’re going to make reversible cross-back aprons. Well, just me and the littlest one, cuz the rest aren’t interested. Certainly bigger scale than normal, but hopefully not more complicated. However, we went to buy fabric…

Productivity! Or Not

Sorry I didn’t post this yesterday! I blame blood loss. (I gave blood, don’t panic.) They say that people who have more to do are more likely to get things done–the idea being that you expand your activities to the time available to you. If you only have one thing to do all day, you will do that one thing at the very last minute, and if you have 16 things to do, you will probably only get 10 done, but you’ll still have done 10 things. Something. I don’t know. I try to fill my days up with lots to do and it does work to some extent, but I find that it tends to be a few smaller things and maybe one bigger thing, and then, recently, the rest of my time has been taken up by Discord trivia. (There is Drama is the trivia world, which is ridiculous, but it goes to show that everything will eventually include drama.) Anyway, the drama is over, for the most part, but now I’m used to the trivia and whenever some starts a game, there I am. (I’m ranked 16th so far today, which is especially bad because I said I was going to stay off Discord this morning. And then didn’t.) Anyway, it’s a bit infuriating, because I’m not really making progress on more than one thing at a time. I had a word picked out for this year–Polish–where I was going to finish things I’d been working on…

Diving into the world of planners

It’s happened. I’ve been hit by the planner bug. For the past three years or so, my mom has always given me a simple planner for Christmas. I use it to track appointments and my daily to-do lists. I use it as a modified bullet journal, except without the bullets. But the idea is the same. I list what I’d like to accomplish and mark them off when I do. If I don’t, those tasks move to the next day. I also track wordcounts as well. And I do love that planner. It’s simple, easy, and I can jot stuff down and get to work. All three have been Bloom Planners, so I never have to figure out a new way to do things. However, a few days after Christmas, my mom told me that she’s actually bought me a different planner. Unfortunately, there was an issue with it closing once in a while, so she decided to not give it to me. She showed it to me anyway, and said I could still have it if I wanted it. And it’s a bit different than the Bloom Planner. So I thought about stuff for a bit and came up with the idea to use it as a Tracker. I had a bunch of things I wanted to track: wordcounts (yeah, I know it’s a duplicate, but I liked the idea of having them there, too) bedtimes (because I am still working on my schedule), food (because I am dieting…

Summer, Alas

Hi, friends! Here we are, in July, and I find myself yearning for late August, at the very earliest. I am not someone who deals well with being hot. My ancestors hail from the frigid north, and, as they say, you can add layers if you’re cold, but eventually you run out of things you can take off. And aside from the heat, there’s the light. I don’t mind being able to go out late, but the birds don’t get the memo that 4:30 in the morning is not an appropriate time to sing. And the smaller members of the family are out of school. Which means either they’re around and need looking after, or they need to be taken places and supervised. I’m getting very little done. I mean, I am getting a little done, but I’ve had to resort to getting up early to try and get stuff done, which only works sometimes, depending on whether or not people can sleep through the sun and the birds. Oh well, it is what it is. And I guess its not all bad. Though we did overbook ourselves on activities, but it should clear up in the next week, and then maybe we can actually relax and enjoy the season. And maybe I’ll be able to get more done. How’s your summer? Are you more of a heat or cold person yourself?

Chasing Productivity

Life is much easier if you plan ahead, I’ve discovered on any number of occasions. I’m trying to do it more consistently, so I did make a plan for this blog post. My idea was to blog about an app, Productivity Challenge Timer. I’ve had it on my phone for–probably years? I’d never used it. For one, I was amused by my title of “Unrepentant Slacker” when I opened it. For two, I didn’t know how to use it. For three, I didn’t want to get yelled at by a big guy with a hammer. On Saturday, though, I went looking for a Pomodoro timer bc my phone timer is loud and I can’t change the sound to something less jarring. Since some of the stuff I need to time requires me to move around, online ones just aren’t as useful as I’d like. So I bounced around a bit looking at reviews, searched “productivity” in the Play Store, and wandered across “already installed!” Oh. Right. That thing. While I love to find new useful things (and imagine that FINALLY I have found the magic spell to Fix All!), I also dislike putting apps on my phone. I don’t want it to be so full it doesn’t work well, and I begrudge granting one more set of permissions because lork knows who’ll be looking at my stuff next…and I needed to figure something out and get to work, before I spent the whole day looking at productivity apps and then…

Real Life Strikes Back (Again)

Two months ago I told you about my annual writing retreat and how it felt. I also shared some strategies that I was working on to keep that retreat feeling going… set up a room in my house that has NO clutter and is used for nothing but writing, reading, and other Internet-free pursuits (not a pipe dream, I’m actually working on this one) set up a writing schedule (I had one, once upon a time) — not for product, but for time spent on the process Predictably, Real Life struck as soon as I got back. Strategy number one still needs work (I am pecking away at the clutter, one itsy-bitsy step at a time) but I’ve made some progress on strategy number two. I signed up for National Novel Writing Month as a “NaNo Rebel” — doing the challenge on my own terms. Like Kit, I set a time goal for myself. My goal was 25 hours. I made it to 9. Not exactly great. But also, not bad. It got me writing for solid chunks of time again, and pushed me to do more than I would have otherwise — not a lot more, but small gains are more sustainable anyway, right? I worked a bit on the novel that Kit and I are writing, but spent most of the time wrestling with an edit of the short story that I pounded out in less than a week during the retreat. (Okay, that was first-drafting vs. editing.…

Revisiting Voice Recognition

As I prepare for Ever Touched’s release and what comes after (hint: a lot!), I’m pondering using voice recognition software to write again. (Some of Ever Touched was written using Dragon Naturally Speaking when I found myself with a severe tendonitis flare up and no time to take off.) I’m no stranger to Dragon. I started using it back in 2003 (version 6) when I thought I had carpal tunnel syndrome. Ergonomics wasn’t much of a thing back then; I wrote until my wrists damn near fell off. Oops? And it worked well — after I got past the whole “talk to write” idea and got into a groove. My intention was to do it all the time, but between the bulky headset that gave me headaches and a longing to just type, I ended up quitting, only using it when absolutely necessary. Which is fine…if I didn’t want to get more books out there which means faster drafting. Fast drafting (say, more than 1,000 words a day) is impossible due to my wrists. I barely finished my amended Nano goal in 2015 (30k) because typing 1,000 words a day for 30 days was hurting me (it’s cumulative). (For the curious: I didn’t have carpal tunnel, just severe tendonitis that could turn into carpal tunnel. It was a wake up call. And I’m up to Dragon version 13 now. Every version gets better. They claim now it is something like 96% accurate without training.) I’ve despaired forever over this. And I…

The Smallest of All Steps

Happy New Year, friends! I think the world in general has had quite enough of 2016. Here’s hoping for better things in 2017. On a personal writerly level, I had a very mixed year. I released my first published novel (co-authored with Kit), which was amazing, and then dove into a months-long promotional campaign for it, which was interesting and educational and sometimes fun, but not so amazing. (Except the two book launches. Those were pretty neat.) One of my co-workers at the day job bought my book recently, and today she walked past and waved it at me with a bookmark in it. That was also pretty neat. But the promo campaign has been over for months, and I’ve written almost nothing since. You may or may not be a writer, but I’m sure you know this about habits: if you let them drop, the longer you’ve been away from them, the harder it is to pick them up again. They start to feel big and scary and insurmountable. I’ve fallen into that trap before. For months. And writer who are not writing? Not the most pleasant people to be around, let me tell you. For starters, they tend to mope around and complain of existential angst, while their family members (and sometimes, the writers themselves) wonder why they can’t be content with normal diversions and enjoyable things like regular people, or alternatively, how it can be so hard to make stuff up with one’s brain. *ahem* But 2017…

Standard Operating Procedure

I’m office manager at a school for children with autism. That title may be a little misleading, as I don’t really manage the office. I am the office. Just me, little old me, and the director, who couldn’t find a pen if it was in his pocket (it usually is, and it’s usually not his) and who generally has about seventeen things going at once, none of which in any way involves following those pesky ~rules~ set up by HR or Payroll or Accounts Payable.† With any school, it’s important that no matter who is sick or absent or distracted, things keep going. When you’re talking about a school for kids on the spectrum, it becomes a bit more imperative. Breaks in routine are Not. Good. So recently when the boss was telling someone how I’m awesome, that I’m office manager, receptionist, nurse, occasional janitor, sometime maintenance tech, and all the while somehow manage to keep him mostly in line so HR doesn’t come hunting him with torches, and that without me the whole school would fall down–I appreciated it, but I also decided it should not all depend on me. I’m human. I get sick. And sometimes I need a vacation. So I started collecting my checklists and notes on how things work into a Standard Operating Procedure Manual. Kind of like this except not so formal. So if I ever needed to, you know, not go to work, the entire school wouldn’t fall down while I lolled around in…

Tag: productivity