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Random Thursday: How Does She Do It?
I confess, it bewilders me. I occasionally post on facebook about how I'm such a slacker because I didn't complete my current to-do list, whereupon someone will take me to task for being an over-achiever. (I swear I'm not humble-bragging. It almost makes me self-conscious about posting project stuff, except I consider it important to participate in the social economy of information exchange.) So, for those who might find themselves asking, "How does she do it?" here are a few answers. These are things that work for me. I give no warranties for other people's success.
I do context-anchored multi-tasking. (I just made that term up.) I'm just as easily distracted as anyone else, so I organize my life so that the things I want to accomplish are anchored to a specific time, place, and/or accompanying activity. So, for example, I write at a particular time of day (although the specific time shifts sometimes based on other logistics) but except when I'm doing a massive editing push, I don't try to write in every waking non-work moment. I read fiction on the elliptical at the gym, which means both that I actually get some reading done at all and that I don't stay up until all hours finishing a book. The weekday-anchored blog topics are another example, and so forth for other activities. If there's a project that can be done in a single sitting, it happens on a weekend (after the writing session). If the project takes longer than that, it gets assigned a regular context that doesn't displace other things that need doing.
I front-load absolutely necessary chores. There are some things that absolutely have to get done...like getting dressed for work, or fixing meals, or packing for trips. It works best for me to get those done at the earliest rational point in the process. When I get home from work, the first thing I do is: pack the next day's gym clothes, lay out the next day's work clothes, and pack what I'm taking for breakfast and/or lunch the next day (often I'll pack multiple meals at a time in advance). If I'm packing for a trip (or a medieval event, or anything similar), I try to do it at the beginning of the week before I go whenever possible. For me, doing things at the last minute is an open door to failure and dithering.
I embrace doing things half-assed. Yeah, I hear you all laughing. But one of the reasons I can get as much done as I do is because I don't require perfection of myself. I have a regular gym workout and do the dragonboating on top of it, but it's actually a crappy workout. I don't change it up much because that would require too much mental energy. I can stick with my program precisely because I never have to think about it: MWF I do pull-ups, MWThF I do 500 cal on the elliptical, Tu I dragonboat. And while I make a valiant effort to learn technique and improve in the paddling, I have no ambitions of making the competitive team, because I can't put in the time needed to become competitive and do everything else as well. I do a lot of fun things with my yard and garden, but there's a crap-ton of weeds in my flower beds and the grass is always way too long by the time I mow it. My housekeeping is livable but far from meticulous. I don't merely avoid making the perfect the enemy of the good, I avoid making the good the enemy of the get-it-done.
I believe in beginning as you mean to go on. This ties in a bit with the multi-tasking. When I take on a project, I ramp up to a level that's sustainable over the long run, rather than diving in deeply and having to back off. That gorgeous garden that you've seen pictures of didn't happen all in one shot. I pretty much built it one bed at a time and one tree at a time. I long ago came up with a rule (sometimes honored only in the breech) that any plants I buy have to be in the ground before I go to bed the day I get them. Another yard-related limit is doing only as much work as will fill the green-recycling bin. (This is more practical than strategic since it avoids having mounds of vegetation sitting around for weeks waiting to be binned.) This approach tends to keep my ambitions to a manageable scale. When I make plans for my writing schedule, it has to be something I can do every single day--not a schedule where I'll burn out in a week because everything else is getting pushed back, and then have to stop writing for a while to get caught up. (This is why I've currently cut back on the Lesbian Historic Motif Project: it wasn't a long-term sustainable schedule given the other things I want to accomplish at the moment.)
I use tools, but don't let the tools master me. I'm very fond of computer-based life organization tools: project planners, reminder schedules, information organizers. But too often a hot new tool turns out to take more time in interaction than it saves in efficiency. I've tried out several "to do" apps and have yet to find one that actually saves me time. Instead I stumble along with a combination of calendar reminders, flagged e-mails-to self, and sometimes just plain old post-it notes. For a while I was enamored of a packing list app that could be customized not only with specific items but with modules and special-purpose lists and whatnot. I could spend ten minutes selecting modules to put together the perfect packing list for any trip or SCA event type you could imagine. I still use it on occasion, but in general I've shifted to a storage-location-based method. (If I stare at the camping equipment shelves, it's immediately apparent if I've neglected to pack something important.) I've been trying various systems to organize background information for my fiction projects: timelines, character lists, research notes. But in the end, mostly what works is to use the same basic MS Office tools I use for my day job, because even when they aren't as specially suited to the job, they take no extra thought to operate. (And I don't waste any energy worrying that I might lose access to the data with my next operating system upgrade.)
I say "no" regularly. Over the decades I've come to a pretty good understanding of my needs and limits. I know what volunteer activities I can do that work with my strengths and which ones would be ten times more work for me than they would be for a different person. I've learned that anything a person does three times in a row might as well be a hereditary commitment, and I make a point of stepping back and letting other people take over if I'm uncomfortable with that. And--with somewhat more difficulty--I've learned to recognize when I'm participating in a social activity purely on momentum and not because it's contributing to my life. (This is particularly relevant to the SCA. I pick and choose events to attend very carefully, and this year I determined that for the sake of my sanity I'd take a complete, temporary break from the SCA in favor of book-related events.)
And let's be blunt: I can get a lot of projects accomplished because, on a day to day basis (and excepting my day-job), I'm not responsible to anyone else for my time. I don't have children. I don't currently have pets. My girlfriend lives on the opposite coast. My time is my own to organize. (Even my day job has a great deal of flexibility around the edges.) Before you envy my energy, think about whether you'd trade your own situation for mine.
I do context-anchored multi-tasking. (I just made that term up.) I'm just as easily distracted as anyone else, so I organize my life so that the things I want to accomplish are anchored to a specific time, place, and/or accompanying activity. So, for example, I write at a particular time of day (although the specific time shifts sometimes based on other logistics) but except when I'm doing a massive editing push, I don't try to write in every waking non-work moment. I read fiction on the elliptical at the gym, which means both that I actually get some reading done at all and that I don't stay up until all hours finishing a book. The weekday-anchored blog topics are another example, and so forth for other activities. If there's a project that can be done in a single sitting, it happens on a weekend (after the writing session). If the project takes longer than that, it gets assigned a regular context that doesn't displace other things that need doing.
I front-load absolutely necessary chores. There are some things that absolutely have to get done...like getting dressed for work, or fixing meals, or packing for trips. It works best for me to get those done at the earliest rational point in the process. When I get home from work, the first thing I do is: pack the next day's gym clothes, lay out the next day's work clothes, and pack what I'm taking for breakfast and/or lunch the next day (often I'll pack multiple meals at a time in advance). If I'm packing for a trip (or a medieval event, or anything similar), I try to do it at the beginning of the week before I go whenever possible. For me, doing things at the last minute is an open door to failure and dithering.
I embrace doing things half-assed. Yeah, I hear you all laughing. But one of the reasons I can get as much done as I do is because I don't require perfection of myself. I have a regular gym workout and do the dragonboating on top of it, but it's actually a crappy workout. I don't change it up much because that would require too much mental energy. I can stick with my program precisely because I never have to think about it: MWF I do pull-ups, MWThF I do 500 cal on the elliptical, Tu I dragonboat. And while I make a valiant effort to learn technique and improve in the paddling, I have no ambitions of making the competitive team, because I can't put in the time needed to become competitive and do everything else as well. I do a lot of fun things with my yard and garden, but there's a crap-ton of weeds in my flower beds and the grass is always way too long by the time I mow it. My housekeeping is livable but far from meticulous. I don't merely avoid making the perfect the enemy of the good, I avoid making the good the enemy of the get-it-done.
I believe in beginning as you mean to go on. This ties in a bit with the multi-tasking. When I take on a project, I ramp up to a level that's sustainable over the long run, rather than diving in deeply and having to back off. That gorgeous garden that you've seen pictures of didn't happen all in one shot. I pretty much built it one bed at a time and one tree at a time. I long ago came up with a rule (sometimes honored only in the breech) that any plants I buy have to be in the ground before I go to bed the day I get them. Another yard-related limit is doing only as much work as will fill the green-recycling bin. (This is more practical than strategic since it avoids having mounds of vegetation sitting around for weeks waiting to be binned.) This approach tends to keep my ambitions to a manageable scale. When I make plans for my writing schedule, it has to be something I can do every single day--not a schedule where I'll burn out in a week because everything else is getting pushed back, and then have to stop writing for a while to get caught up. (This is why I've currently cut back on the Lesbian Historic Motif Project: it wasn't a long-term sustainable schedule given the other things I want to accomplish at the moment.)
I use tools, but don't let the tools master me. I'm very fond of computer-based life organization tools: project planners, reminder schedules, information organizers. But too often a hot new tool turns out to take more time in interaction than it saves in efficiency. I've tried out several "to do" apps and have yet to find one that actually saves me time. Instead I stumble along with a combination of calendar reminders, flagged e-mails-to self, and sometimes just plain old post-it notes. For a while I was enamored of a packing list app that could be customized not only with specific items but with modules and special-purpose lists and whatnot. I could spend ten minutes selecting modules to put together the perfect packing list for any trip or SCA event type you could imagine. I still use it on occasion, but in general I've shifted to a storage-location-based method. (If I stare at the camping equipment shelves, it's immediately apparent if I've neglected to pack something important.) I've been trying various systems to organize background information for my fiction projects: timelines, character lists, research notes. But in the end, mostly what works is to use the same basic MS Office tools I use for my day job, because even when they aren't as specially suited to the job, they take no extra thought to operate. (And I don't waste any energy worrying that I might lose access to the data with my next operating system upgrade.)
I say "no" regularly. Over the decades I've come to a pretty good understanding of my needs and limits. I know what volunteer activities I can do that work with my strengths and which ones would be ten times more work for me than they would be for a different person. I've learned that anything a person does three times in a row might as well be a hereditary commitment, and I make a point of stepping back and letting other people take over if I'm uncomfortable with that. And--with somewhat more difficulty--I've learned to recognize when I'm participating in a social activity purely on momentum and not because it's contributing to my life. (This is particularly relevant to the SCA. I pick and choose events to attend very carefully, and this year I determined that for the sake of my sanity I'd take a complete, temporary break from the SCA in favor of book-related events.)
And let's be blunt: I can get a lot of projects accomplished because, on a day to day basis (and excepting my day-job), I'm not responsible to anyone else for my time. I don't have children. I don't currently have pets. My girlfriend lives on the opposite coast. My time is my own to organize. (Even my day job has a great deal of flexibility around the edges.) Before you envy my energy, think about whether you'd trade your own situation for mine.
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What's your process for creating a well-researched SCA art project? Do you write up timelines and project plans? How long do you spend on research and testing phase? Do you do project books?
Do you do something else entirely?
Inquiring minds...
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So let's just say that I've found that habit and routine are the way I get things done. I will break the routine fairly frequently, in fact, if I feel my health/sanity require, but the breaking is a deliberate choice. The idea is for the default state to be following my routine. I've found that the mental energy required to actively choose to do something is a barrier (and tiring). But if I convince myself that the default state is to do the activity, then it's more work to decide not to do it than to do it.
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It's possible that teaching four days a week is just a huge commitment to other people, and I'd respond differently with a different day job.
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