Tag Archives: productive

Working On Being More Efficient (or Learning Not To Do Everything Myself)

Posted on November 1, 2022 | Comments Off on Working On Being More Efficient (or Learning Not To Do Everything Myself)

Happy November! It’s so crazy that we are almost at the end of this year, but as always the months are flying by! I feel like October was even faster than most months, but I think I say that every month. But this time, I felt like the month was just getting started as the month ended. But even though the month felt like it went by too fast, I still made an effort to get as much as I could with my monthly challenge.

I challenged myself in October to get out of the rut that I’ve been in and to try to say yes to doing more stuff. I did try to say yes to things that fit into my schedule. I couldn’t say yes to everything because I had plans or other things I had to get done, but I tried. I hung out with friends when I could, but it wasn’t as often as I would like. I said yes to dates even if I wasn’t totally sure about the guy (I never agreed to a date if I felt like it would be unsafe, but if I felt like I would be safe I gave guys a chance). When I saw things come into my inbox, I tried to see if I could make plans to do something. It wasn’t as successful as I would have liked it to be, but I think that was because I was dependent on other people inviting me to things and I didn’t do enough outreach on my own.

I’m hoping to be a bit better about reaching out to friends to go do things moving forward. I do know how important it is to continue to try to be social because it’s so easy to not do that. And just considering going to my workouts isn’t enough to really have a social life. For a while, that was all I did and I know I need to do more than that. So I hope that I can continue to work on making plans and not just be lazy every day after work or spend the weekends recovering from my week.

For this month, my challenge might be more related to my work than anything else but I also might find ways to incorporate it into my regular life. I want to find more ways to be more efficient in my work and to be ok with asking for help more often. I have realized with some recent work tasks that there are things that I didn’t have to spend as much time doing if I had asked someone if there was a better way to do them. I haven’t had a lot of tasks I couldn’t do, but there’s no need for me to spend days working on something if someone else can help me do them in minutes or hours.

A good example is how we tag our clients in our database. I was working on updating and adding specific tags which were taking me a lot of time. It wasn’t something that was difficult, but it was time-consuming. Someone mentioned that there might be a way to do mass tagging in our system, so I set up a meeting to talk to a member of the executive team to ask about it and they were able to get all the work done for me in minutes. I also learned how to do what they were doing, but there were some tasks that they needed to do since I don’t have full editing permissions in our database. But it was so great to see something that I was expecting to work on all week be done in a single meeting.

A lot of the work I’ve been doing lately are things that take up time and are very repetitive. And I know that for some of this work, there isn’t a shortcut or easier way to do them. They just have to be done one at a time and there’s no way around that. But it never hurts to ask if there is a better way even if I feel sure that there isn’t because I might be surprised. So I want to focus this month on asking for this type of help so I can make sure I’m using my time the best way I can.

It’s hard for me to ask for help because I don’t want people to think I can’t do my work. But I also know that asking for help doesn’t mean I can’t do it, it just means I’m making sure I’m not missing something that might make my life easier. And this could be applied to other areas of my life such as hiring someone to clean my place every so often. I can clean my house on my own, but it’s nice to have someone else to do it too if I’m too busy. Of course, things like hiring cleaners also involve money, so it’s not as simple as asking for help at work.

But I hope that even if it’s just about my work stuff, I can make sure I’m asking to check that I’m doing things as efficiently as possible so I’m maximizing my time each day. And hopefully doing this during November will help me find better ways to organize my work day and really get the most out of my time so I’m not worried about what I didn’t finish when I step away from my computer at the end of the day.

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Default ThumbnailResets And New Adventures (or Always Working To Improve My Life) Default ThumbnailMeal Planning and Learning French (or Monthly Challenge Time) Default ThumbnailBeing Organized and Stylish (or Working On Getting Into A Post-Pandemic Life) Default ThumbnailExcitement and Speaking Up (or My Last Monthly Challenge of 2021) Default ThumbnailA Frustrating Morning At Work (or Working But Not Working) Default ThumbnailWorking On Productivity (or Taking Advantage Of The Slow Season)

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Helping Friends Make Progress (or An Evening Of Feeling Like I Have A Purpose)

Posted on October 16, 2020 | Comments Off on Helping Friends Make Progress (or An Evening Of Feeling Like I Have A Purpose)

There are so many things I’ve learned about myself during this pandemic. One thing I learned was how important having a purpose is to me. I’ve always kind of known this and that’s one thing that pushed me into union service. But now more than ever I understand how having a purpose is something I need. When I don’t have a job and feel like I’m accomplishing things, it’s more obvious than ever when I don’t have a purpose. I feel like I’m just floating along in life and I’m not grounded. So whenever I have a project to do, I go for it because it gives me a purpose and makes me feel so much better.

And sometimes, I get a purpose out of being helpful. And that’s exactly what I got to do this week. Someone that I did improv class with reached out to me on social media. I don’t think we’ve seen each other since finishing the class, but we’ve stayed in touch over social media so we both know what the other is up to. So he knows I’m pretty involved in the union. I don’t think he exactly knew what I do with the union, but since he had a question about the union, he reached out to me.

He is still not in the union yet, but he wanted to make a union project to put online. This is actually one way that someone can become eligible to join the union and is a very common type of project that people do. But he wanted to make sure that he was doing everything correctly so that he can hire union actors and he didn’t want to make mistakes. So he reached out to me for more information.

I’m not an expert in self-producing and haven’t done it much. But I did have a little background information on what he needs to do. I also know people who know a lot more than I do, so I was able to reach out to them to answer his questions and connect them so he can ask them more. It was a very productive conversation with him and I think he feels much better and confident about the project he’s going to do. He’s still in the beginning stages of getting things ready, but that’s exactly when you need to start getting the union paperwork together. So he did it perfectly because he is going to get all the paperwork done with plenty of time before he is planning on filming.

These days, it’s a little more complicated than normal because you have to have more safety protocols in place. But it’s still possible to film. And my friend who knows more about this than I do is going to help him make sure he gets everything that he needs to make it completely compliant with our new protocols. And he does understand why things have to be this way, so he’s very willing to work with the protocols. It’s always good when someone gets why things are the way they are and I’m glad that he’s willing to work with the rules and figure out how to make it work.

The entire call I had with him went so well and I am so excited about the project he’s working on. It sounds like he’s really passionate about self-producing and taking advantage of the free time he has right now. I can’t wait to see what he creates!

And even though this is a little selfish, I’m so glad he asked me for help. It did make me feel like I was useful and it gave me something to do that I could accomplish. He did give me a purpose that day. And I needed that feeling. I’ve totally been feeling lost lately and he helped me focus on something, even if it was only for a short time.

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What I’ve Done Over A Quarter Of A Year (or Feeling Ok With What I’ve Accomplished)

Posted on June 17, 2020 | Comments Off on What I’ve Done Over A Quarter Of A Year (or Feeling Ok With What I’ve Accomplished)

I’ve said this a few times already, but we have been doing isolation/quarantine for a quarter of a year now. When it all started, I know some people thought it would only be for 2 weeks, but I felt like it would be at least for a month. And if things were locked down more or cases were tracked and managed better, maybe we would have been in a better situation after a month. But things weren’t as strict as many they needed to be. And I know that if things were stricter, people would have been more upset. It can’t be easy to find the balance of protecting people but allowing them to not feel like they are trapped or not free. I wish that more places would require masks since that seems to be the way to manage this. But so many people are protesting against them (which I really don’t understand).

Even though things are reopening here, I really do fear that they will need to be shut down again or that more people will be getting sick and we will run out of hospital beds. That’s why I’m pretty much staying home all the time even though I don’t need to. I do have other reasons why I’m doing almost a full quarantine, but the main one is that I know that limiting my exposure to others is one thing I can do to manage the spread.

But being home almost 24/7 for 3 months hasn’t been easy. I’ve talked about the isolation and toll on my mental health it has taken. I’ve been working on finding ways to handle that and I do have more good days than I did before. But I do still have days that I struggle. I don’t worry too much about those bad days because I know I’m not alone in them. And when I’m feeling down, I do try to think of good things I have accomplished by being home.

Sadly, that list of things I have done is pretty short. I have done a lot of cleaning and reorganizing, but at the same time, I have spent money that I didn’t expect to spend. I know I’m saving money on other things so it should balance out, so that’s good. And I am happier with how things look in my house. Even though I haven’t changed much, it does feel like a refreshed home and that does make me feel like I’ve been able to make my home feel even more like me.

Another good thing I try to remind myself about is how I am cooking more. I have a few recipes that I feel very comfortable with that I don’t really need a recipe. I know what ingredients I need and I can put them together quickly. They aren’t anything fancy, but it does feel good that I know I can make a meal quickly and easily if I make sure I stock the things I need at home. I still want to branch out more with my cooking, but it’s much better than it was before.

I’ve also been working on trying to be better about what I am eating. I still am struggling and I’m not going to hide the fact that I have gained weight (the combination of not eating the best and also not working out as hard hasn’t been good for me). But I do want to try to pick healthier things when I can. And while I don’t avoid fruits and vegetables, I want to make sure I add more to my day. One way I’ve been doing that lately is making smoothies each morning.

I’ve had a good blender with an individual cup attachment for a while. But I just never used it that much. But I decided now is the time to do it. And the smoothies I’m making aren’t anything too crazy. I use a frozen banana, some fresh spinach (which I do freeze to keep it good longer), some Greek yogurt, almond milk, and peanut butter powder (I started with using real peanut butter, but the powder is healthier). So I’m getting in a serving of fruit and vegetables with each one plus some protein. They look just like any other green smoothie and they taste like one of my favorite smoothies from Jamba Juice.

I’m usually not a big breakfast person, but this is easier on my body to tolerate in the morning. I don’t know yet if this helps me enough with my food choices for the rest of the day, but I know it probably can’t hurt. The calorie count isn’t that high and it’s healthy. So I figure it’s a good thing to have most mornings and hopefully, it will have more benefits as I get used to having them.

I don’t feel like I’ve gotten much else done while staying home other than watching a lot of TV and reading a lot of books. I don’t feel as productive as I would like to, but I also know that the productivity that I had before isn’t necessarily feasible right now. I can’t compare myself now to what I was able to do last year since I don’t have the same options. So while I might not have done much over the past 3 months, I have stayed healthy. And I have gotten a few random things done or new potential habits started. And I should be grateful for those little things because they are victories for now.

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I Let Procrastination Catch Up To Me (or Not Realizing I’m Slacking)

Posted on March 5, 2020 | Comments Off on I Let Procrastination Catch Up To Me (or Not Realizing I’m Slacking)

I’m usually pretty on top of getting things done on time. There are a few things that I know I don’t do when I need to or as often as I should (there are some cleaning tasks I put off for a few days). But when there is something that has to be done by a certain day, I usually finish it up much earlier than I need to. It’s rare for me to feel a time crunch to get it done.

When I was in school, I wasn’t always like this. I didn’t necessarily cram for tests or things, but I did put off doing some essays and papers instead of getting them done as soon as I got the assignment. I don’t think my procrastination really affected me much in school because I did get decent grades. I think a lot of the reason why I didn’t get better grades was due to a lack of interest in a subject and not poor work.

But for some reason, I’ve been procrastinating on a few things lately. And of course, all the things I’ve been procrastinating on need to be done around the same time. I have no good reason for slacking right now, but knowing that doesn’t motivate me enough to get it done. But now I have no other option because I need to get things done and I can’t skip doing them.

Fortunately, several things I’ve been putting off are mainly fun things. There are a few things that aren’t as fun, like dealing with some stuff with my taxes or other bills. Those things aren’t as fun for me to do so I understand why I’m not doing them. And they also have a slightly longer timeline before they are due, so I’m not as worried about them. But I’m not going to focus on those things for this post because that’s not as interesting. I’m more interested in why I am putting off doing things that I should enjoy doing.

The first thing I’ve been putting off was making signs to cheer on the marathon runners. This one makes a bit more sense to me because I honestly forgot the marathon was this weekend. I thought it was still a few more weeks away. But I’ve known it was this weekend for about a week now. I got the supplies I need to make signs, but I haven’t done anything with them. I need to get these done today or tomorrow because the race is on Sunday and I don’t have any free time on Saturday.

And the reason I don’t have free time on Saturday is that that is the day of my sister-in-law’s baby shower! I’m super excited about it for a lot of reasons. But it’s also another part of my procrastination. I’ve had the present I got for the shower for almost a month at my house. But for whatever reason, I just haven’t taken the time to wrap it. There’s no deep reason why I haven’t done this. I’m not upset or anything else like that. I think it might be because I love wrapping presents and I take a lot of pride in making gifts look beautiful. But I haven’t felt like I had the creativity and artistic skill to do it. And I don’t want to make the gift look sloppy. I know that it will only look sloppy to me, but I don’t want that to happen. So I was waiting for the right moment when I knew I could make it look good. But I can’t wait forever so I just have to get it done and feel ok with the results.

I know that some people say that procrastination is an act of rebelling against something, but I have no idea what I could be rebelling against. Maybe it’s just laziness after having some crazy busy time and high stress. Whatever the reason, I know that I’m cramming to get things done now. But I will get them done on time and everything will be ok. I hope.

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How Is This Month/Year/Decade Almost Over? (or I Think Everyone Is Shocked It’s Almost January)

Posted on December 19, 2019 | Comments Off on How Is This Month/Year/Decade Almost Over? (or I Think Everyone Is Shocked It’s Almost January)

When I set my monthly challenge for this month, I knew it was exactly what I needed to do. I wanted to get myself in the best spot possible to get ready for the new year. While I know that the new year doesn’t have to mean anything special, I did want to use it as a deadline to get some things set up. And I like having the new year start off with new goals and everything ready for me to work on those goals. And when I set that challenge, I had every intention to spend time every day working toward that idea and being productive.

And I have been doing little things almost every day and have been getting things set up in my life to make sure that I make the most of my time during work and when I have free time. And somehow I thought I was more ahead of things than I actually was because I didn’t realize how close the month is to being over! And from what so many of my friends have been saying, I think that everyone was surprised to realize that we are over halfway through this month and it’s almost Christmas.

I’m guessing a part of this is because of how late Thanksgiving was this year, and maybe another part is how quickly time seems to go by. But I honestly was shocked when I paid attention to how many days left I had to mail holiday cards before Christmas. I had ordered my cards but hadn’t worked on them because I figured I would have plenty of time to get them done. But I finally realized yesterday that if I didn’t get them done and in the mail today or tomorrow that they won’t necessarily make it in time. I did holiday postcards again because they are easier so I should be able to get everything done in one day. But I hate that I am rushed to get this done when I could have taken my time.

I think another thing that makes this month seem over a lot sooner is the fact that I have several days off next week. My job doesn’t give us much time off for holidays, and most holidays seem to fall on Mondays when we already have time off. But this year, it’s one of the best setups for maximizing days off. I will have no work from when I’m done with my half shift this Saturday (which is my normal Saturday shift) until work starts on Thursday. I can’t remember the last time I had that many days off in a row. I didn’t realize I had that much time off until earlier this month so I didn’t make any plans to do anything. They will probably end up being very lazy days at home, but that’s fine with me. But not having those days feel like normal days also limits how much time is left this month.

I know that I won’t be completely slacking off on all my days off. I will still have lots of things I need to do and I want to get done. But I also know that there will be lots of time to read or watch some SAG Awards screeners. And in a way, doing that will feel like catching up on work or being productive since they are things I want to get done. I just ordered a new AppleTV (my current one is about 7 years old and isn’t really working correctly anymore), so watching the screeners should be easier than in the past because I hopefully can watch them on my tv.

I still have a bit of time left this month, but I’m just shocked how much time has already gone by without me getting as much done as I thought I would. I’m trying to make that motivate me to get going and not to be upset about what hasn’t happened. And hopefully by the time this month is over and I’m doing my recap of my challenge as well as how I did on my goals for the year, I will have a lot of things done and will feel as ready to go with a new month, year, and decade.

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Feeling Useful Feels Good (or I Need To Be Productive)

Posted on December 18, 2019 | Comments Off on Feeling Useful Feels Good (or I Need To Be Productive)

I’ve written a lot about being bored or not being productive in my life. I have had a lot of issues with being productive while working since I don’t have to focus on my work all the time. I have done some things to cure my boredom that I know are very unproductive like watching a lot of random things on YouTube. It’s not easy for me to find things to do between customers at work because they need to be things that are easy to stop doing and pick back up where I left off.

That’s why the other job I’ve been doing has been good for me. It’s a lot of data entry or online searching so it’s easy to put the browser window that I’m working on behind my customer service browser when I have a customer. And I’ve been able to do that work most days in the past week or so because there was a new task to start on. This contract hasn’t been as steady as my past ones were because the work is a bit in flux. But I did just sign a new contract to extend this one for another few months (there were several delays in my work and there was no way to finish the hours by the end of the year).

Obviously, having my other job to do it most than just a good way to spend my time between my customers because I do need that income, but I love that it helps me stay focused on doing good things when I’m stuck at my computer for so many hours a day. And for both the income and the work, I hope that there will be another contract for me to sign when the extension for this current contract is up.

But I also have discovered that being productive is something I crave other times of the day. When I’m dealing with a lot of pain and nausea (like I am right now), I don’t really leave my house much. If there’s something I have to go to, I’ll do it. But if I can push something to another day I usually will. All I want to do is stay home and be in comfortable clothes and get through the discomfort the best I can. And when there is a lot of tv to catch up on, I admit that I spend a lot of that time at home watching things on my DVR. But when there aren’t new episodes to watch, I don’t want to be mindlessly going through different streaming services to find something to entertain me.

It’s not easy to find something to keep me busy when I feel as badly as I do right now, but whenever I find something it really does improve my mood. If someone asks me to help them with research online or another task I can do, I feel so accomplished when it’s completed. I don’t forget about how I feel, but it can be a good distraction. And when it’s something that I can pause when the pain and nausea get too bad to focus, even better.

Lately, I’ve been doing lots of random tasks around my house during that downtime. I have gotten a lot of organizing done (I still have a lot to do, but it’s a work in progress). And the holiday cards that I ordered a while ago finally arrived at my house (they were lost in shipping and had to be resent to me which delayed them a lot). So I have about 50 cards to write and address. I can’t put off getting stamps for them as long as I’d like since I need them to be in the mail soon, but I have to finish doing the cards before I go to the post office. So writing those will likely be my afternoon and evening work for today and tomorrow.

I won’t have much busywork to do next week and I have even more downtime because of the holiday schedule. But I think when it’s the holidays I can be lazy and not feel as bad about it. I do want to have a few tasks on my to-do list that I can work on just in case I feel the need to get something done. And if I don’t get everything done, then I can just work on them between customers when I don’t have the other job to do or after work if I don’t have anything planned.

I’m not going to wish that I was busier because I know that can backfire. But it is nice to know that I’m being helpful or productive when I know that it’s easy to be lazy. And that feeling of accomplishment when I’m not feeling overwhelmed is really great and I want to find more ways to get to that point.

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Super Productive and Super Lazy (or A Balance Over 2 Days)

Posted on June 12, 2019 | Comments Off on Super Productive and Super Lazy (or A Balance Over 2 Days)

I write on here so often about being super busy or super productive and then the opposite and being very lazy and unmotivated to do things. I usually talk about how I know there is a swing back and forth with these two things and eventually, it balances out. I just have to remember that it will balance out and not focus on one time and worry that I won’t have the opposite.

But I had those two types of day back to back recently and it was pretty funny. I’m not used to them happening so quickly and it was only after those two days were done that I was able to see how crazy it was.

Sunday was an exceptionally productive day for me. I had an appointment just before noon and my plan was to enjoy my morning and take my time before that. I knew I could do things after I was done so I planned to do all my usual Sunday chores later. I went to bed on Saturday night later than I would have liked to, but I knew I could sleep in a little bit. It’s a rare treat for me to sleep in and it’s not easy for me to do it because I’m in a very consistent sleep schedule, but even if I can’t keep sleeping past 7am I usually will spend my morning being lazy in bed reading or something if I don’t have to rush around in the morning.

But for some reason, even though I didn’t get that much sleep I was wide awake at 7am. I couldn’t just stay in bed and relax. I was ready to start my day. I was able to get most of the things I needed to do that morning before 11am. I was shocked how much I did and when I got home after my appointment I continued working hard and got a lot of things checked off my list that I was planning on doing throughout the week. I wasn’t exhausted or anything doing all these things. It just felt like I matched my energy level with what I was able to do.

The next day was my day off work. I still have a workout in the morning so I don’t sleep in. But I still have time in the morning before my workout so I usually do a few things around my house before heading out. I did manage to do that, but after my workout I had no motivation to do anything. I did shower and get clean after I got home from Orangetheory and put on some normal clothes, but that’s pretty much all I did.

I did think at first that this might have been a reaction to doing so much the day before. I also was wondering if I might be getting sick because I know a lot of people I know have colds. It could have been either of those, but what I think is more likely is that the weather had a drastic change. It has been very mild and even foggy lately. And on Monday things felt like it became summer overnight. It’s not nearly as hot as I know summer will be, but it was a huge jump up.

I was used to my house being in the 70s during the day and at night without needing to use any fans, heaters, or air conditioning. It’s been really nice and I have been enjoying keeping my door open during the day and in the evening before I go to bed. Having the door open seems to always make my house seem cleaner and fresher.

But on Monday, it got very hot inside. I didn’t realize it right away but when I finally thought about how it was so warm inside it was already over 90 degrees inside. It was significantly cooler outside so I tried to cool my house down by opening my doors and windows. But it wasn’t working as well as I would have liked. And I think the heat made me very lazy. Fortunately, I had the ability to be lazy and I didn’t worry about it too much.

But yesterday, I had a lot of work to do. I had to find a balance between being productive and lazy. It’s still pretty hot out so I started running my air conditioner. I love having it and it makes my life so much better, but I also have to close up my house to run it which is a little sad. But at least I won’t have the heat making me tired and lazy.

For all the times I complain or remark about how I need to find the middle between being lazy and productive, I don’t think I’ve ever had the switch so quickly. But at least I found some humor in the situation and it seems to have balanced out a bit for now.

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Wondering How To Complete Some Goals (or I Have An Idea But Not A Plan)

Posted on January 10, 2019 | Comments Off on Wondering How To Complete Some Goals (or I Have An Idea But Not A Plan)

Because there were so many goals in 2018 that I didn’t complete, I am working hard this year to make sure that doesn’t happen again. I always set my goals with the expectation that I will be able to complete or accomplish them. Sometimes they don’t seem that hard for me to do, but I’ve realized that is also my downfall. When I assume that I will be able to complete a goal without too much work, I can slack off on doing that. I’ve seen that happen a lot recently and I don’t want to continue that bad habit.

I think this all started when I started to do more abstract goals and challenges. When I don’t have a way to track and measure, I can tell myself that I am doing the right things even if I’m not. That’s why budgeting and tracking food and weight is important. I don’t want to ignore the signs that things are going the wrong direction. I will admit, I haven’t been great in budgeting and food tracking lately either. Budgeting is a weird one since I know that I am not making enough to support my lifestyle. I don’t need to get a bunch of alerts and red numbers telling me I’m over budgeting for my rent when I can’t reduce it. But as soon as I find a new job, I will be back on it since I know I need to.

One of my goals for this year is to use my free time in a more productive manner.  In a perfect world, a lot of my current free time would be getting used by a new job. Unfortunately the job hunting isn’t going as well as I hoped it would be and I’m still looking for a new one. I guess the job hunting could be considered a productive use of my free time, but because I was getting so burnt out from looking I’ve had to limit my job search time to 4 hours a day. I know that probably seems like a lot, but I need a job now and for some reason I’m struggling to find one.

I’ve also been doing online class stuff during my free time, but that’s not taking up as much time as I have. I’m trying to limit how much time I’m doing mindless things online or watching tv or movies, but sometimes I just don’t know what else to do with that free time. My biggest issue is while I’m working because I have to be on my computer then. I can’t go out and do things and I can’t really be doing things in different parts of my house. Even though my house is tiny, I can’t be in my kitchen cooking if my phone rings or a customer reaches out via online chat. I’m stuck at my desk and looking at a computer.

I have added a few educational apps to my phone like the New York Times crossword and I’ve gotten pretty good at it! But each of these little things I’m adding just doesn’t seem like what I need to have in mind when I’m thinking about spending my free time more productively. I’m honestly opening it up to suggestions because I don’t know where to start or what to consider.

I think realizing that one of my goals this year doesn’t really have a plan yet is a good thing. I’d rather realize it now instead of 6 months later and figure out that I have been wasting the time that I have. And with many things in my life, being hyperaware that there is something I want to fix is always a good thing and is very useful to me in making changes. I’ve been considering trying to track how I spend my free time, and I know there are apps I can use for that on my computer, but I’m not sure if that’s the right move for now. I really just want to figure out a plan for how I can change things and make them better before I try to see what my current screen time usage is like. Hopefully when I have that plan, my screen time during work will be limited to just my work stuff and perhaps whatever productive things I find to do between customers if they are things I do on my computer.

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Turning Myself Into A Morning Person (or Continuing On My Productivity Kick)

Posted on March 15, 2018 | Comments Off on Turning Myself Into A Morning Person (or Continuing On My Productivity Kick)

I don’t know what it is, but I’ve been so motivated to be productive lately. I’ve had my giant cleaning spree and I’ve been working on figuring out how to make my downtime at work more productive. And my motivation kick seems to be continuing which can only be a good thing for me.

I know there are some people who say that you are either a morning person or a night person and because that’s how you are it’s pretty difficult to change. And I used to believe that. I know that I naturally am a night person. I could easily stay up until 1 or 2am and then go to bed (I’m sure for some night people that still seems early, but for me that’s late). And when my work schedule was later, I would sleep in to make up for staying up late. But because I wasted my morning and my late nights weren’t super productive either, I always felt like I needed to work on catching up and I didn’t like that feeling.

I’ve tried to become a morning person several times and it’s never really stuck with me. But for a while, I’ve been working on regulating my sleep schedule and I think it’s finally helping me become a morning person. On my earliest work days with my day job, I need to wake up at 7am. So I’ve been working on getting up every day at 7am. And I know that 7am isn’t super early and there are plenty of people who get up at 4 or 5am, but for me it was early since there were days I would be sleeping in until 9:30am. And I know that I need about 7 hours of sleep so I have a goal of trying to go to bed by midnight. I don’t always accomplish that, but like with so many other aspects of my life just being aware of it is helpful.

It’s taken a long time and I’ve had lots of setbacks, but I’m finally starting to get more into my sleep routine and it’s becoming much easier for me. I’m starting to feel tired when it’s getting closer to midnight and I’m finding it much easier to get up at 7am. I’ve also been noticing on my Fitbit that I am not as restless while I’m sleeping so I’m getting more sleep in those 7 hours than I have in the past. Most of the time I still need an alarm to get up (or if I’m being honest, multiple alarms), but I’m not hitting snooze like I used to and there have been the rare occasional morning when I naturally wake up right before my alarm goes off. It does feel so great when I wake up naturally and I’m hoping that it happens more often.

And with getting up at 7am even on my later shift days, I’ve had a few hours in the morning to get things done. I’ve been doing a lot of errands like going to the grocery store or other things like that, but I’m looking at more ways to spend those few hours in the morning being productive. It’s also nice to feel like I’ve accomplished a lot before I get stuck sitting at my computer for several hours. If I’ve gotten a lot done in the morning, I don’t feel like I’m wasting my time when I’m home but can’t really do much.

There are still plenty of times that I know I will sleep in (or want to sleep in), but I really do want to try to make it the norm that I get up at the same time every morning. Having some consistency is helpful and I know that getting into more routines will help me stay calm and figure out when I can get other things done. I also have to take my medications in the morning and when I do oversleep I usually don’t end up taking them since they are stimulants and if I take them too late I won’t be able to sleep (and that puts me into a bad cycle of staying up too late). So if I’m getting up early every day that helps me stay consistent with medications and I can be a better judge on if they are working or not.

I have no idea what the next productivity thing that I’ll be motivated to do will be, but I’m seriously feeling so amazing about how I’ve had so many different productivity things in my life lately and I know this can only benefit me in the long run.

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Working On Productivity (or Taking Advantage Of The Slow Season)

Posted on March 14, 2018 | Comments Off on Working On Productivity (or Taking Advantage Of The Slow Season)

It’s been the slow season for one of my day jobs for about a month now. Things are crazy from Halloween until Valentine’s Day, pick back up in May through the summer, and then are slow again in September. It’s nice to have a slow season because during the busy season we can be talking to a customer on the phone and have 3 on chat and still have more customers trying to reach us. So when we have downtime, I think we all relax a bit and get things back in order.

I’ll admit that I’m not the best about what I do with my time during work during the slow season. I have to be sitting in front of my computer waiting to see if a call or customer chat comes in, but I’m usually on some website looking up random things or watching videos online. It’s not the best way to spend my time, but sometimes that’s what helps me get through a very slow day. When you are stuck at a computer for 7 hours and you only end up working with a customer for 3 minutes (which happened to me the other day), you kind of need something to help keep you sane.

For a while, I was using the time to watch the Olympics or catch up on things that were on my DVR (my shows piled up in there after being gone for a few days). Mindless entertainment is fine (and I’ll still probably end up using my time to catch up on TV occasionally), but it’s not what I should be doing. I’m using it as a distraction and not as something productive to do in the free time that I’m lucky enough to have.

I’m also lucky that even though I’m working from home I don’t feel isolated. But in reality, I am isolated because I’m just stuck behind a computer without any real human interaction. I do use our messaging system to talk with my co-workers and I talk to customers on the phone, but it’s not the same as going into an office. So if I can figure out how to be more productive during my work downtime, maybe I’ll find more time in my schedule to be social when I’m done with work. I shouldn’t have to be stuck behind a computer after my work shift is done and I’m trying to work on staying off my computer if possible (even for fun things) when I log out of my work shift. I’ve been getting better at doing that, but I know there’s a lot of improvement I could make in that aspect of my life.

I really want to get out of the pattern of just getting through my time at work during the slow time and not really knowing what I did with my time when I’m done. I do have my other job I work between customers, but that job had to significantly cut back my hours so I’m only doing that a few hours a week. And I was thinking about spending the downtime looking at other job options because I do need to start making more money, but I honestly don’t know when I could work since most jobs wouldn’t allow me to work between customers at a job (I’m so lucky my other job lets me do that). I’m also hopeful that I will be getting more hours at my other job so that will make it so I don’t need to find something else.

So I’ve been trying to figure out what I can do while stuck at my computer that is productive but not something that requires so much focus that I couldn’t put it down when I do have customers. So far, I’ve been doing a lot of reading books and news online. I’ve been listening to the backlog of podcasts I’ve got on my phone. And I’ve been doing some of my educational apps on my phone (although that only takes maybe 20 minutes to get through). There are other things I wish I could do during my downtime, but if it requires me to be away from my computer (like cooking so I have more home-cooked meals), I can’t really do it. Work still needs to be my priority, but there’s still so much time that I can devote to something else awesome.

I’d really love some suggestions on ideas of what I could do while I’m waiting for a customer to need help. I know that the slow season will be over before I know it and I’ll be missing all this downtime, but I still want to make sure I use this downtime well and take advantage of the opportunity I have. I know there are better ways I could be spending my time even if I am stuck at my desk, but I just don’t know what they are yet.

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