Time Management Tuesday: Using To-Do Lists To Slow Down

Last week I introduced the idea of trying to eliminate multi-tasking as a way to slow down our work and actually become more productive. Anne Marie O'Connor's article, Why You Should Be Single-Tasking, Not Multitasking & How To Make The Switch provides four suggestions on how to do that. I'm going to combine three of them that I think can be helpful for writers into two blog posts. Today, people, we will cover to-do lists and prioritizing.

To-Do Lists

I am a big fan of to-do lists. Big fan. In fact, when  I'm done here, I have to work on

My modified bullet journal/to-do list

my to-do list for this week, my preferred unit of time for planning.

Writers have more control over our to-do lists than people who work in traditional situations do. We may be bound by priorities (see below) and we may have day jobs that we have to factor in. But, otherwise, for our work we have more control than people who have daily supervisors or hourly appointments to maintain.

In terms of slowing down: If something unplanned comes up, particularly something from someone else, and you can avoid doing it, avoid it. Stick to the to-do list. Many time management people will tell you to delegate whatever you can. For many writers that just isn't an option. We don't have anyone to delegate pop-up tasks to.

So avoid what you can by planning to do it another time. Put the new thing on tomorrow's to-do list or next week's or however you organize your to-dos. Particularly if you're trying to work on a long-term project, you don't want to keep going off-task to fight every short-term fire that can be taken care of another time. 

Going off task because of new tasks, increases the workload, and contributes to a feeling of being rushed and overwhelmed. None of which is going to have a good impact on productivity. So if you can slow down by putting something on another to-do list, do it.

How Do Writers Prioritize?

You're going to want to prioritize your to-do list, if only in terms of what you put on it. Be specific with your priorities, so that you know exactly what you plan to do. "Write" is more of a subject than a prioritized item on a to-do list.

To-do list priorities to consider:

• Your goals and objectives. You will recall, I'm sure, that in addition to being a fan of to-do lists, I am a fan of goals and objectives. A big fan. You've created them, because they are things you plan/need to do. You should always be checking to make sure that objectives toward your goals are part of your to-do list.
• Deadlines. Deadlines from editors or agents, if you have someone waiting for work. Those will be a top priority.
• Submission dates. Some agents and publications will open for submissions for a specific period of time. If you have someone/something like that you're interested in submitting to, keep track of the dates and whether you need to be doing anymore work on your manuscript in order to submit.
• Objective deadlines for major projects/goals. Got a big writing project you're doing on spec with no agent or editor involvement? You can create your own deadlines for it by breaking it down into the objectives you need to do in order to meet the goal of getting the project written. Those objectives can then become items on your to-do list. I'm talking things like research and even breaking that down still further into different types of research. Character development. Outlining, if you do that. Planning scenes, something I'm getting into. Then after you have an outline or scene list, items on the outline or individual scenes can become priorities that you place on your to-do list.

Presumably everything on your to-do list is some kind of priority. If you stick to working on those items, and only those items, you have a chance of keeping yourself from becoming overwhelmed and having to hurry because yourself trying to do things that just aren't necessary right now. This could be a big step toward slowing down.

Time Management Tuesday: Slow Summer

Well, I'm back. In a manner of speaking.

Faithful readers may recall that I was struggling last summer because one family member was recovering from surgery and another one needed to be moved out of her house and her house emptied and sold. After getting down to working only three or four hours a week, I gave up and took two months off from writing.  In 2012 I was working two days a week dealing with two elders and being all supportive of a brand new, and very small, family member. In 2011, I took five months off from writing because a family member was ill. The same family member who is ill now, in fact. Illish.

We have been dealing with elderly relatives' health problems for a decade now. Things go up and down. We're not at the same level of intensity all the time, though for the two we have left we have  constant monitoring of living situations, health, finances, and clothing. We're interacting with medical professionals, exchanging information with other relatives, etc. That's the weekly stuff. Then there's the periodic crises, like the one we experienced here the day after Memorial Day. We'll be dealing with the fallout with that for months or even years to come. The weekly work has gone up and will stay that way for the foreseeable future.

While all the grandparent issues have been happening, we've also been dealing with more mundane life things that come with ten years of living. Then, of course, there is work. While I've been spending a decade dealing with older family members, I've also been spending a decade dealing with what the 2008 economic downturn did to publishing and mid-list writers like myself.

This lifestyle/workload/whatever you want to call it cannot be sustained. At least, not by me. Mistakes are happening. Things are being forgotten. My surroundings are often chaotic, which makes things worse.

Throw In The Towel Again Or Try Something Else

On some level I've known the struggle can't go on forever for quite some time. Back in 2016, I wondered if I could do more, if I slowed down. The subject came up again last year when I was preparing for that family member's surgery. I was really concerned about it around that time. In addition to covering a couple articles on slowing down I addressed the issue of rushing. And then I looked to Einstein for help. Then I gave up, took a couple of months off, and when I went back to work, I had a lot of other things to do and forgot I was going to slow down.

I don't want to quit working altogether this time, so I'm going to pursue this slow work business. It could work. Or, at least, it could be better than doing nothing.

What I'm Doing This Summer

Reading about and trying to use:

• Slow work (It's a thing, I'm not making this up)
• Minimalism
• A little voluntary simplicity, because a family member is into it 

Writing is going to go onto a back burner, because it's intense, labor intensive, and requires concentration I don't always have. I'm trying for a sentence or two a day on the project I worked on last month. Just to keep my head in it and keep it from going too cold.

Instead I'm going to work on submissions, because I hope that can be done in little chunks of time.

I'm also going to continue with a promotion of Saving the Planet & Stuff  planned for next month because, again, I think I can manage it in small amounts of time here and there. And it will be done by the end of July.

I'm going to limit the blog to Time Management Tuesdays, the Connecticut Children's Literature Calendar, and things that really grab me, like this thought I've had about Laurie and Professor Bhaer after watching the PBS version of Little Women. Except for the Connecticut Children's Literature Calendar, I'll only be posting when...well, I hate to say "when I feel like it." Maybe I should say "when I can." "When I have the energy." Yeah. That's it. When I have the energy.

So, you see, I am back. But only in a manner of speaking.

Time Management Tuesday: Slow Down, You Move Too Fast

Okay, so we're looking into slowing down, by which I mean I'm looking into it. The goal here is to determine whether slowing down can enhance productivity or at least not make you less productive. Does rushing around frantically do you any good?

What Does Slowing Down Mean?

 

"Slow Work"--A Lifestyle Conquers The Working World describes a "slow work" movement. "By slowing down the work, you give your body the opportunity to regenerate. The general stress level drops as your concentration and creativity rise again. People have more energy resources and performance over the long term."  

It really sounds good. I have questions, though, about what slowing down actually means. Really working slower? With everything? In the same number of hours you had before? The lifestyle article suggests creating a daily schedule and planning more time for each activity then you'd ordinarily expect, taking breaks, and adding relaxation periods to your day. Would doing all that slow you down or would it cause to you take more time to do things because you're doing more?


Slowing Down Can Increase Productivity and Happiness, Part 1 from Psychology Today appears to be more about doing less than in doing the same amount of work but slower. The author says that productivity falls off when working more than 40 hours a week, but isn't that about how much someone is working, not how quickly? He also writes about busyness. Again, doesn't that involve the amount of work someone is trying to do, not how quickly? His material on decision-making really does seem to involve slowing down, mainly because it sounds as if he's suggesting doing more--"taking the time to gather information and alternatives."

Part 2 of his column does more to get into what he calls "slow work"--a philosophy that "challenges the unsustainable practice of doing everything as fast as possible and offers an alternative workplace framework." He includes a lengthy list of slowing down strategies and habits, some of which, again, actually would require more time: meditation (I dabble with this--it takes time), dedicating time for reflection, doing nothing for a while when you wake up (Sad to say, I do this and not for just 10 or 15 minutes, either), walking more instead of driving.

Slow Down! How "Slow Work" Makes Us More Productive in Time covers some of the same material and suggests making more time for ourselves during our workdays. The author admits that it and other strategies he suggests "will take more time because they require conscious efforts to vary existing routines. In other words, they slow us down. But these changes reward us with more time to absorb and process information, which strengthens our long-term professional performance." I'm not sure about that.

Yeah, I know. I sound like that argumentative person in your office who responds to every suggestion for change with "Yes, but..."

What Does Rushing Do?

This happened.

I don't know about anyone else, but rushing gets me into a hole over and over again. That desk over to your right? It looks the way it does right now, because I've been in too much of a hurry to take care of anything. And it's not the first time.  I can feel good about the office, because the laundry/sewing room you can also see to your right is worse. It looks the way it does, because I've been in too much of a hurry to take care of anything in there, too. It's not the first time for that, either.

You can tell by looking at these pictures that I am not a neat freak. My issue with this kind of disorder is that it becomes a time suck. Where is everything? Where is anything? Where is that piece of paper with the list of agents I was planning to submit to? I spent a lot of time working on that this spring. Hope it turns up.

Last week I worked on the table in the dining room, because I didn't have time to clear a space for my laptop.

Why am I rushing around so? Because I'm trying to do a lot of things in the time I have available. How will just doing all those things slower help my situation?

I believe I'll have to do something else.

Time Management Tuesday: Wasn't I Going To Do Some Research On Slowing Down?

Last fall I did a TMT post called Could I Do More If I Slowed Down?  Evidently I had been suffering from monkey mind last summer, and I was trying to deal with that. Additionally I felt that"Feeling rushed and overwhelmed is unpleasant, and I don't know that hurrying does any good as far as getting work done is concerned." I also thought rushing and feeling overwhelmed attracted monkeys.

I wondered, though, if working slower meant doing less. At the end of the post, I said, "Working slower is going to be my new research focus for the next few months. I am going to be doing it slowly. I'll be checking back."

Then I didn't touch the subject again. Not another word.

Slowing Down? Doing Less?

I started thinking about this recently because I've given up my modest yoga practice. I was having to avoid more and more poses to avoid various aches and pains and realized that if I let it go, I could use my yoga time to practice tai chi, which I've been studying in formal classes for three years or so. For the last year or so, I've been trying to do both.

I kept hanging onto the yoga practice, though it hadn't been working for me for a while, until I realized that while struggling to keep up with both yoga and tai chi, I wasn't doing terrifically with either one. I wasn't getting much from either one, either. I started looking forward to being able to do just one thing. And giving up my subscription to Yoga Journal after more than 10 years? Boo hoo? More time to read other things, people, including the professional magazines that I subscribe to and fall behind on.

That isn't exactly slowing down. It's doing less. Though, I've got to say, the last week or so I've been spending as much time on tai chi as I did on yoga and tai chi together. So I'm not actually doing less, it just feels like it because my attention isn't being split up.

"You Work All The Time"

A family member pointed out to me recently that I work all the time. By which he means, I work all evening taking care of social media, blogging in particular, so I don't have to do it during the day, taking time from my writing. He was right.

Social media is important for a number of reasons that I won't go into here, because this is a post about time, not social media. Nonetheless, I'm working all evening nearly every evening. Okay, to be honest this is partly due to the fact that the monkey is always circling my mind, and I often skitter across the Internet while I'm supposed to be working. Nonetheless, I'm on the laptop all evening, not reading magazines, sewing, looking for new things to cook, and planning vacations, which are my downtime activities. Assuming I have downtime, of course.

Working Slower? Working Less?

Now I really am going to study this, because I need to start managing my time differently. (Yes, I know. I'm always saying that.) This spring is a perfect time for me to make a change, because someone in this house is having work done on his shoulder, which will necessitate some temporary shifting of responsibilities. I'll need to take on some new patient and eldercare work. Since the days are only so long, I'll have to juggle and drop some of my regular work to take on the new.

Or maybe I can just become more efficient and productive. By working slower? By doing less?

By the way, my poor relative's surgery is a temporal landmark. The date is set, so it's a calendar event that's creating a fresh start opportunity for me.  I may be able to disconnect myself from my past imperfections and make changes as a result.

I'm Not Making This Up

I'm not making working slower and working less up, though I would do it without a second thought, if I had to. However, it turns out that slowing down is thing. In Slowing Down Can Increase Productivity And Happiness pay particular attention to Item 4, which deals with time perception. This is new for me. Unfortunately, I have barely a clue what this guy is talking about.

 Doing less is also a thing. Notice the section on the Pareto Principle in Accomplish More by Doing Less.  We covered that here last year. There's also a section on consistency, which I don't believe I have thought about, though my guess is it probably relates to staying on goal. 

Can You Slow Down Without Doing Less?

My initial superficial hypothesis is the same as it was last fall: I don't see how you can really slow down without either becoming hyper-efficient (hahahaha) with your slower work or doing less over all. Let's see what I find out and try over the next month or so.