Writing and Productivity

I've spent a lot of time lately observing myself at work, trying to identify patterns and trends in my energy levels, what works and what doesn't, the best times to focus on certain types of activity.

My mental state during the day can be simplified into two categories - high energy and low energy. In the high energy state I'm going a mile a minute, hammering out writing, jumping from task to task, barely pausing between finishing one thing and starting the next. It feels good, and satisfying, and it's what allows me to get a lot done during the day.

In the low energy state I'm relaxed, calm, quiet, I move fairly slowly, I don't feel a real need to do anything. It feels good too, just in different ways. When I'm in the low-energy state I can sit down and read a book or eat dinner without the TV on, two things I just can't do when I'm on high.

My intention in studying these states has been to learn to harness and control them better, and switch between them at the times I choose. Too much of the time when I need to be working I'm on low energy, and when I'm done at the end of the day I get stuck in high energy and can't settle down or sleep.

But I had a simple but interesting realisation - that practically all my best ideas come to me when I'm in the low energy state, not really thinking about anything in particular. When I try to brainstorm article ideas in high energy mode, for example, it's very hard work and the ideas tend to be pretty unoriginal or flat.

My best ideas, that I get really excited about, have all come to me when I was making dinner, going for a walk or most of all settling down to sleep - the notepad by my bed is an absolute essential.

Since I realised this, I've been making more time for relaxing activities and downtime in my day - taking a full hour for lunch, for example, where before I'd gobble at my desk, and winding down earlier in the evening to have some real relaxation time. I keep a notebook to hand and just let ideas flow up without feeling the need to pursue them right away, and some good stuff has been floating to the surface.

Slow down to conceive, speed up to implement. Does it work for you? Share your experiences in the comments.

Labels: creativity, downtime, Energy level, productivity, relaxing, Time management

Image by UniqueO Mania♥ via Flickr

A common, simple interpretation of the Zen ethos is to enjoy the journey, not focus on the destination. To relax and allow yourself to be led by the motions of the universe, rather than charging toward some ending.

But when we are trying to be our most productive and creative, simply allowing ourselves to flow in some natural direction just won't work. There are too many distractions, and it's too easy to be led astray by a thousand displacement activities and the urgings of our nemesis Resistance. At first glance, it seems that Zen and productivity can never coexist in our lives.

But I would argue that setting clear and evident goals may allow us to enjoy the journey even more.

If, as so many people are, we're just working for the sake of working, dealing with each problem as it occurs, buried in the swamp of our tasks and without an aim in sight, we can't see the road ahead. As travellers, we're climbing a mountain with no idea if we're going in the right direction, ready for the possibility that we might have to climb all the way back down again.

Once we have a clear goal, we have a destination, and we know roughly where it is. In a sense, we have a GPS reading for our destination - at any given time, we know which direction we need to be heading in. And while (if we want to achive our goals) we do have to keep moving towards it, we can now enjoy the side-paths, the unexpected discoveries, and sometimes the shortcuts we may come upon on the way, without fearing that we're losing our way. We can set our own pace, and enjoy the journey.

Labels: creativity, destination, goal-setting, goals, journey, productivity, Road, Zen

Image via Wikipedia

I talked in my last post about mitigating the negative effects of hyperfocus, whether you're ADHD or just blessed/cursed with unpredictable laser-beam attention.

When you and your focus are working against each other, it can be a miserable and unproductive time. But when hyperfocus works with you, and you with it, amazing things can happen.

Under the influence of hyperfocus I've built whole websites overnight, spent 14 hours a day hammering through a Quality Management system nearing deadline, taken whole projects from a lightning-strike 3am brainwave to a complete set of notes and plans.

Unfortunately, many of us are taught as children (and reinforced as adults) that this kind of obsessive behaviour is unhealthy or abnormal. We may subconsciously feel that we should behave like a "normal" person and spent moderate amounts of time and energy on our various tasks, not go hell-for-leather at an objective (sometimes until we collapse from exhaustion).

Many of us spend much of our lives fighting this drive, in the process making ourselves thoroughly miserable by denying our nature, and losing out on the enormous wealth of potential hyperfocus brings.

We need to realise that normal is a spectrum, and in any normal population there will be outliers with extreme ways of doing things. Often it's those extreme individuals who achieve the most amazing things.

My advice: If you find hyperfocus pulling at you, and the subject is interesting, beneficial or just has potential, run with it. Set yourself some limits to ensure that the essential things are taken care of, then let yourself fall into the task at hand, and see where it takes you.

You can even engage your hyperfocus intentionally. Faced with a big, daunting task, lock out all distractions, move or cancel other commitments to allow a solid block of time, blast some music or put on an audiobook, line up some caffeine or alcohol or healthy juice (you'll know what keeps you going best), and say to yourself "Come on, we're going to do this thing!"

The first half-hour might be slow, distracted, you're thinking of other things, but when that tunnel vision starts to take over and you realise two hours have gone by and you never noticed, your hyperfocus is working for you. I listed about 300 vinyl records on eBay this way at the start of 2007.

Stop worrying about acting normally, or how your friends and family will see you. Let the dog off the leash, ride the wave. You have been given a wonderful, powerful gift, a firehose of creative energy to use. Let your hyperfocus run free, miss meals, miss sleep, miss dates, see what happens. You may create something extraordinary.

Labels: achievement, attention, creativity, distraction, hyperfocus, productivity

Image via Wikipedia

At least once during most days, something takes control of my brain. It might be a technical problem to be solved (today it was getting a virtual NT4 machine to boot on my dad's computer), it might be a new idea for a project, it might be a website with a huge archive of interesting posts to read.

Once that idea gets into my head, it seizes control of my attention and I can't focus properly on anything else. If I try to spend time on other task, I find myself distracted and disinterested, and I get little done. Most often I end up flitting back and forth to the brain-thief, in a state of disorganisation, and achieve nothing on either task, while my stress levels steadily rise.

This is the dark side of hyperfocus. When it's directed, it can allow you to pour enormous energy into a task, excluding all other concerns. When it's bad, it can steal your attention away from the things you want and need to be doing, and leave you frustrated and unproductive.

Hyperfocus is a major symptom of my ADHD, but it's also something that a lot of creative people suffer with - as I've said in previous posts, there's a lot of blending between "normal" creativity and ADHD.

Fortunately, with practice and - most importantly - awareness of the mechanisms of hyperfocus, you can harness its light side for good and protect yourself from the worst of the dark side's damage.

The first (and most important) step is just to be aware when hyperfocus has you in its grip. Monitor yourself for those times when something has a magnetic pull on your attention. From time to time during your day, particularly when you feel yourself getting stressed and frustrated, take a step back and look at what you're actually doing - hyperfocus gives you tunnel vision, so you may not even be aware that you're locked in until you make a conscious effort and survey your situation.

The next thing is to ask yourself whether the thing that's got you locked on is really urgent, merely useful or an active waste of time. If it's urgent, it's all good. If it's useful, is there something more important you should be doing? If it's a waste of time, it's time to get it out of your head.

And getting it out of your head is the only answer to hyperfocus. Not fighting it, because an obsession opposed just grows. Sitting there telling yourself "This is a waste of time, I shouldn't be doing it" will just make you feel resentful and resistant, and you're likely to strengthen the focus out of sheer bullheadedness.

There are two ways to get a brain-thief out of your head: Closure and hand-off.

Closure: Size up the thief, and decide how much time and resources it will take to finish it completely. If you do have fullblown ADHD, think carefully - your judgement of the time required may be a little askew. If it can be done in an hour, and that's an hour you can spare, do it. Don't sit there making yourself feel guilty, acknowledge that in the long run this will make you more productive, and just do it. You'll get a boost of energy and relief from letting the hyperfocus dog off its leash, and when it's done you're free of the distraction.

Hand-off: Give yourself "interim closure". Find a way to unload that thought into a safe place, where you know it will not be forgotten. If it's a website, bookmark it somewhere you can come back to when you have time. If it's a project, take ten minutes to write down all your ideas and plans, and store it somewhere safe. Schedule a time when you know you can come back to the thief and give it the attention it craves. Then take a moment, sit back again and say to yourself "That's dealt with". Really visualise the task as locked off, in safe hands. Make it a complete thought in your head, not a loose end dangling. Then get on with your day.

Labels: ADD and ADHD, creativity, distraction, hyperfocus, productivity