So folks who know me know that my productivity systems are pretty core to who I am, which is how I can have over 20 years experience designing and implementing them despite still only being in my early 30s. Productivity systems keep my depression and anxiety somewhat under control. They help me to assess myself and push myself. They allow me to reward myself and limit the amount that I beat myself up to that which I can measure. I recently got a solid reminder of how much my systems help me. I got a concussion.
For those of you who don't know much about concussions, I'll say they are intense and they suck. My work and the majority of my non-work time is spent on the computer. Most of my hobbies involve the computer. When you have a concussion you are not supposed to look at screens. I also really enjoy reading, but, when you have a concussion you should really avoid much of that as well. I also enjoy having deep conversations with people I care about on a wide variety of topics, but my brain could just not handle it. I couldn't even really play board games or card games without feeling symptoms. So already, the state is not very good for situational depression. All my coping strategies are not things I can do. Heck, on a concussion I can't even drink.
This should tip you off to a bigger problem I now had. I couldn't use my current productivity system. It was online, too intense, too complex, and involved too many activities I wasn't allowed to do. I was also in the state of being the least able to make a new interim system. My executive functioning, focus, and reasoning were kinda shot. Additionally, I had no idea what to expect from my condition from which to set expectations.
The first few days I mostly just slept and listened to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine while blind-folded. Soon this was insufficient however. I needed to have a system or I was going to do activities I was supposed to avoid. The system I came up with is one that might be good for some folks looking for a simple system that is somewhat intrinsic and somewhat comparative while providing a lot of freedom.
I took a whiteboard and divided it into 3 parts.
Part 1 was for tracking. Each day I would write the day and under it I would put stars based on how the system was going. The stars don't mean anything and are just an opportunity for me to acknowledge that I was doing something correctly.
Part 2 was for any time tasks. These are ones that I could do as much as I wanted and get a star every time I did it. These were specifically things related to health, self-care, and wellness. This section included: Napping, Socializing, Meditating, Bathing, Walking, Brushing Teeth and Hair, Eating Food and Drinking Water.
Part 3 was for choice tasks. I put numbers down to 10. Next to each number I put a super small task that was acceptable to do while recovering from a concussion. Larger tasks were divided into smaller tasks. So the process of doing the dishes involved: Loading the top of the Dishwasher, Loading the bottom of the Dishwasher, Loading the silverware tray, Running the dishwasher, Unloading the dishwasher. So doing the dishes was 5 of my 10 slots. Any task I completed earned me a star and then that task got erased and I could put in a different task that followed the same rules.
I felt much better having a system in place. I no longer felt lazy in an amorphous way. When I felt lazy I could look at my stars for the day and feel better or I could look at the tasks available to me and try to do one thing and then take a nap.
I'm still not 100%. I feel like I'm at about 75% which is good enough for me to get back to my life but extend myself a lot of grace. I go back to work tomorrow and I started back with my normal system this weekend. I still get a lot of headaches and there are times when I need to just back off but for the most part I can start getting back to my normal life.
Sunday, August 19, 2018
Sunday, July 15, 2018
System Snapshot July 2018
So I was clearly ambitious last month. At the last snapshot I knew that my system had an expiration date looming. For some reason I thought I could hold it together. But my life circumstances got complicated and busy enough that the weaknesses of the old system were compounding quicker than I anticipated.
So... what did I do?
Well, I took a weekend to think about what I needed and wanted from my next system.
Pretty quickly I remembered using Habitica. Last time I used it rigorously it was called HabitRPG. There will be another blog post about it very soon for folks who want to explore it for themselves. Essentially it is a very easy and fun way to track daily tasks and longer running tasks while also watching them decay if I avoid them, leveraging my feelings of guilt.
Out of the box, Habitica is a fairly comprehensive system and a good one for folks just starting out using productivity systems in general. The only additional complication for me is that I need a way for it to interface with my accountability partner relationship. This was fairly easily solved by placing a thing layer of complexity over Habitica. Essentially I have a goal to earn a certain amount of gold coins in the system and that gives me a clear number that I can compare my performance against. It isn't as straightforward as other measurements but it does encourage me to fully invest in the Habitica system, learning how to optimize for coins. It also puts pressure on my daily habits because if I don't achieve them I lose health. If I lose all my health I also lose all my coins. Doing my daily habits also gives me streak bonuses for coins. This provides a nice carrot-and-stick flavor to the system.
Analysis:
What is this system good for?
This system is great for putting a bit of fun into being productive. It puts pressure on my daily commitments to progress while also incentivizing longer term achievements both through increased payoff for bigger items that take longer and by the color changing the longer it goes unachieved. Tracking is incredibly easy. There is almost no external math or record-keeping that I need to do. It does a good job of balancing achievement focus with effort focus.
What are the weaknesses of this system?
Coins and characters are fun but the flexibility in the system for how I get the coins I need might be easily manipulated. Over time I will discover the easiest way to meet my goals and that will unbalance the system. Additionally the consequences of character death might be extreme enough to be demotivating after a while.
How long do I estimate this system will last?
Hard to say. I think that I will make it last at least 3 months. September always has a fresh start feel about it. This is likely due to the fact that school always started in September and the beginning of September is also my birthday. So it is possible that I will be itching for a new system by then. It is also possible that I can make it last through December.
What do I think the next system will need to balance myself?
My next system will likely have discrete measurements that do not vary based on additional factors. I imagine that there will be fewer randomizing features.
How did I do with my estimation based on the last snapshot?
Pretty terribly. I thought that my old system would have lasted longer. The truth was that I had underestimated my new job and the impact of my sister's health on my stress levels. I had also underestimated the extent to which my old system was too heavy on the record-keeping.
So... what did I do?
Well, I took a weekend to think about what I needed and wanted from my next system.
- I wanted something that would measure my effort but also measure the effect of my effort.
- I wanted something that would do a lot of the measurement for me requiring minimal record-keeping effort on my part.
- I wanted something that would allow me to keep track of the long term tasks that I want to do over time.
- I wanted something that would encourage me to make steady progress through regular dedicated effort.
- I wanted something that would reward me for making good habits.
Pretty quickly I remembered using Habitica. Last time I used it rigorously it was called HabitRPG. There will be another blog post about it very soon for folks who want to explore it for themselves. Essentially it is a very easy and fun way to track daily tasks and longer running tasks while also watching them decay if I avoid them, leveraging my feelings of guilt.
Out of the box, Habitica is a fairly comprehensive system and a good one for folks just starting out using productivity systems in general. The only additional complication for me is that I need a way for it to interface with my accountability partner relationship. This was fairly easily solved by placing a thing layer of complexity over Habitica. Essentially I have a goal to earn a certain amount of gold coins in the system and that gives me a clear number that I can compare my performance against. It isn't as straightforward as other measurements but it does encourage me to fully invest in the Habitica system, learning how to optimize for coins. It also puts pressure on my daily habits because if I don't achieve them I lose health. If I lose all my health I also lose all my coins. Doing my daily habits also gives me streak bonuses for coins. This provides a nice carrot-and-stick flavor to the system.
Analysis:
What is this system good for?
This system is great for putting a bit of fun into being productive. It puts pressure on my daily commitments to progress while also incentivizing longer term achievements both through increased payoff for bigger items that take longer and by the color changing the longer it goes unachieved. Tracking is incredibly easy. There is almost no external math or record-keeping that I need to do. It does a good job of balancing achievement focus with effort focus.
What are the weaknesses of this system?
Coins and characters are fun but the flexibility in the system for how I get the coins I need might be easily manipulated. Over time I will discover the easiest way to meet my goals and that will unbalance the system. Additionally the consequences of character death might be extreme enough to be demotivating after a while.
How long do I estimate this system will last?
Hard to say. I think that I will make it last at least 3 months. September always has a fresh start feel about it. This is likely due to the fact that school always started in September and the beginning of September is also my birthday. So it is possible that I will be itching for a new system by then. It is also possible that I can make it last through December.
What do I think the next system will need to balance myself?
My next system will likely have discrete measurements that do not vary based on additional factors. I imagine that there will be fewer randomizing features.
How did I do with my estimation based on the last snapshot?
Pretty terribly. I thought that my old system would have lasted longer. The truth was that I had underestimated my new job and the impact of my sister's health on my stress levels. I had also underestimated the extent to which my old system was too heavy on the record-keeping.
Tuesday, June 5, 2018
System Snapshot June 2018
As someone who always has some sort of productivity system going it could be useful to provide snapshots and analysis of my systems in real time along with my current analysis of its strengths and weaknesses and how that impacts my life as well as when I think I may be in for a shift of system.
Today is June 5th. I just started a new job. We are jumping mid-stream into this productivity system so allow me a bit of time for backstory and an explanation of the evolution of the system. This system in particular is not the easiest to explain in words, and it is not beginner friendly, so, please do not take this as a recommendation to try out. Snapshots are to give you an inside look into how I do things and are not meant in any way to be a recommendation to others. It will be interesting to see as time goes on with these blog posts if the act of writing them down and giving advice to others causes me to use systems for myself that are more easily applied and beginner friendly.
The Backstory
When I started this system I was a contractor at Hulu. My previous system was good for getting me to make use of more of the time that I had available to me than the system before that had done but its biggest weakness was that it so strongly favored effort over accomplishment. I had tried to graft another system on top but that is a clear sign that the system will need changing soon. I used my graft and fleshed it out into a full system.
Initial iteration of current system
I divided my life into categories wherein I could be productive and make goals and that I wanted to improve my output with. I opened up Google Sheets and set each category to its own tab. The main focus of each sheet was to have an ordered to do list specific to that category of my life. The main mechanism was that when I completed an item everything below that item would get copied and pasted up to remove the gap created by the completed item. This system was going to be quantitative so I created a point distribution such that completing items at the top of the list were worth the most points and the points available decreased as you go down the list. Only the top 13 items in each list had point values.
I still wanted a lot of the flexibility available from the previous system. So I created 4 types of priority: Purple, Blue, Green, and Red. Each type had a different point distribution. For Purples, the top item in the list was worth 100 points. For Reds, the top item in the list was work 30 points. At the time I had 16 categories and I would draw their names to determine which type they would be for that day. Each day I had 3 Purples, 4 Blues, 4 Greens and 5 Reds.
My goal was 1600 points per day, which was rather challenging given the limit in the number of categories that I could actually make progress on at work. I tracked on an hour scale, only removing completed items each hour meaning that the next items in that category would only move up once an hour. The daily total was calculated and a percent of goal was given. It also contributed to the weekly total and percentage of goal. I then took the average of 4 weekly percentages to give me my average percentage.
In the carrot and stick equation I tend to motivate myself with the stick approach so depending on the average weekly percentage at the end of the week I would process the results with my accountability partner according to a system that we have set up.
This was working fine and then I got laid off from my job....
At that point I knew my system would have to adapt. The first thing I knew was that I was going to need to raise the point total requirements. I raised it to 2000 points. I could have pushed it further and likely should have in order to squeeze out more productivity, but since I had been laid off the previous year I had new insights into the impacts of unemployment. In order to not accelerate the impact of unemployment-triggered depression I gave myself a modest goal. I also added several categories for technical tasks of various sorts that I could do in order to give myself the training I needed in case it was a lengthy period of unemployment such that I could get myself back into being a developer.
This worked out fine. I raised my average percentage and actually touched some categories that I hadn't touched in a while. I was able to center myself and also push myself. It was pretty much dialed in to last for a while.
Then I got a job....
Today is only the 2nd day on the job. I had to make some decisions on how to adapt my already adapted system back for employment. I decided to go back to the 1600 daily goal but I also kept all the extra categories, at least for now. It is only a couple days in but it seems like it is going to be a bit challenging to maintain but I think I'm okay with that for the moment.
So, that's a lot of back story. Now let's look at the analysis.
Analysis
What is this system good for?
What are this system's weaknesses?
How long do I estimate this productivity system will last?
It is a bit too early to tell how it is going to work with my new job. I will be doing better with this job than my last one because I will be able to take care of my health needs increasingly over time. I think I can make it through the Summer. If I do make it through the summer I think that September and October will also go well. I imagine that one of three things will cause me to need a system change. I could decide the system is too labor intensive. I could decide that I need to focus more on my social relationships than this system supports. I could decide that my work-life balance has shifted too much towards work for this system to be reasonable.
What do I think the next system will need in order to balance myself?
Given the downsides to this system, I imagine the next system will be analog. Given the likelihood that work may shift to me focusing on that more I may need more joy in my life so perhaps a sticker system. It may be slimmed down as well. Categories that I haven't touched between now and then may get put further on the back burner until the spark of desire rises sufficiently.
Given this analysis I imagine the next system might be more beginner friendly for folks who want to join me. In the meantime I will be posting articles from time to time about topics general and specific related to productivity.
In the meantime if there were analysis questions you have that I didn't answer or you have a comment to make, feel free to comment below. You may see your analysis questions included in future snapshots!
Today is June 5th. I just started a new job. We are jumping mid-stream into this productivity system so allow me a bit of time for backstory and an explanation of the evolution of the system. This system in particular is not the easiest to explain in words, and it is not beginner friendly, so, please do not take this as a recommendation to try out. Snapshots are to give you an inside look into how I do things and are not meant in any way to be a recommendation to others. It will be interesting to see as time goes on with these blog posts if the act of writing them down and giving advice to others causes me to use systems for myself that are more easily applied and beginner friendly.
The Backstory
When I started this system I was a contractor at Hulu. My previous system was good for getting me to make use of more of the time that I had available to me than the system before that had done but its biggest weakness was that it so strongly favored effort over accomplishment. I had tried to graft another system on top but that is a clear sign that the system will need changing soon. I used my graft and fleshed it out into a full system.
Initial iteration of current system
I divided my life into categories wherein I could be productive and make goals and that I wanted to improve my output with. I opened up Google Sheets and set each category to its own tab. The main focus of each sheet was to have an ordered to do list specific to that category of my life. The main mechanism was that when I completed an item everything below that item would get copied and pasted up to remove the gap created by the completed item. This system was going to be quantitative so I created a point distribution such that completing items at the top of the list were worth the most points and the points available decreased as you go down the list. Only the top 13 items in each list had point values.
I still wanted a lot of the flexibility available from the previous system. So I created 4 types of priority: Purple, Blue, Green, and Red. Each type had a different point distribution. For Purples, the top item in the list was worth 100 points. For Reds, the top item in the list was work 30 points. At the time I had 16 categories and I would draw their names to determine which type they would be for that day. Each day I had 3 Purples, 4 Blues, 4 Greens and 5 Reds.
My goal was 1600 points per day, which was rather challenging given the limit in the number of categories that I could actually make progress on at work. I tracked on an hour scale, only removing completed items each hour meaning that the next items in that category would only move up once an hour. The daily total was calculated and a percent of goal was given. It also contributed to the weekly total and percentage of goal. I then took the average of 4 weekly percentages to give me my average percentage.
In the carrot and stick equation I tend to motivate myself with the stick approach so depending on the average weekly percentage at the end of the week I would process the results with my accountability partner according to a system that we have set up.
This was working fine and then I got laid off from my job....
At that point I knew my system would have to adapt. The first thing I knew was that I was going to need to raise the point total requirements. I raised it to 2000 points. I could have pushed it further and likely should have in order to squeeze out more productivity, but since I had been laid off the previous year I had new insights into the impacts of unemployment. In order to not accelerate the impact of unemployment-triggered depression I gave myself a modest goal. I also added several categories for technical tasks of various sorts that I could do in order to give myself the training I needed in case it was a lengthy period of unemployment such that I could get myself back into being a developer.
This worked out fine. I raised my average percentage and actually touched some categories that I hadn't touched in a while. I was able to center myself and also push myself. It was pretty much dialed in to last for a while.
Then I got a job....
Today is only the 2nd day on the job. I had to make some decisions on how to adapt my already adapted system back for employment. I decided to go back to the 1600 daily goal but I also kept all the extra categories, at least for now. It is only a couple days in but it seems like it is going to be a bit challenging to maintain but I think I'm okay with that for the moment.
So, that's a lot of back story. Now let's look at the analysis.
Analysis
What is this system good for?
- Adaptable - When I'm unwell I can change the expected points for the day/week.
- Some Randomness - By having values change day to day I am encouraged to focus on fewer categories per day while not having that diminish the number of categories in general.
- Quantitative - When you measure things they improve, numbers are powerful because you can use math to get a sense of not just how the raw numbers change but also how the average changes.
- Confronts Unpleasantness - Tasks that are challenging or unpleasant drift towards the top and become more valuable. Since there are only 13 slots available for compensation at some point I have to do unpleasant things to open up more slots.
- Focuses on Completion - Task lists are better when they are discrete pieces of work. I've been weasel-ing a bit in order to make the chunks more equally sized on some of the harder to split up categories but those are the ones I wasn't touching before anyway. Like writing... I'm getting credit for every 15 min I work on this. In general though most of the categories are completion based tasks, like "Do the Dishes" or "Read 1 chapter of this Computer Science book"
What are this system's weaknesses?
- Too Labor Intensive - The time it takes to randomize the categories into colors, reset the color on the sheet tab, and paste the correct point distribution each day is onerous. Thinking back over the day and getting the values after getting home is onerus. This will likely be the downfall of this system.
- Software problems - Google Sheets is not great for my use case on my current computer and I don't have Excel. Not really sure why but sometimes loading time is ridiculous.
- A Bit Too Stressful - It is hard to pick a good point level that provides the right amount of stress. This may be a system that makes it too easy to beat up on myself.
- Doesn't Interface with Social Life Well - Most of my time I'm pretty solitary. This system works really well to motivate me to use my solitary time wisely. It can be challenging when there are other people involved. People eat a lot of time and any system that causes me to resent people is one I need to be cautious about. I do have one category called "Community" which works differently than all the other categories. It starts blank and I fill in names of people or networks I've engaged with. This offsets some but likely not enough.
- Untouched Categories - There are still categories I don't touch even when they are Purple. This system doesn't really reward me taking the time to meditate on why that is.
How long do I estimate this productivity system will last?
It is a bit too early to tell how it is going to work with my new job. I will be doing better with this job than my last one because I will be able to take care of my health needs increasingly over time. I think I can make it through the Summer. If I do make it through the summer I think that September and October will also go well. I imagine that one of three things will cause me to need a system change. I could decide the system is too labor intensive. I could decide that I need to focus more on my social relationships than this system supports. I could decide that my work-life balance has shifted too much towards work for this system to be reasonable.
What do I think the next system will need in order to balance myself?
Given the downsides to this system, I imagine the next system will be analog. Given the likelihood that work may shift to me focusing on that more I may need more joy in my life so perhaps a sticker system. It may be slimmed down as well. Categories that I haven't touched between now and then may get put further on the back burner until the spark of desire rises sufficiently.
Given this analysis I imagine the next system might be more beginner friendly for folks who want to join me. In the meantime I will be posting articles from time to time about topics general and specific related to productivity.
In the meantime if there were analysis questions you have that I didn't answer or you have a comment to make, feel free to comment below. You may see your analysis questions included in future snapshots!
Monday, June 4, 2018
Why Patreon?
I know, this doesn't count as a real productivity post, but I think it can make a reasonable first post. This is very much an experiment and I don't know how it will turn out. Productivity has been one of the concepts I've hyperfocused on over the past almost 30 years. It has come to my attention that this has resulted in a lot of insights into productivity, motivation, organization, and how humans work. My goal is to find a way to dump the insights I've gleaned in a way that makes that knowledge easier to disseminate. I hope that you find it valuable.
Speaking of which, I would like to know what sorts of topics you would find of most value. I will be engaging both on this platform and via this blog's patreon. My first post there is a poll so if you have opinions as to what types of posts you would most prefer please go there and fill out the survey. I don't think you have to be a patron to take part. If I'm wrong on that front feel free to comment here with your preferences.
I am starting off with both the blog and the Patreon together for three reasons. First, I am more productive when folks have higher expectations of me and I expect patrons would have higher expectations. Second I think folks should be compensated for their work. I know that I don't contribute what I should to supporting creators out there but I want to and having a Patreon will help me to do that. Third, it provides me information about how valuable this blog is for folks. Qualitative data, like comments are great and they definitely feed one side of my brain. But the other side needs quantitative data. Views and such is good but when folks put their money down, even $1 a month, it tells that quantification-hungry part of my brain that value is being transferred.
As this is my first post, I don't expect to get patrons right away. I haven't provided any value yet. This is me from June 2018 talking however. If you are here from the future and have read several posts because this is exactly what you were looking for, consider joining my Patreon community.
Speaking of which, I would like to know what sorts of topics you would find of most value. I will be engaging both on this platform and via this blog's patreon. My first post there is a poll so if you have opinions as to what types of posts you would most prefer please go there and fill out the survey. I don't think you have to be a patron to take part. If I'm wrong on that front feel free to comment here with your preferences.
I am starting off with both the blog and the Patreon together for three reasons. First, I am more productive when folks have higher expectations of me and I expect patrons would have higher expectations. Second I think folks should be compensated for their work. I know that I don't contribute what I should to supporting creators out there but I want to and having a Patreon will help me to do that. Third, it provides me information about how valuable this blog is for folks. Qualitative data, like comments are great and they definitely feed one side of my brain. But the other side needs quantitative data. Views and such is good but when folks put their money down, even $1 a month, it tells that quantification-hungry part of my brain that value is being transferred.
As this is my first post, I don't expect to get patrons right away. I haven't provided any value yet. This is me from June 2018 talking however. If you are here from the future and have read several posts because this is exactly what you were looking for, consider joining my Patreon community.
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