Productivity Month, Week 1 – I was not ready

I bought an art print and framed it. Then I bought flowers to match the frame. Like a grown-up.

In my last post I wrote about how pumped I was to get things going this month. So, naturally, this week – nothing happened. In fact, it was even worse than the week before.

It was already clear on Monday. Using a variety of loopholes to sabotage myself, I just decided that this week wasn't going to bring me any joy in terms of productivity. So I sat down and watched myself instead, to... learn from my pre-planned failure, I guess?

Here's what happened:

1) I wrote down what I did at work. I've long wondered how I actually spend my time at work, so I made a list and checked in with myself every 15 minutes. I've long suspected that I have certain productive and non-productive times, and at the end of the day, there they were black on white: I'm basically useless between 10am and 3pm. During that time frame, everything is a slog and distractions are most tempting. However I focus like a boss in the (very) early morning and late afternoon.

2) I worked from home. Thanks to a disruption on public transport I worked from home for two days, which I would not recommend to anyone who only has one room to sleep, work and live in.
During those two days at home, I did nothing but work. In the evenings I had to force myself out of the house to stop and get out of that mindsoace, and when I got back in, I fell into the usual stupor.
I cannot work and play in the same place. This even goes for distractions. At home, I'm on Youtube. When I have a bit of free time in the office, I read essays, sites like lifehacker, and news websites. So when I'm not working on job things, I work on myself – because I'm in a work mindset.

3) I found the right amount of noise. Earlier this week I discovered soundrown, which is so awesome it'll get its own post soon. But it wasn't just ambient noise I discovered.
I'm currently addicted to Breaking Bad. When I was working from home, I had two laptops anyway, sooo... I got through a lot of episodes a day, playing in the background while I was getting work done. I barely remember a thing that happened in Season 3 (people probably got shot 'n stuff), but those hours just flew by. Background noise makes me focus better. Yep, even TV shows.

So what's up for next week?

A few days ago I read about how the brain is not designed to deal with all the distractions we come across every day – junk food, video games, the Internet – and that our inherent preferences for these "supernatural stimuli" can make us come back to them so often that it becomes harmful.

I don't have to think long about what my Enemy No. 1 is. So, for the next 6 days I will not access the Internet from home.
Exceptions to this rule are my email, lynda.com and soundrown.


I'm mildly nervous about this.