On Productivity
Lately I’ve been trying a new system for how I manage my evenings. Someone else might try “no system” or “having fun” or “relaxing,” but I am not that someone.
Instead, I’ve cobbled together something from the charred husk of the Bento Method that seems to work pretty well for me.
Of course, to make that make sense, I have to describe what came before.
In the early days there was StumbleUpon, and it wasted a lot of time, and I got nothing done for approximately 2008-2016. Very little of that is StumbleUpon’s fault. I just wanted to mention StumbleUpon for some OG time wasting cred.
By the early 2010s I was using the then-nascent Bullet Journal method. By the late 2010s I was using GTD.
Over the last half year I’ve been using time blocking, which has gone through several iterations. Originally rough time estimates became fixed time blocks, deep focus to light focus. The problem with that level of fixed schedule was that frequently the real world happened, and things slipped, and I had no good way to get them back on track.
Once the train missed the station it was hard to go back.
I was looking at the Bento Method and I thought, “well, this seems interesting.” Not really looking to buy a new app though. I’m actually quite happy with OmniFocus. But the idea of setting tasks that sort of roughly align with how I was time blocking, but that would remain to be re-scheduled if I missed them was pretty compelling. And seemed to solve for my main pain point with what I was doing previously.
The other problem I set out to solve, related but unrelated, was bringing more focus to a single project at a time. I tend to have too many hobbies and interests, and in turn tend not to get very many projects to a proper “finished” state.
So I married the bento method up with two week sprints. I actually like sprints. I know, crazy, right? But I like the idea of bringing a limited amount of laser-sharp focus to a problem. And, I was able to bake in a little bit of a reward. After my two weeks? A week off!
I’m now halfway through my second week of my first sprint under this system, and it’s been great. I’ve gotten a satisfying amount of work done on a single project. Naively I thought one sprint would be enough to finish it, but of course bringing my attention to bear meant I found all kinds of new things it could be extended to do.
C’est la vie. At least I have next week’s “break” to look forward to.