Goal Setting, Productivity & Getting Stuff Done
When you're doing so much there's not a spare second, but when it gets to the weekend you're not quite sure what you've actually achieved.
I should’ve posted this last week. It sits front and centre of my To Do list along with all the other regular writing projects I’ve committed to this year.
It’s not like I’ve been slacking. I’ve not been kicking back with my feet up. It’s just… I’ve not actually been working on the things I’m supposed to be focused on.
Instead, I’ve -
Agreed to Consult of a TV Treatment (top secret, but of course, unpaid)
Painted a Room
Lovingly Restored 38sqm of Terracotta Floor Tiles
Wrote a Chapter of my Novel
The list goes on, but you get the idea.
It’s not that any of these things were a waste of time. They all needed doing at some point (even getting a cat - the big farmhouse renovation needs mouse protection).
It’s just none of them needed doing immediately. None of these activities were more important than the things on my list that are supposed to be non-negotiable.
Why is it, that when I need to get something done, suddenly I’ll have a spotless house?
Or, I’ll decide now is the exact moment I should go through all my emails to unsubscribe from the spam?
Or ,this is the week I think I should learn to make pasta from scratch, by hand?
I know I’m not alone.
Who else has had to pull an all-nighter to meet a deadline, when there were literal weeks beforehand when you could’ve got the job done?
No amount of fancy apps, fancy notebooks or fancy whiteboards (yep, bought myself a whiteboard this week because I thought it might help to ‘plan my tasks’) is gonna cut through the protests of an ADHD brain that decides it doesn’t wanna play ball.
So what did I do?
I had a proper, big, ugly-cry meltdown, of course.
And what have I learned from this?
Ermmmm…..
….. That I’ll never learn?
It’s not always hyperfocus and endless energy.
Sometimes, it’s a battle against my own brain, dragging it kicking and screaming towards a deadline.
But hey, at least now I don’t beat myself up about it for weeks afterwards.
Progress, right?
Now the tears have dried and I’m able to be a *smigde* more rational, I’m sitting down with that whiteboard, my Clever Fox Planner and all my colour coded Post-Its to do the only thing that even mildly works for me, when there are a million and one things to do, but they’re not all created equal.
I do a little visualisation.
I’m cooking dinner. I have four gas rings and an oven, but if I try to use them all at once, I’m gonna cremate the food.
I’m only allowed one oven tray, and one pan on the front ring. Everything else stays on the side, or gets chucked into the sink.
One slow burn task.
One front burner task.
Maybe, just maybe, I can fiddle with a side salad, too. But only once the main meal is taken care of.
Side note - I have to use this metaphor because I’m unable to differentiate between ‘urgent’ & ‘important’. Everything always feels like both to me. With this visualisation, I intuitively get it.
Then I open the online calendar and schedule in precisely what I’m going to do to work towards these goals for the week, and when.
I hadn’t done that last week.
I’d been ‘too busy’ to do my usual Sunday night planning sesh… and I gave myself food poisoning as a result.