Routine Blog 3: Final Results

For the last couple months, I’ve been working on my productivity–or lack there of. I learned a few new things about myself and reenforced some old ones.

Things I’ve learned

I put too many items on my list and I have such a horrible time weeding out the unimportant ones. This will not change. It’s a permanent part of my process and I have to learn to live with it. I’ll keep making my lists and thinking positively. I don’t write about my day-to-day in pretty journals anymore; yet, I can’t seem to stop buying them. So, I use them to write my daily lists in. Oddly, completing one of those notebooks with lists and odds and end notes gives me a certain sense of accomplishment. Even better? When I finish one, I can buy a new one.

Somedays it’s almost impossible for me to concentrate on a task. No matter what trick I use, it’s just not going to happen. The night before, I might have planned to get an editing project complete or write the next chapter in my WIP. But the sun comes up and my brain will not comply. The sooner I come to that conclusion and move on to the next priority, the better my life is in general.

Priorities for the day work really well. (As long as I’m able to concentrate on it that day. See above.) Having one big goal for the day and doing more minor activities around that goal gets many more items crossed off my list and keeps me working for longer. The super focus I have from my ADHD can be a huge strength, but I’ve got a ton of responsibilities pulling me in different directions. I can’t indulge myself by only doing that one obsession. Instead, I pepper in other things around steps in the big goal. It seems to encourage me to get those side quests done faster so I can get back to the thing my brain really wants to do. 

What does this change?

Not as much as I thought it might. Turns out, I’m being much more productive than I thought I was. The fact that I couldn’t get my drafting done in the time I felt like I should be able to clouded my objective judgment of my productivity. If you look at all of the things I’m responsible for, I get a ton done.

The biggest hardest thing to change was the way I see myself. Instead of always angry that I didn’t finish that thing, I’m trying to concentrate on the big picture. I’m actually doing pretty awesome. Some days are harder than others, but overall this little experiment has made me feel so much better about the direction my life has taken. 

I’ve also realized I don’t have to do all the things everyday. Just as many of them as I can fit, with some days’ lists more crossed off than others. 

Results

In conclusion, I will never have a routine. They don’t work for me. If the objective is to get stuff done, I already know how to do that. Just because I can’t keep a routine, doesn’t mean I’m not productive. It just means I’m unpredictable. And why do I need to meet someone else’s definition of who I should be when I’m damn well old enough to know who I am? Answer: I don’t.

What part of your life could use some analyzing? Do you think we can have everything at once? Let me know below what you think.

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