Annie Neugebauer

geared towards people who work at home, especially writers

This is the second half of my productivity tips list, so if you missed part 1, don’t forget to check it out!

6. Schedule both fun time and chill time.

And yes, they are different things. Fun time is for things like bowling with your kids, going on a weekend hike, or checking out your local Zumba class. (Notice how these are all active things that might give you endorphins.) Chill time is for things like TV marathons, lazy evenings on the couch with your spouse and pets, and luxury naps. (Notice how these are all snuggly things that might up your oxytocin levels.) Both are necessary for a healthy body and brain, so give yourself time to do one of each at least once a week. If you can’t find time, make time. A refreshed self is more productive than a continually exhausted self.

7. Get busy. (Not to be confused with fun time.)

This one is counter-intuitive. But have you ever noticed that when you have a bit of a time crunch you can pound out 1,000 words in a single hour… words that you often can’t get over an entire half-day? There’s a reason for this, and it’s the same one high school students have been using as an excuse to do last-minute papers for decades: our brains often work better under slight stress.

My point is that if you aren’t at least moderately busy, you might be less productive even though you have more time. So if you work at home and see that your day is wide open with nothing but one goal, throw some other things in there. Tell yourself you’re going to go get the oil changed today at 2, and that you have to accomplish your goal before then. You’ll likely achieve that new goal—and get your oil changed to boot. It’s a win-win.

And if you routinely find yourself with lots of empty time, it might be time to increase your goals.

8. Turn off the freaking interwebs.

Look at your laptop keyboard. Do you see near the top what looks like a little phone tower with motion symbols coming out of it? That’s the wireless button. (You desktoppers will have to do it the old fashioned way, from the control panel.) That button: push it. “But Annie, won’t that turn off the internet?” Yup.

9. Be hard on yourself.

There probably isn’t a therapist in the world who would tell you this, but lucky for us… I’m not a therapist.

Working for yourself is like going to the gym; it’s innate human nature to cheat. The reason personal trainers and fitness classes work better than telling yourself “you’ll do it at home” is because we are always sneakily trying to figure out ways to go easy on ourselves. It’s in our genetic makeup to conserve energy—both physical and mental. So, just as you might let yourself go 5 pounds lighter at the gym than your trainer would, you might just go several tasks lighter on yourself at home than a traditional boss would.

There’s no easy fix for this. The goals help, as does the schedule. In the end, you have to constantly remind yourself what you’re capable of.

You have to work hard. You have to push yourself beyond what you think you’re capable of, or you’ll never test your limits. I tell my husband all the time that I’m a much tougher boss than any bosses I know, and it’s true. If you want to be productive, you need to be hard on yourself.

10. But not too hard.

That being said… there’s a limit. You don’t want to cross the line between pushing yourself toward productivity and bullying yourself. That’s why we schedule in fun time and chill time. And if your own boss (you) ever brings you to tears with her harshness… tell that chief to eff off and go take your lunch break early. She’ll understand.

11. Get enough sleep.

You know that expression “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”? I think it’s one of goofiest things I’ve ever heard. People need sleep. You know what happens when you don’t sleep? You die. So… yeah, I guess you will “sleep when you’re dead”… and it will be a lot sooner than the rest of us.

Snark aside, not getting enough sleep is a huge problem in our society. When I was in college, people were always surprised by how regularly I maintained high grades. They’d ask me how I did it, and there were really only two answers: 1) Review new information within 24 hours of learning it, and 2) Get at least 8 hours of sleep every night. Not kidding. Most people could get high grades if they religiously followed those two rules.

The mistake so many people make is cutting sleep during the week and “catching up” on the weekend. The problem with this (aside from the fact that sleep is directly tied to the immune system, and a lack of sleep will lead to increased illness, which will lead to decreased productivity) is that the brain needs sleep each night to process, sort, and store all of the information of that day. If you miss sleep that night, there’s no going back; that information (or some of it) will be lost—inadequately stored. So while, yes, you’ll sleep more that weekend because you’ll be tired, it won’t reverse the negative effects of skipping sleep during the week. There’s no such thing as “catching up on sleep.”

A rested brain means a higher-functioning brain. A higher-functioning brain means faster, higher-quality work production. Get your eight hours each night so your noggin is ready to go each morning. Plus, you’ll get rid of that dragged-out-of-bed–by-an-angry-raccoon feeling, which is always nice. Speaking of which…

12. Make the bed.

I thought about writing a whole paragraph here about how starting your day off with a neat, lovely, productive attitude sets the tone and gets you in a positive frame of mind (and there is truth to that — no, really)… but then I realized that I just prefer when people make the bed.

So make the bed.

~*~

What did I miss? Do you find yourself wishing you were more productive? Do you have any extra tips you can share with my readers? Jump in below!

geared towards people who work at home, especially writers

I have been called plenty of things in my life, but I don’t think “lazy” has ever been one of them. Workaholic, anal-retentive, perfectionist, slave-driver, and bossy? Sure. Lazy? Not so much. Say what you will about that—and I’m sure you could pin this personality trait on plenty of unhealthy things—but in the end it serves one purpose splendidly: I get shit done.

So I thought I would share some of my principals and tricks with you guys. Turns out, I have a lot! So this will be in two parts for a total of 12 tips that make me a busy and productive bee.

1. Make goals.

Omg. Seriously? This tip isn’t new. I’m not saying it is, but here’s the thing: it works. Especially for people who work for themselves, like most writers. Every single time I find myself floundering for a week, drifting from project to project, or wasting entire days doing nothing but rechecking Twitter, it’s because I’ve forgotten to set new goals.

I’m not going to talk about what type of goals to make or how (well, not much anyway), because, dude… google it. Besides, most of us have had at least one teacher along the line make us fill out a worksheet about short-term and long-term goals. We get it. And most of us believe it, but that doesn’t mean we remember to make like Nike and just do it. This is especially crucial when you come to the end of a goal. So you actually finished your first draft when you said you were going to—awesome! But now what? Time to set the next goal.

2. Prioritize those goals.

This is actually something I learned from my husband. One night I asked him to help me set up a schedule for the next day, and the first things he asked me to do? Make a list and number them in order of importance. Factors that affect importance are 1) deadlines 2) productivity and 3) desirability. In other words, editing a certain short story might not be a priority this week, but if it’s due next week it will become one then.

After I did this, I gave Hub-a-dub the list and he made me a schedule. Did I like the schedule? Hell no! He made me do all the hard boring stuff first. (I had been instinctively checking off the more fun or repetitive tasks first as a way of procrastinating. More on that later.) Turns out that was one of the most productive days I’d had in weeks, and now I try to schedule every day this way. Which brings me to…

3. Make a plan (schedule) to reach those goals.

Making goals is all fine and dandy, but in and of itself just isn’t enough. You have to take steps toward achieving them. Which means… *dum dum DUM* a schedule.

Scheduling is one of those things that you just have to DO. *There’s isn’t really a shortcut, as far as I know. You sit down with your goals prioritized in a list + the hours available in your day, and punch them into timeslots. Remember to schedule food breaks and stretching breaks between long, tedious tasks.

4. Make a contingency plan.

Sometimes life gets in the way. Sometimes our goals are overzealous. Sometimes incredible and unexpected opportunities pop up. That’s okay. It’s not the end of the world if you don’t hit your goal on your projected date… unless you have no contingency plan and therefor beat yourself up and have an emotional breakdown.

Instead, make a back-up plan. Shift things around. Take a look at your prioritized list and push back the bottom items. Think of this like a long-term diet or health plan. If you fall off the wagon, don’t go crazy with it. Don’t start all over to punish yourself or give up entirely and go on a binge. Just continue on the next day as if it never happened. You’ll feel better about yourself and waste less time.

5. Procrastinate like a boss.

(The kind that’s slang for awesome, not the kind that means employer.)

My mom called a couple of weeks ago and asked what I was doing. I said, “Procrastinating.” She said, “I’ve never known you to,” and I tagged on, “Well I’m procrastinating productively.” My answer was misleading, but only on the surface. Explaining this long-time practice of the “right way to procrastinate” to her helped clarify it to me.

Fact: It is in human nature to procrastinate. Lesser-known fact: You can use this to your advantage.

Sometimes there are tasks that loom above us like mountains so tall the peak is engulfed in storm clouds. The best thing to do, when you can manage it, is tackle that bitch. Get started, small steps, and you’ll feel less overwhelmed in no time.

But let’s get real; sometimes that just isn’t going to happen. So when you feel that siren call to put off your MegaTask, do what I do: procrastinate by doing something else that’s still productive.

Example: Suzy set herself a goal of rewriting a highly emotional scene in her novel today, and she’s dreading it. She knows she won’t be able to make herself do it today, so instead of giving up and watching TV until she can’t feel her eyeballs, she edits an old short story and sends it out on submission. Or she catches up on her website’s much-needed updates. Or she reads. (That’s part of writer’s job too, you know.) Or if all else fails, she does chores. Hey, who hates a clean house?

If the MegaTask is daunting enough, you’d be amazed by the number of menial, odd-end jobs you can get done in the meantime. I do it all the time: use the fear of one task to spur the productivity of a bunch of others. Eventually, you’ll either have your whole life so in order that there’s nothing left to do but MegaTask, you’ll hit the deadline that forces you to face MegaTask, or you’ll realize MegaTask is something you don’t actually have to do and rearrange your priorities.

~*~

*Is there an interest for a daily schedule template for writers? It would be a free document at The Organized Writer. If yes, let me know in the comments below.

Part 2 is coming next week! Hope to see you back then. Don’t want to miss it? You can subscribe by email or RSS at the top of my sidebar, or follow these instructions to specify which types of posts you’re interested in.

So, which of these 5 tricks work for you? Have you tried them? What are the areas that you most need to improve on?