Secret to productivity: Step away from the computer.
I was having one of those headless-chicken workdays today. I have them on occasion. Probably everyone who works in an job involving multiple responsibilities, everyone who spends a lot of time staring at a monitor, has days like this. There I was, spasmodically switching (and twitching) from one task to another, half a dozen different application windows open on my screen, feeling really busy but knowing I wasn’t getting much done, and generally doing my best headless chicken impression.
Then, for the last two hours of the day, I had to be away from my computer. And during those two hours, I suddenly rediscovered what it feels like to get things done. I started writing down some ideas for an article I’m putting together. By the time the scribbling covered several notebook pages, I noticed my attention span had come back and there was much more waiting to be written than I’d thought. Best of all, I recognized that old, exhilarating feeling of possibility that I remembered from diagramming dissertation chapters.
I don’t think I would have gotten all that down if I’d been inputting it into Word with a panoply of documents, browser windows, and half-composed e-mails sitting in the background and demanding my attention. I had to sit down with a pen in my hand and only one thing to do. So I think I’ll build some designated analog-only time into my schedule and see what happens.
Lifehacker and 43 Folders cover this kind of thing all the time, of course, but it bears repeating: Sometimes you have to step away from the screen with the half-dozen open windows and go do one thing at a time. Even when you ordinarily like to multitask. (Oh, and fountain pens are awesome. But fountain pens are always awesome.)
Of course, the first thing I thought when this revelation dawned was "I’ve got to blog about this," but hey. There’s no way I’d turn the computer off permanently.
Fountain pens, yes. What kind of notebook do you use?
A couple of composition books with the marble-patterned covers (one unruled, one graph paper), and a couple of little Moleskines (also one unruled and one graph paper).
It’s possible that I may have a bit of a notebook fetish…
Moleskines seem to be all the rage again; I’ve got to get me some. And honey, I know you have a school supply fetish. That’s why I asked about the notebooks. I haven’t been writing in anything but my journal lately; it’s a very nice red-, soft-covered blank book I picked up at Kate’s Paperie in NYC (which, as you may know, is like porno heaven for girls like us). But for academic work I’m very fond of Levenger’s Circa notebooks. They really hold up to ink.
Hey, I’ve got a soft-covered blank notebook from Kate’s Paperie in New York too! Possibly even the same kind. The cover’s black, and it’s a little bigger than the smallest Moleskines. I use it for poem drafts (so it’s not nearly full enough). Kate’s Paperie is the BEST.