The COVID-19 pandemic tested productivity limits. However, like the maximum limits, it is flexible.
Between adapting to your new show, making uninterrupted video calls, and chasing your kids (who seem to have infinite energy), the last thing you think about is how they’ll keep doing things.
Unfortunately, most of us can’t go back and wait for things to end. We still have commitments to make.
Fortunately, there are tactics to remain productive in those unprecedented times:
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could just move a wand and be magically productive? If it were that simple.
Even before the pandemic, if I wanted to be productive, I had to be prepared for it. Only when you had nothing on your schedule, like a weekend of leisure. You may have wandered around looking for something to spend your time on, even if it’s not a smart use of downtime, like watching a Netflix series. The same goes for the week of his paintings.
Because things can get hectic during the week, I usually spend Friday afternoons planning. Sometimes I come in on a Saturday or a Sunday to plan my total next week. While this might not be the most exciting task, it allows me to prioritize my tasks, plan my days, and identify a routine.
Psychologists promote the benefits of regimen productivity. Just eating, exercising, sleeping and waking up at the same time of day can make all the difference. On the other hand, unstructured time promotes intellectual and emotional instability, hardly a recipe for productivity.
The routine reduces “decision fatigue.” Pre-planning helps you know exactly what you want to do and when, freeing up intellectual bandwidth.
He doesn’t necessarily want a home office, but he wants a committed workplace. Ideally, your area is quiet and away from distractions such as television, as well as other members of the house. Make sure you have what you want to do your job, such as reliable Wi-Fi, plugs to recharge your devices, and expand area.
Once you’ve created your ideal paint space, paint only from there. This physical restriction causes your brain to go into paint mode when you’re on the watch; On the other hand, you can exit pictures in frames.
Let it be transparent to those who live with you that this is your sacred space: it is not a position to hang out or cross; that’s where he does business. If you don’t have a door that you can close, share your calendar with them so they can see when they have it and when they don’t.
Strive as hard as you want: it’s not imaginable to paint all day long. This was true before COVID, and it is even more so now. Fortunately, there are a number of productivity strategies you can consult to solve this problem. One of the highs indicated is the Pomodoro technique, in which it is painted for 2 five minutes and then takes a five-minute break. After 4 of these, you take a longer break of 15 to 30 minutes to recharge and refocus.
Especially when painting from home, those breaks also have practical value. If you have young children at home, you cannot stay locked in your home’s workplace for 8 hours. You’re going to have to make them lunch, send them home to school and see what they haven’t destroyed in your house. Constant alterations make it difficult to concentrate.
You can also use timeboxing. For example, from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m., you can block a working time. From nine a.m. to 11 a.m., you can send your children to school at home, followed by an hour’s lunch break. Basically, block express hours for express activities at points like when it’s maximum productivity or when the rest of your team can meet.
For smaller tasks, you can apply the two-minute rule: if something takes only 120 seconds or less, do so. And when you organize your week, check out techniques such as Pareto’s precept and rule 1-3-5.
I saw at the beginning of the pandemic that things can replace in the blink of an eye. There will be times when everything you had planned for the day will have to be adjusted.
While it is important to maintain a regimen, you want to be informed about how to execute the punches. For example, I no longer use a zero-based calendar, which takes into account each and every time. That’s just not imaginable right now.
Instead, I only schedule my maximum responsibilities of the day. The rest of my spaces, I leave it open. That way, if anything changes, I have the flexibility to fix it. If nothing else comes up, I’m starting to think about what I want to do next.
Between the virus and the isolation of domestic work, our intellectual aptitude has been tested in months. For some of us, the intellectual effects of the pandemic may last longer than the pandemic itself.
For this reason, taking care of your fitness and well-being deserves to be your most sensible priority right now, even if it means skipping the pictures of the day to spend time with your circle of family members or with a smart book. How can you thrive when you suffer from anxiety, depression, and exhaustion?
Registering with yourself is the same as your friends and colleagues. Just be careful not to make plans for too many Zoom meetings, which can also be exhausting. If in doubt, exercise, meditate and have fun.
As complicated as it is, don’t let the coronavirus take over your life. You want to be informed, as it is, but you also want a break so you don’t get too much information.
Your media plan is a smart position to start with. I set out to restrict the amount of news I consume because they interfered with my life. Too many nights, I got stuck watching the dinner news or being sucked into social media when I was looking for a job.
The global would probably seem very different from what it was a few months ago, but that doesn’t mean you still can’t be productive. As long as you have a plan, an office and strategies like the Pomodoro technique, you can do things. And above all, your fitness and protection will have to come first.
John Hall is the co-founder and president of Calendar, a time planning and control application. You can do an ebook as a speaker here and you can consult it
John Hall is the co-founder and president of Calendar, a time planning and control application. You can perform an ebook as a speaker here and you can check out your best “Top of Mind” eebook. Sign up for Google Calendar here.