The Emergency Break Glass Kit

Sometimes you just know you're about to waste a whole afternoon. You've got time, but you're feeling so groggy or unmotivated or indecisive that you know those hours are going to slip away. For times like that, I envisioned an emergency kit that you would break the glass on with a little hammer, and it would contain all the things you need to get energized and accomplish at least *one* thing.

Maybe I'll make that someday, but what is almost as good and that I make use of every so often is this list of commands for me to follow, unthinkingly, when I find myself in that predicament:

1. Have a snack (I keep protein bars in my desk)
2. Drink a short can of cola (ditto)
3. Sweep everything on my desk into my inbox (sometimes mere clutter slows me to a halt)
4. Take out a blank piece of paper and write down the name of 1 project to make progress on for 2 hours solid. (having too many projects vying for my attention can also be a source of paralysis)
5. Brainstorm all the ways I can make progress on this project
6. Pick one of those ways, decide what the next simple, physical action would be towards that. If the task is an unpleasant one, launch web browser and do 10 and 2s.
7. Two hours later, go home!

For a while I was trying to make something out of a shoebox, that would contain the pop and protein bar, and these instructions. I still want to someday. What would you put in your emergency kit? Some other suggestions for what might go in:

* A cd burned with high energy music
* A map to go take a walk
* Inspirational phrases
* Step by step list of exercises
* Smokebombs. Because those are always handy.

Saturdays Are Off

I take saturdays completely off. I might take the evenings of a few other days off, but saturdays I *have* to take off. Jim Davies, a hardworking, successful cognitive scientist, showed me how this works; definitely read about his philosophy here. It struck a chord with me because I'd read a Garison Keillor advice column years ago about a man who was being driven almost to insanity, on the tenth year of his PhD, stressed out every single day and yet no longer making any progress at all. "Mr. Blue" advised him to take one day completely off, to reconnect with life and at least briefly lift the burden of his career worries.

So that's what I've done every week for about 10 months now. I kept it up all through the writing of my masters thesis, through many other scary deadlines, breaking my rule only twice that I can remember and that was when I was just getting used to it. It *is* possible, and a glorious thing.

Some saturdays end up being about rest and self-indulgence, like spending most of it catching up on some tv show, but many are about having adventures and trying new things. What I've really come to treasure is the looseness of the day. Saturdays are for serendipity and digressions, randomly running into people and spending the next 3 hours hanging out. On saturdays my theme songs are "The 59th Bridge Song" by Simon and Garfunkel and Mr. Tambourine Man: "I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to."

Today was a great example. I slept in late after going dancing last night (friday nights are the other time that I almost always take off), then wandered downtown to get my hair cut. Afterwards I strolled on Princess St, as I often do of a saturday - it's the long main street in Kingston and offers constant interest in the form of shops and people. I lunched at a deli I'd never been in before, and tried a czechoslovakian pickle recommended by the counter lady. Then I went with Jamal and Michelle for a matinee of the ridiculous, wonderful spectacle of Ghost Rider. For dinner I ate enormous amounts of sushi served in a wooden boat with Meghan and Tyson. And now I'm writing in this blog. Soon I will watch an episode of Friday Night Lights, or read my book about Baltimore homicide detectives. All these things I do because I feel like them, without the tiniest bit of guilt or having any obligation to think about work once (although it's not uncommon that I get good ideas on my day off! That loose mindset is great for creativity)

I can justify this not just for my sanity, but for productivity. The flipside is that I put in a nearly-full day of work on sunday (often getting a slightly later start). It's nice and quiet in the office, completely free of distractions. Sunday is frequently my most productive day of the week. I used to have weekends that were two days where I could never fully enjoy myself and yet got hardly anything done. Instead I have a great time on saturdays, and on sundays get more done than I used to in two days - usually more than on any other day of the week.

Give it a try!

The Importance of Alone Time

Interesting advice from a cutting-edge web development company:

"When you have a long stretch when you aren't bothered, you can get in the
zone. The zone is when you are most productive. It's when you don't have
to mindshift between various tasks. It's when you aren't interrupted to
answer a question or look up something or send an email or answer an im.
The alone zone is where real progress is made.

Getting in the zone takes time. And that's why interruption is your enemy.
It's like rem sleep - you don't just go to rem sleep, you go to sleep
first and you make your way to rem. Any interruptions force you to start
over. rem is where the real sleep magic happens. The alone time zone is
where the real development magic happens.

Set up a rule at work: Make half the day alone time. From 10am-2pm, no one
can talk to one another (except during lunch). Or make the first or the
last half of the day the alone time period. Just make sure this period is
contiguous in order to avoid productivity-killing interruptions.

A successful alone time period means letting go of communication
addiction. During alone time, give up instant messenging, phone calls, and
meetings. Avoid any email thread that's going to require an immediate
response. Just shut up and get to work."

http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch07_Alone_Time.php

The Joy of Outboxes

I'm going to write a longer entry about the greatness of inboxes, but
something of immediate use is an outbox: a place you can immediately put
stuff in to be taken to the office, or from the office. The important
point is that it's got to be within arms reach. At work it's a plastic
tray, at home it's one side of the top of my dresser. When I leave either
location I automatically scoop what's in my outbox into my bag.

This works for the same reason as a lot of the things I've recently
adopted: it means I can act *immediately*, even thoughtlessly, when I
think of something I have to do - instead of making a mental note, which
a) often doesn't work and b) adds to stress as I have to keep reminding
myself over and over. Goes to my outbox, goes out of my head.