Here’s a list of everything I did today, in no particular order:
- Graded eight hours worth of standardized test essays
- Studied Japanese
- Wrote three emails (one short, one medium, and one reeeeeeeeeaalllllllly long)
- Outlined and fine-tuned some trouble areas in my novel
- Made lunch and dinner
- Drafted this blog entry (working on that now)
So first off…yeah, I picked up some hours at my No-Longer-Secret Work-From-Home Day Job grading standardized test essays, but only for this week, swiping up an opportunity to bring in some extra cash before I leave for Japan. Plus, since I’m able to basically do other work while on my test-grading shifts as long as I keep up a decent pace (*Shhhhhhh* that’s a secret!), it’s an easy way to both get my own shit done and walk away with a paycheck. So I’m definitely multitasking this week, which may have dire effects on my attention span, but we’ll see.
Anyway, here’s that same list of stuff I did today, but this time I sorted it into three groups based on the amount of energy and focus each thing required:
High-Focus Items
- Studied Japanese
- Drafted this blog entry (working on that now)
Medium-Focus Items
- Graded eight hours worth of standardized test essays
- Wrote three emails (one short, one medium, and one reeeeeeeeeaalllllllly long)
- Outlined and fine-tuned some trouble areas in my novel
Low-Focus Items
- Made lunch and dinner
Now just for fun, here’s a bunch of other stuff I did this week that I plucked from my to-do list, again sorted into the same three categories:
High-Focus Items
- Worked on novel edits
- Reviewed complicated standardized test grading procedures (uggghhhhhh….)
- Wrote and sent query letters for my Japan novel
Medium-Focus Items
- Did some editing work
- Researched how to do basic electrical work for a friend’s basement I’m helping remodel
- Did a bunch of manuscript formatting on the novel (fonts, margins, etc.)
- Revised, checked, and posted last week’s blog entry
Low-Focus Items
- Posted on the BIHADJ Facebook page (plug for that here)
- Printed a bunch of manuscript pages
- Called around looking for a special Father’s Day beer for my dad
- Texted my landlord about my apartment moveout plans
- Packed for a weekend hiking trip
Etc., etc., etc…
What Does It Mean to Quantify the Work You’re Doing?
My point here isn’t to bore you with my weekly work routine in some narcissistic and unhelpful manner—it’s to show examples of things I do in a regular week that require different amounts of energy.
The things on the High-Focus list involve more brainpower, concentration, and overall energy than the others—they’re the things I have to devote my full attention to without distractions, and that I have to spend a lot of time thinking about. They’re usually the things in my day that are hardest to do, often require some good psyching up before I can sit down and do them, and might mentally exhaust me to the point where I need a break afterward. They’re also the things that can burn me out if I do too much of them….
The things on the Medium-Focus list are somewhat less demanding—they’re things I can easily work on in the afternoon after the more intensive work’s done, though they still require a fair amount of attention and brainpower. Most of the time I’m OK allowing the distractions of texts and emails (or standardized essays!) while doing these things, but sometimes I have to put the phone away while I’m working. If I do these things for too long, though, I’m still liable to get burnt out.
Then there’s the things on the Low-Focus list, stuff that I could do blindfolded (but usually not literally) in that they require very little brainpower, attention, or planning. These are things I like to save for the end of the day, for weekends when I’m taking pseudo-workbreaks, or for times when I just don’t feel like working but still want to be somewhat productive.
When I’m planning out my schedule of doing things, I try to mentally keep track of which items are High-Focus and which are Low-Focus so that in an ideal world (!) I can do the High-Focus items when I feel most alert and the Low-Focus items when I might be more drained. For example, I tend to be more focused and can think more creatively in the mornings, which is why I schedule novelwriting as my first task of the day whenever I can. If that’s not possible, though, I’ll try to set aside novel time for after dinner or some sort of break when I’ve recovered my energy a bit, rather than jumping right in.
The name of the game here is knowing what times of the day you’re feeling sharpest and most alert, then organizing your task list around that cycle. And trust me—it works WAY better than scrambling around randomly doing shit.
What About Things That Absolutely HAVE To Get Done By a Certain Time????
I find organizing tasks based on their energy demand to be more efficient than organizing them solely around deadlines since it lets me follow my mind’s natural work rhythms—though the disadvantage is that sometimes I put off the deadline-driven items a little too long because I miscalculate how long they’ll take, leaving me scrambling like a madman to take care of the deadline stuff before zero hour (oops…).
In the case of meeting deadlines, the real trick seems to be prioritizing things based on their intensity level like you normally would, but to give the deadline-driven things more priority by making more time for them. Case in point: if I have a big editing job to finish (Medium-Focus), and a bunch of Japanese visa forms to fill out (Low-Focus) before a certain day, I’ll make more time for both even if it means eating into time I usually save for High-Focus tasks like working on the novel (yargh…) and try to get the timing right as best I can.
Obviously this isn’t something I like doing and thus try to avoid, but in times of desperation it gets the job done nicely.
Final Takeaway
Every week looks different and throws us different shit to do, but I find more than ever that thinking about how much focus a task requires helps me plan the best time to do it, so I can save my best worktime for the most important tasks instead of spending that golden time tweeting or cleaning my toilet. Even if this requires you to plan those bigger tasks a few days in advance, I recommend going for it, since this method has helped me A LOT when it comes to getting my best work done when it counts.
Keep in touch—it definitely counts as a Low-Focus item ;-)
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