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Proactively Productive People

HappyDude20

HappyDude20

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jul 13, 2008
3,688
1,479
Los Angeles, Ca
All Same Letter P Title Titled Thread WOO!

Anyways...

(Cries)

Wondering if any people here on the forum are consciously attempting to be productive throughout your days?

See, I'd imagine most people just wake up, do what they gotta do, go to sleep and keep on doing the next day.

However, I'm sure there are numerous people in this forum that juggle and spin numerous plates daily and like to do it with a level of elegance thats evolved through time..

Which is why I wanted to start this thread.

Straight up I'll mention I've been a practitioner of David Allen's GTD methodology for over 2 years now and have been using OmniFocus (on Macbook Pro, iPod Touch & iPad) for almost 2 years as well.

If you're an OmniFocus user we may get along a lot easier than someone that doesn't have any system at all. Obviously I;m not saying a lack of a system is dumb... however in all honesty having a system allows a more concentrated level of accuracy in productivity at a more acute level in a broader range of areas in anyone's life.




I won't drag this first post any longer than it should be; i'll simply let the thread evolve on its own. :)
 
Try though I might I'm a chronic procrastinator and typically fail at efficient productivity. I get by and fortunately work fine under pressure anyway. Lucky really because that's often how I get things done - I wait until the last minute, requiring me to need to work furiously but I usually pull it off.

What I consciously attempt and succeed in is having plenty of chill time™.
 
iBlue said:
Try though I might I'm a chronic procrastinator and typically fail at efficient productivity. I get by and fortunately work fine under pressure anyway. Lucky really because that's often how I get things done - I wait until the last minute, requiring me to need to work furiously but I usually pull it off.

What I consciously attempt and succeed in is having plenty of chill time™.
Click to expand...

Ah iBlue I don;t know who you are but I like you already.

Maybe it's the alcohol speaking but I think I began the thread freaking out that though perhaps to an outsider I'm productive, I feel like I'm constantly trying to get as many things possible done every single day and never feeling satisfied.

I recently had a Math exam at Uni (I suck at math big time) and decided to study a week in advance rather than my usually cramming the night before and for the first time in years got an A in math.








I love life. :apple:
 
iBlue said:
Try though I might I'm a chronic procrastinator and typically fail at efficient productivity. I get by and fortunately work fine under pressure anyway. Lucky really because that's often how I get things done - I wait until the last minute, requiring me to need to work furiously but I usually pull it off.
Click to expand...

This is me. :) But only for personal stuff or condo crap.

When I'm working, and see a problem, I immediately jump into problem-solving mode.

It's the old analyst in me. :eek:
 
I have to be this way or it's a major fail in our house b/c I'm the stay at home parent :)

ie. if I don't get the groceries or laundry done, there will be some very unhappy ppl (and especially 1 unhappy wife! :)

I don't follow any book per say, but I always watched my Grandma make lists so I started that and then when I bought my iPhone and mobileme, that made the world of difference for me. As long as I remember to put ical reminders in there, I'm off and running.

For groceries, I use 'Shopper' which, although very slow to open, allows me to have multiple lists for the stores (you can even arrange by aisle which I've never take the time to do).

For my business, I use Daylite to keep track of my projects and print out a list once a week.

I can't just sit around anymore. That drives me bananas. I used to do it all the time and now I realize how much time I literally wasted. If I have anytime, I'll go to the gym or a bike ride/run or something. Heck, I even watch TV on my computer on one screen with the elgato TV while I work on the other screen. crazy.

I just re-read my post and it sure sounds like I'm promoting mac products, but that's not the point :)

The point is that i'm far more organized that I ever was and as a result, I do believe I'm more productive on a daily basis :)

Cheerios,
Keebler
 
I'm a massive procrastinator who also got diagnosed with ADD at age 20. I'm 30 now. Just 6 months ago, I figured out how to stay on track at work. For me, that's a big achievement.


My routine? Get to work 15 minutes early and make a coffee (plunger, quality grind). I take public transport, so I'm either 15 minutes early, or 5 minutes late. After I make my coffee, I spend 2 minutes writing down the things I need to do for the day. It's usually just 3, 4, maybe 5 things, but each thing takes a LONG time to do, so if I fail, I fail.

My problem is actually remembering the things I need to do. I'm crap at remembering things. However, spending 2 minutes to write things down works for me. I'm still a procrastinator, but I find that even if I only need to remember to do 2 things today, I need to work very very hard to remember both of them. :eek:
 
On average I work 12 hours a day. I get up, have coffee, meander, shower, sit down for work. I work all day and take tiny breaks throughout. I rarely, if ever, take a lunch. I stop around 8 pm unless I need to push through longer. Time I spend taking little breaks is made up at the end of the day. I usually cook dinner, tend to things around the house and then relax for a bit. I then go to bed.

My life, right now, is turned upside down. Packing, moving, unpacking, packing stuff left behind, remodel of an office, figuring life out in general ... it's all been happening full force since mid-month. I don't know how I work the hours I do and then get the stuff I get done but somehow I just make it work.

Is there a better way? Who knows. What do I do it for? I'd like to think I do it for a paycheck that gets me what I want in life. Do I have good work-life balance? Not even in the slightest.

Am I proactively productive? Yes most of the time. However I think I took on one too many things recently and found myself unable to complete something huge resulting in a domino effect ... it will all be over soon though, I think. :eek:
 
HappyDude20 said:
Maybe it's the alcohol speaking....
Click to expand...

Combined with your avatar this made me think of the Simpsons quote - "Maybe it's the beer talking Marge, but you've got a butt that won't quit."

I find that at work if I get behind on something it has a big knock on effect to the next job and so on. Like Jessica says, a domino effect.

I have every week mapped out until Christmas with the jobs I need to do, so I can keep track of how I am doing against that. Unfortunately, I have two lists going at the moment. The things I should be doing and the things that need to be done. Unfortunately, those two lists don't always cross over each other.
 
HappyDude20 said:
See, I'd imagine most people just wake up, do what they gotta do, go to sleep and keep on doing the next day.

However, I'm sure there are numerous people in this forum that juggle and spin numerous plates daily and like to do it with a level of elegance thats evolved through time..
Click to expand...

And many of us wake up, go to work, and goof off on MacRumors all day.
 
iBlue said:
Try though I might I'm a chronic procrastinator and typically fail at efficient productivity. I get by and fortunately work fine under pressure anyway. Lucky really because that's often how I get things done - I wait until the last minute, requiring me to need to work furiously but I usually pull it off.

What I consciously attempt and succeed in is having plenty of chill time™.
Click to expand...

This. No need to say any more, because this is what I would've posted.
 
I am productive about 3 hours a week. After I graduated college I spent the equivalent of 40 hours a week applying and interviewing for jobs (like a good recent grad, listening to the advice from a professor). That was May '09-March of this year. I realized that much of my time spent applying was wasted, I didn't hear back from pretty much every company I applied to. I started to take statistics of what industries contacted me and what industries interviewed me. With that data I decided to only apply to those people/companies/industries that were interested previously and I went from 40 hours a week to 3. However, I've gotten more interviews in the past 2 months than I had all the months previous to my statistic gathering. "F" the economy.
 
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