Most Productive When

Daily writing prompt

When do you feel most productive?

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I’m not sure how it works for most people, but I tend to be most productive depending on what I’m doing and the time that I’m doing it.

I think that I’ve posted this before, but I am without a doubt a morning person. And in many ways, that is when I’m for the most part at a productivity high. But, this “productivity high” early in the morning is almost entirely related to blogging. This is the time of day when it is quiet around the house, no one else is up yet, and I can sit quietly by myself, collect my thoughts and with any amount of luck, churn out a post or two.

And it’s not that the rest of the day slumps around and ends up about as apparently unproductive as a slug in the garden. What I have learned about myself from circling the sun this many times, is that I can be far more productive if I have a clear and reasoned understanding of what I might want to accomplish during any given day.

So in other words a written list of achievable tasks to get done.

For example, being the end of April here in Nova Scotia, we’re starting to get nicer and warmer temperatures and weather and as such the grass, gardens and the “outside things” are starting to wake up. So, yard work, getting patio furniture out, planting flowers, planting vegetable seeds, plus a whole host of other “spring cleanup” things need to get done.

For me to be most productive in terms of spring yard work(as an example), I will make a list of chores that I can reasonably do, let’s say on a Wednesday. With that goal in mind, I can set off and start to tackle each item on that list. If all the outside spring yard work that needs to be done is say fifteen items, I might do five things one day, five the next day and finish the list with five another day.

One of the reasons I like using a list is the opportunity to cross things off the list. For me, it is a visual confirmation that we’re making progress and getting things accomplished. Crossing items off a list is like a drug – at least it is to me. Weird – I know.

I also like to start early and simply get the list accomplished. If all the stuff I need to do gets done by 11:30am, then I have the rest of the day to do whatever I want to. I dread dragging the work/list of stuff out over the entire day. Sure often it happens that it takes all of a Saturday to get done what you wanted to, but if the opportunity to get done early presents itself, I’ll be certain to take advantage of it.

I guess to answer the prompt, I am more productive early in the morning, but I do have the ability to ramp up the productivity output at other times as well. Works best when I have a list of chores in hand.

–as always with love–

— get outdoors; find inspiration; discover yourself —