7:30- Wake up, get ready for work.
9:15- Arrive at work, answer emails and catch up with co-workers.
10- Begin to write or edit a video.
10:30- Stop answering Skype messages long enough to begin actually writing/editing
11- Meeting
11:45- Finish meeting, answer emails that arrived since the last time I checked
12:30- Lunch
1:30- Tired from lunch, get back to work
1:45- Begin to write/edit again
2:05- Get interrupted by a Skype message that pops into my window- respond
3- Meeting
4- Realize how much work I still have to get done and start to freak out
5- Go home
7:30- Try to get back to work, finishing all of the things I wasn’t able to get done during the day
1am- Go to bed, exhausted
Does this sound like anyone else’s day? You have every intention of checking things off of your ever-growing to-do list, only to find that Skype messages, needs from co-workers, emails and meetings pop up every time you find yourself ‘in the zone?’
You leave work at the end of the day exhausted, after all you were working hard, but confused as to why your list didn’t get any shorter.
I find myself creatively dry and exhausted when I have time to write, and bursting with ideas as I’m about to head into meetings. And I find that I’m not nearly as productive as I want to be- no matter how hard I try.
This last week, we had the incredible pleasure of getting to spend the day with the author and entrepreneur, Charles Lee. He opened our eyes to so much, from our relationships with the Lord to ways of organizing the office, creating a collaborative culture. He showed us the genius of Pinterest and the way we can redesign our online presence.
But the thing that stuck with me more than anything was the way he plans out his days.
In his book, Good Idea. Now What? He reveals that he struggles with the same lack of productivity that I do. He lists the meetings and the emails and the phone calls and the social media that are all incredibly important, but that keep him from doing his most creative work.
His solution? A schedule.
Noticing an unproductive pattern, he started taking notes about his day, recording times when he was feeling particularly creative and times of the day when his energy lagged.
Taking those observations, he began to structure meetings, tending to social media and digging through emails around those wide-awake, creative moments.
His most creative time is in the mornings, and so he protects it, starting his day at a coffee shop with his laptop. After lunch he feels tired and so that’s when he schedules his meetings- knowing that there will be another person there to help maintain the energy level. He answers emails in chunks- giving himself a time limit so that he doesn’t get lost in the time-sucking world of the internet.
It makes so much sense!
So with his guidance, here is my game plan:
1. Structure my day- take note of when I’m more creative, more focused, and protect that time. Schedule meetings for other times during the day.
2. Turn off and limit communication- during the day, there’s no need to check email constantly. There will always be another message and it will always pull my focus away from what I’m doing. I’m beginning to schedule in times to check my email- giving myself a time limit. Once that time limit is up- I turn it off, allowing my mind to be fully engaged and fully present.
