New Month Resolutions: February Recap

Last month, it was my goal to be more productive at work. How did I define success? I gave myself a number/grade, on a scale of 1-5 every day, based on how productive I felt I was. I hoped to reach a minimum average  number for the month.

Along with my basic goal of a number, I gave myself strategies to help me focus every day. Those tips included:

1) Praying. I prayed every morning at work to help me with my goal. I found this helpful because when I pray for something, I know it's something that I really want. And to remember that I really want it helped me to work hard at that.

2) I used a spreadsheet and tracked my time usage at work, every day. This was also good motivation, as I didn't like reporting ill-spent time.

3) I had a goal for minimum time spent on productive tasks. This helped me not to go on over-drive and burn myself out. Once I reached my minimum, I could relax a little and feel accomplished, rather than over-stressing every minute of every day, and breaking under the pressure of having to be perfect.

4) I tried to use the 10 minute rule. If I ran into a task I didn't like and would normally procrastinate, I would try to do it for just 10 minutes.

5) I would also employ the like+don't like strategy. For example, if I have to be doing something mind-numbing and not so fun, I would let myself stream something while I worked, to make it kind of entertaining.

6) I tried to keep & update task lists, so I could easily refer back to the lists to find out what I should do next, after I finished something.

7) Stepping outside. A lot of my tasks at work seem ambiguous and it's hard to determine "next steps". To help me tackle them, I find it helps to imagine I am advising someone else about what THEY should do. Silly, and yet remarkably effective.

8) Breaking it down. Writing a publication is a big, generic task. When working on things like that and not knowing where to start or what the next steps are, I just try to think of one small action to do -- something that is "road-ready", like "skim reference articles and gather quotes", or "draft outline", etc. It's obvious, but not making a concerted effort to identify those specific things has really stalled me on projects in the past.

Of course, these tips and tricks only help me in as much as I remember to employ them. Some I remembered to do better than others.

Results are in: It WORKED! This actually worked. I am so satisfied from this experiment. Of course, every day was not a perfect day of productivity. But I liked the flow of this month's goal, because I was allowed bad days. I was allowed to fail once or twice in meeting my goal, because my achievement this month was not based on being perfect every day, or every week, but based on the average of all those days. And so bad days were just a blip that was cause for concern, rather than total defeat.

As for January's goal -- I was not perfect in keeping up with my January month goal to work out 3x/wk, but I did pretty well with keeping up with my exercise overall. The 2 weeks I didn't reach 3x/wk, I still worked out twice. And I'm back at keeping it up for March. Managing regular workouts is easier after having worked on that habit for a month. This month-long resolution thing is really just amazing.

The other thing I really like about the monthly resolutions is that rather than having a hyper-focus once a year on the fact you'd like to do better at something, you actually are directed to focus on your goals and personal improvement EVERY MONTH. And if you are too busy and miss a month, who cares? You have 11 other months that are still totally do-able.

My goal for March: To blog once a week. I don't know that this goal will be as life-enriching as being more productive and exercising, but I do like to blog. And I HAVE blogs. And I've thought before about having that goal. And if I don't think it adds much to my life -- it's only for a month. LOVE THIS!

Month 2 Resolution Update

So, I feel like I need to check in on this resolution. I checked in pretty much every week on the last one. I can only imagine all of your questions. Have you kept up your 1st month resolutions? Have you failed yet? Okay, so no one has asked, and you don't have questions. I'm just holding myself accountable -- the good, the bad, and the ugly.

First question: Can you really let it go of the resolution after 1 month?

Yes and no. Part of me was not sure if I would secretly require myself to stick to the old month resolutions, and then be crushed under the mountain of all my resolutions, as they piled up over time. Good news! I have not fallen to this disease of having secret requirements that my resolutions continue to exist longer than the month established.

THAT BEING SAID, I really did love working out 3x/wk, and feel like it is something I want to continue with. It makes me happy. But for the 1st week of February, I gave myself a break from the routine. I appreciated the reprieve on one level, but I also felt the nagging feeling I usually get when I'm not maintaining my desired level of fitness. So, in week 2, I am back on the wagon and on my way to having fit in my 3 workouts. And I hope, moving forward, I will mostly maintain that habit. Having done it for a whole month already, I think it will be easier for me to make that happen.

What about your resolution for February?

Ultimately, I did my research and I tried to set reasonable goals for myself. I gave myself only one goal, in the end. And I won't know if I've reached it till the end of the month. What is that goal?

Well, fortunately, I have been tracking my ability to focus at work for the last 7 months (I'm a nerd?), so I know for 7 months what my average level of focus is, on a scale of 1-5. I took that monthly average, and made it a goal to do slightly better than all of those averages. But I don't have to do a lot better.

I have mini-goals to help me:
-- a set # of minimum hours of productivity I would like to achieve every work day
-- start my day with a prayer asking for help with my goal

There are a few other tips & tricks I use that are more specific to a somewhat ADD personality, such as myself, to help me. So, how's it going?

1) Good. I think I will achieve my goal. And while this in no way means that I am perfect in my ability to be a productivity superhero, it is a comfort to me to know that I can improve in this, and AM improving.

2) It's difficult. So, I'm not technically ADD. But I do have a lot of the traits of someone who is. And there is a reason this is a goal of mine -- because I don't do it well or easily. To add to the challenge, I learned this week that concentrating on difficult tasks for long periods of time actually puts me in a bad mood. So, I have to learn how to moderate that and problem-solve, so I can be productive and happy at the same time. I imagine other revelations will occur as I press on with this goal. And I welcome the opportunity to learn more about myself.

As is true with any change, this resolution work is stressful. I'd say it's a good thing I am only requiring myself to work on this goal this month. But it makes me happy to know that I can achieve it and get better. Stress is not a bad thing.

Still I say, "Yeah for New Month Resolutions"!

New Month Resolution #2: Bracing For Failure

I'm only one month into the year, and I've already got a resolution done. It's great to start the year out with success! Especially because I foresee this streak ending very soon. :)

What about February? Ohhh, February.

So, I was looking over my resolutions lists of DO MORE and DO LESS, and I have come to a conclusion. I am in trouble. The Do LESS's on my list are good to work on, but they are SO MUCH HARDER. I don't have many habits, but the ones I do have are REALLY INGRAINED. Easier to make than to break, I guess.

I believe, with the DO LESS resolutions, I will most definitely fail. But I am going to try them anyway. It's not like I haven't failed before.

Then again, it depends on how I define failure. To succeed, I just need to be real. What am I really after with this goal? I want to IMPROVE myself, not PERFECT myself during the course of the month. . I want better, and I want sustainable. That's really what I'm after.

So, to set myself up so that I can succeedl, it's all about semantics, parameters, and definitions. How much less do I want to do? How much less can I realistically manage? How do I define failure? How do I know if I've succeeded? This is really just like January's goal of exercising 3x/wk. It would be wonderful if I exercised 6x/wk in theory. But it does not make my happy & healthy, and it's really too big a leap from how my life runs right now.

Resolution for February: Get on the internet LESS while I'm at work.

Possible Strategies:

1) have a timer so I can track how much time has passed when I DO get on the internet.
2) set an amount of time I have to work before I allow myself to check anything online.
3) provide myself with a short list of easy ways to get engaged with work when I am finding it hard to concentrate
4) set a max amount of time to be online each work day.
5) set a minimum amount of time to be engaged in work projects each day.
6) start my day differently than I normally do, just to mark the change in behavior and trigger a different approach

To help me set parameters: 
1) I am going to track my productivity and time usage for 3 days (not a long time sample, but it's all the workdays I have left before February), and then pick a percentage of improvement for the 1st week. Based on how it goes that week, I will decide if week #2 parameters need adjustment or if I should stick to week #1 levels.
2) I have a log that I have been keeping for the past 7 months where I actually have rated myself on a scale of 1-5 in my ability to focus on work. I may be able to incorporate this as an evaluative tool, to see if I have improved.

Are there any tips or tricks you guys use to keep the ADD part of you on-task and away from your favorite websites? It can be hard for me. It comes a little bit with the territory of endlessly having new kinds of projects that don't have obvious next steps.  That, and the fact that I'm me. But I know I'll feel better when I don't get distracted and just dig in and tackle them. And I think my boss feels better too. :)

Here's to trying. Here's to almost certain failure. Here's to hopes of a little bit of win.

Go Team Me!