I Don't Have Time

Author here - I'd be keen to hear if anyone has had success with different productivity systems for breaking done the big goals into smaller items. I've had varying amounts of success with pomodoros and personal kanban - but always interested in trying out something new.

I publish my personal blog on http://pages.github.com/. HN only displays the github portion of the domain, sorry for any confusion.

What works for me is trying to find the right way of 'tricking' myself. Every few months I feel like I have a week that is not as productive as I believe I could have been, I then basically try a trick (often something that worked for me in the past, but sometime a new trick that I might find on a site like this one).

Some tricks that have worked have been:

1. Pomodoro (actually more specifically: http://tomato.es/).

2. Redefining what I wanted to get done: For example, I used to want to run 30 minutes 5 days a week, but found that I was not able to start doing it because of being busy, tired, or for some excuse. So, I chose a distance that I could easily do in 20 minutes and decided that no matter what I had to do the distance, if only by walking. Not only did I do it with this new definition, but my excuse of being busy driving me to actually run instead of walk.

3. Making a commitment with a friend on a similar topic: This would mean reading at the same time, cooking, sleeping, etc.

4. Getting a new toy related to the task to get me to do something slightly different. This could be buying a new book on the topic, or a pad to take notes.

5. Making a commitment to much smaller sub goals when doing the task.

6. Trying to list and prioritize the easier sub-tasks so that I fool myself into making progress.

7. The carrot and the stick: I let myself get a nice breakfast outside when I wake up earlier (or do something that I have been needing to do), and I sometime say that there has to be some penalty (like not sleeping until I finish atleast one task).

8. First thing in the morning: Trying to do a quick version of the task before I do anything morning. This to me means before making any decisions (involved in serious tasks), as well as before consuming any content (blog posts, e-mails, etc).

To add a little more to the above, I take pride in me persevering, so if I actually do try a new 'trick', I work at it - often taking a few weeks to make it happen. And I often get it into my routine if only for a few more weeks.

I love this idea. I have a few side projects that I'm working on, and while I can't work on them full-time, I still try to dedicate a small portion of time daily to help them progress.