Productivity Month, Week 2 – On Internet use

When in doubt about life and all that, go to the V&A.

So last week I said I would not use the Internet, from home, for six whole days. I did not make that completely (I read my RSS feeds on Friday night, and was back on Youtube on Saturday), but I've definitely calmed down a lot. It's been an interesting week.

I believe my current Internet behaviour is a remnant of the olden times, when I was growing up. I'm old enough to have experienced a world completely without Internet (in those days we read books!), but I still had my first own email address at the age of ten.
However, it took me and my mum a relatively long time to switch to a fast 24/7 connection. We must've used dial-up for at least five years, so my use of the Internet was always characterised by

1. Paying by the minute,
2. which led to a limited time span of availability (1 hour a day),
3. which led to long afternoons of offline activity,
4. and a painfully slow connection.

For a long time I didn't take part in online discussions since I wasn't around often enough to follow the conversations. Every day that precious hour needed to be planned in advance, and every day, after the obligatory question "Are you finished? Can I turn it off?", I knew I'd only seen a tiny glimpse of what was out there.

Now being connected everywhere, at all times, is what we all know, but I haven't outgrown this sense of urgency I felt during those years. Whenever I am at my computer, and the Wi-Fi is on and I'm connected, I get just the slightest bit nervous. I feel like now is the time, and if I don't use it I won't have the time later. So this compulsion to browse the Internet whenever I have access never really goes away.

And it seems to trump everything else. For example: I like buying magazines. (They're like tumblr, but on paper! Hah.) I always buy them, flick through them and never read them. This past Monday, when I woke up and found myself with my morning cappuccino and no Internet, what was the first thing I did? I picked up a magazine and read it cover to cover. And I registered a thought, running somewhere very quietly in the background: I've got nothing better to do.

Our brain loves new stuff, and the Internet constantly provides us with new stuff, and at any time, some of it could be interesting. While this is obviously a fantastic thing (I just spent five minutes googling for an article to link to, looked at about ten and found about three suitable ones – so much information!), this is what glues us to the Internet. This is why we constantly and habitually check our social media channels. This is why I can't get off tumblr or Youtube.

I also can't get off tumblr or other blogs because especially these outlets enable me to live vicariously through others. My own life isn't always great, but LOOK AT THAT BEDSPREAD and LOOK AT THOSE MOUNTAINS aaaahhh that makes me feel better. It's escapism. It encourages imagining and dreaming, and no matter how many productivity and self development articles you read, looking at someone's lifestyle blog is instant gratification and working on your own life is not. And unfortunatly, as usually, the more vulnerable people are, the worse the effect:

Regular media habits don't become really bad media habits or addictions without some help – often, depression or anxiety is involved. For those experiencing these states, being online starts as a pleasant distraction from everyday worries but can soon become a problem of its own. What can happen is that going online becomes a habitual reaction to feeling depressed, or experiencing some other aversive state. Once the linkage between emotional state and habitual response is established, it can be remarkably difficult to break down. It's a vicious cycle because depression leads to bad media habits, which leads to negative life events, which then leads back to more bad media habits.

Jeremy Dean, Making Habits, Breaking Habits

My own Internet behaviour worries me because this is what could happen. I don't like my living environment at the moment, and I find that, when I come home, I just want to put on headphones and shut out the world around me. When I didn't have the Internet this week, I just put on a DVD and did the same. I didn't automatically get to work, so I don't think that connection to the Internet per se has an effect on my productivity – it's more how I use it.

Before I went off the web for a few days, my level of distraction was so high I sometimes paused one video to start watching another. I've calmed down now, and my habits have been broken – I don't need my RSS feeds first thing in the morning. I don't need a connection as much in general. I'm perfectly happy to just be out of the house in the evenings, and I don't miss the online world.

For the upcoming week I will keep my computer off in the mornings, simply because that makes my mornings a bit quieter. I will also try what I'll call the Joe Hill approach – recreational use of the web only after I've completed a number of tasks I've set for myself. Wish me luck.


For those interested in reading about the Interwebs and our brains, best start with the classics:

• Nicholas Carr, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" (2008)
• Nicholas Carr, "The Shallows: How the Internet is Changing the Way We Think, Read and Remember" (2010)
• [Video] "What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains [Epipheo.TV]"

Productivity Month, Week 1 – I was not ready

I bought an art print and framed it. Then I bought flowers to match the frame. Like a grown-up.

In my last post I wrote about how pumped I was to get things going this month. So, naturally, this week – nothing happened. In fact, it was even worse than the week before.

It was already clear on Monday. Using a variety of loopholes to sabotage myself, I just decided that this week wasn't going to bring me any joy in terms of productivity. So I sat down and watched myself instead, to... learn from my pre-planned failure, I guess?

Here's what happened:

1) I wrote down what I did at work. I've long wondered how I actually spend my time at work, so I made a list and checked in with myself every 15 minutes. I've long suspected that I have certain productive and non-productive times, and at the end of the day, there they were black on white: I'm basically useless between 10am and 3pm. During that time frame, everything is a slog and distractions are most tempting. However I focus like a boss in the (very) early morning and late afternoon.

2) I worked from home. Thanks to a disruption on public transport I worked from home for two days, which I would not recommend to anyone who only has one room to sleep, work and live in.
During those two days at home, I did nothing but work. In the evenings I had to force myself out of the house to stop and get out of that mindsoace, and when I got back in, I fell into the usual stupor.
I cannot work and play in the same place. This even goes for distractions. At home, I'm on Youtube. When I have a bit of free time in the office, I read essays, sites like lifehacker, and news websites. So when I'm not working on job things, I work on myself – because I'm in a work mindset.

3) I found the right amount of noise. Earlier this week I discovered soundrown, which is so awesome it'll get its own post soon. But it wasn't just ambient noise I discovered.
I'm currently addicted to Breaking Bad. When I was working from home, I had two laptops anyway, sooo... I got through a lot of episodes a day, playing in the background while I was getting work done. I barely remember a thing that happened in Season 3 (people probably got shot 'n stuff), but those hours just flew by. Background noise makes me focus better. Yep, even TV shows.

So what's up for next week?

A few days ago I read about how the brain is not designed to deal with all the distractions we come across every day – junk food, video games, the Internet – and that our inherent preferences for these "supernatural stimuli" can make us come back to them so often that it becomes harmful.

I don't have to think long about what my Enemy No. 1 is. So, for the next 6 days I will not access the Internet from home.
Exceptions to this rule are my email, lynda.com and soundrown.


I'm mildly nervous about this.

Thoughts on a Sunday #2 – On Procrastination

Wow, it's February already. I'm kind of surprised it happened so quickly. Then again, not really; I'm getting used to time passing more quickly these days. (I've spoken to so many people who don't have plans for Easter. "Oooh but April is so far away" – it really isn't?! I have plans beyond Easter. It won't sneak up on my like it does every year, not this time.)

January wasn't too bad a month for me. I did a lot of planning, a lot of considering, and yes, a lot of complaining about situations that need to change. I made it through my birthday just fine, and have found myself saying "I'm now getting to an age where..." far more often than is good for anybody. I organised some much needed trips to see friends, and intend to organise even more trips just for myself, because I need to SEE THE WORLD see more of the country I live in. I had my Myers-Briggs type determined, and my best fit seems to be INTP, which, whether you believe in this kind of thing or not, still taught me a lot about myself.

Which brings me to my biggest enemy, and my challenge for the upcoming weeks: procrastination.
As an INTP I live in my head a lot. I have many interests, and I love making plans, but actually getting stuff done – that's something else. I get distracted easily and find it hard to stick to something if I don't see the immediate benefit of it, which is what procrastination is all about.

I'm thinking about this now because it's Unprocrastination Month over at zenhabits, and because author and cool person Joe Hill only yesterday posted about his two weeks of self-imposed Internet restriction. I really recommend you read that second link, because it's insightful. To me it's also next to impossible, because
a) I don't have a treadmill
b) I spend 8-10 hours a day in an office.

In addition to those 8-10 hours in an office, I also spend 2-3 hours a day commuting. While, during my commute, I get at at least a good deal of reading done, that's about it for "productivity" during the week. In the evening I usually get home and spend the last three hours of the day in a kind of stupor, watching videos or faffing about on tumblr until it's time for bed, because ugh life and work and exhaustion. My treadmill is 15 minutes of yoga (oh shut up; compare my current Plank-to-Cobra transition to what I did a month ago and tell me again how 15 minutes a day don't mean a thing), and limited Internet usage is but a dream, considering I work in media.

This month, all this shall end.

I've got lots to do, and I can't afford spending five days a week doing nothing but work (for other people, not myself) and sleep. Over the course of this month I will post more; I will look at different productivity tools and techniques and see what they do for me, and I will chart my progress, as far as I can share that here. Let's hope there's some insight on the other end of this.

I AM READY.

Happy February!

This is gonna be a good month.

To start it well, have this fantastic interview with Brian Blessed that's been on my mind lately:
(Do I need to say it contains lots and lots of strong language? It's Brian Blessed, I mean...)



If you don't want to see it all and only have a minute, forward to 5:40.

Have a great day!

Happy January

Can you believe 2014 is already 12 days old? WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN.

I'm slowly settling into the new year: thinking about the past twelve months, making plans for the next – there's much to do, and I'm just way too good at self-sabotage. So I'm exploring ways to use my days and my time better; observe what works and what doesn't, what times of the day are the best for which kind of work. I even have lots and lots of ideas for blog posts, believe it or not. If only I can get my racing mind to channel them into some halfway coherent texts...

Yesterday I had to be up and on my way to a first-thing-in-the-morning hairdresser's appointment by the time the sun was coming up. So I spent a twenty-minute bus ride admiring the morning light. In books I always read about this golden light of a sunrise or sunset, and that description never does much for me in writing. When you see it, though – it's magical. When I had arrived in town it was way before my appointment time, so I walked around a bit, looking at the buildings, wandering the empty streets no tourist sets foot on before the shops open. And I thought, this is my thing.

So this morning I woke up, checked for clouds, and when I couldn't see any I threw on my jacket and went to greet the sun. I swear, the world was golden. It was beautiful. This light, and the quiet that comes with it – that's why I love mornings and I'm actually glad not many other people bother with it. The mornings belong to the few of us willing to get up early.

Merry Christmas

This was taken at the Christmas market on Sunday. Can you tell which city?

I'm in Germany, where Christmas is celebrated the only possible way: you get presents on Christmas Eve. Then you eat tons of potato salad, play with your presents and go to sleep. The next two days are more food and more play.

So this morning I woke up, looked at my presents, did this wonderful yoga practice right next to our tree, finished reading my latest book and had a ginormous breakfast together with my parents. Christmas has always been a quiet time in our family, where the stress is reduced to a minimum; where anything goes but nothing must; where we consume a ridiculous amount of calories while reading a ridiculous number of book pages and watching at least four or five movies; where we speak to family, and visit our grandmother, and try not to think about anything that usually worries us.

For me, it's time to relax as much as I possibly can and re-charge my batteries before I go back to the big city. It's time to review the past year and prepare for the months ahead. A time to be grateful, and a time to plan.

I hope that whoever reads this has a wonderful couple of days.

Thoughts on a Sunday

The UK seems to be getting a long autumn this year. The weather has been beautiful, the colours vibrant, and not even the storm a couple of weeks back managed to blow all the leaves off the trees. It reminds me of the year I spent living in Scotland, where autumn in all its glory seemed to last several months.

It's amazing how time passes; I absolutely don't remember how we got from 10th October to 10th November. The past few weeks have been demanding and stressful, so it was only a matter of time until I caught a cold, and on Thursday I left work early to avoid keeling over somewhere between my desk and the kitchen. Since then it's all been about self-care: watching movies, reading books, lots of tea and lots of sleep.

A few days ago, after a disappointing phone call had finally left me completely mentally drained, I realised how much I not only miss, but need meaningful conversations. I haven't been in the adult world (read: work) for that long, but it should be long enough to finally have gotten used to the breathtaking amount of bullshit smalltalk that goes on in it. Still, I'm not used to it, and it drives me up the walls.

Whenever I feel like this I'm reminded of this quote. I don't like the whole "me vs. them" attitude, mostly because I know, because I've glimpsed bits and pieces of many people, that they're highly interesting human beings; intelligent, funny, and passionate, with opinions, and knowledge. Which is why I can't bear this talk about work and the last movie we watched anymore. Every time somebody starts to tell me about how their TV set started showing a frizzy picture last night I want to physically shake them and yell, "When was the last time something made you really angry? What do you live for? Who is the most important person in your life? For the love of the deity of your choice, at least tell me your favourite colour!" If we're going to be vomiting out words for the ten minutes we're having to spend in the same room together (because ew silence so uncomfortable), then why don't we at least use them for something interesting?

Like to describe how this song feels: