I’ve been having a bit of a problem…
… with procrastination. I’ve got tonnes of studying to do for my OU course but every time I sit down to do some I get distracted and consequently get nothing done. I remember at primary school my report card used to have the “easily distracted” box ticked. It used to really annoy Mum but perhaps the teachers saw something in me that it would take another 30 years for me to notice my self. In my quest not to get distracted I found this handy little tip. The procrastination hack is shortened to (10+2)*5. It is ideal for:
- Procrastinators
- The easily distracted
- Compulsive web-surfers
- People with a long list of very short tasks (also know as mosquitoes)
- People having trouble chipping away at very large tasks
In other words, me. Like the page says, you do one job or task solidly for 10 minutes then have a break for 2 minutes. Then you repeat the process again, and again for a whole hour, hence the *5. Of course you can’t just start, well, I couldn’t. I didn’t have a stop watch. Like any good procrastinator I couldn’t stop procrastinating until I had all the tools. A few searches later and I found iTick, an app for my HD2. Cool little programme that acts as a timer and chronograph. Don’t ask me what the difference is.
I think I found the link to the procrastination hack on Flipping Heck which is another really good website. I was looking for tips on using Outlook categories as contexts. The site is full of useful hints and tips for using GTD and a tonne of other stuff like managing meetings and organising agendas. Shame it’s not been updated for just over a year.
Anyway, I’m already to get started. Or at least I will be tomorrow.