Unusual Ways for Getting Things Done

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Here is how I schedule things.....
1. An hour starts between the first minute and 55 past the hour.
2. An hour has 5 minutes in it.
3. Every hour has a task obligation to it.
4. Task obligation goes as little as 5 minutes.
5. Beyond that, task switching at the mercy of the "bored now next" principle. If desire to continue not there, it doesn't have to be finished.
6. Sleep whenever tired.

From my experience, psychiatrists and counselors don't like this work ethic. Apparently, most employers don't either. It is apparently a sign of my rigidity that I swear by this kind of time management. Yet, a lot gets done this way. Considerably less got done when handling obligations in more conventional ways.

Does anybody else have methods for getting things done that are generally frowned upon?

I can't understand your description. It seems like it says you only work 5 minutes out of every hour? or can only do one 5 minute task per hour? If so, I can see why employers wouldn't like this work ethic.

That is correct Mr. arielhawksquill. Example: Set a timer for 5 minutes. Start cleaning the bathroom. When the timer goes off, you get to make a choice. You can continue cleaning the bathroom or you can take off the gloves and go play videogames.

For me, it usually takes 5 minutes to get into the swing of things. Why go through the trouble of stripping off those cleaning gloves just to fire up the PS3? 9 times out of 10, finishing the job makes more sense.

Before I had that rule, I would blow off cleaning that bathroom 5 times out of 10. So the math works out to be a generally cleaner bathroom. And that rule gets generalized to everything and a lot more gets done.

And employers don't like it. Most of them treat coercion as a given.

How about you, Mr. Hawk's Quill? What motivates you to get things done? What kind of tricks do you have for beating back procrastination?

I have to make lists each morning of what needs to be completed. I pick the tasks I dread doing the most and put them at the top of the list. Those are usually the ones where I have to talk to people:) Once I finish those then the rest of my day is a breeze.

That's a good approach, Boo. Conversations drain me easily. I personally save those obligations for mid to late afternoon. By then, most of my mental energy is gone anyways. You manage to maintain your energy apparently. What's your secret?

That's an interesting approach. I'm notorious for being a horrible procrastinator, so I should give it a try.

I more likely have unusual ways of NOT getting things done.

That's not a bad idea.

Interesting idea. I've often felt that part of the reason why I have trouble starting a task is that I know I'm unlikely to to stop for a long time, so I'm justifiably reluctant to commit to that lightly. It's rather like trying to choose what to buy when prices are very high, you take longer to decide, and only buy the best value items, or risk bankruptcy. This 5-minute alarm thing is like try-before-you-buy, or at least you can buy a small sample very cheaply.

I have noticed this in myself as well. So I will sometimes coax myself to get started by putting a time limit on the project, after which I stop working on it for a while. For me this pairs well with breaking down a project into (sometimes ridiculously) small subtasks that can be knocked out quickly.

Another thing I sometimes do to make starting less daunting is to approach a task as a game I call "Let's See How Fast I Can Do This". I find this can help me fight perfectionism and over-analyzing that might otherwise make a simple task overwhelmingly complex.

Yes, splitting a task down into sub-tasks helps here too. I've had some success by making the first step a "preparation" step where I just arrange things so it will be easier to make a start on the actual task, e.g. collecting the right tools, clearing obstacles.

I find it's sometimes useful to measure how long tasks take. Some things take less time than I'd been thinking they did, and it's somehow reassuring to have a handle on the time. As far as I'm concerned, a task that needs an unknown amount of time is a task that could take forever. I like to know how many % of the adventure I've mastered.

Maybe that's why they are picking on me at work. I like to get the cleaning done my own way, but to them it looks like I'm not doing it at all. I suppose when cleaning rooms and hallways at care homes it has to be done in a certain order because it's at a care home, but I'm more of a self-sufficient person, and I feel less stressed if I can do it my own way, which still results in everything being done properly, but just a different way around.

I feel comfortable cleaning rooms when a residents is not in the room, like when they are eating breakfast or lunch, because I often feel really awkward. I don't like to touch their possessions when cleaning the surfaces, and I sometimes knock stuff down because I can be clumsy, especially when I'm in a bit of a hurry, like if we're short of staff, and I don't like knocking people's possessions about when they're in the room watching me. I don't know why I'm like this. But I know that I feel better when I clean a room when nobody's in there, which sometimes means I do each room in no particular order. Well, it looks like to other people that I do the rooms in no particular order, but in my head I do them in the order of ''more difficult resident's rooms first, more easier resident's rooms last''. That way if a resident is in his or her room and is quite difficult, I can know that I have gotten those rooms over and done with. But, in the boss's eyes, it is not the ''proper'' way.

Legit concern, ToughDiamond. I have that problem too sometimes. That's why only 5 minutes of every hour are obligated to a category of tasks. It gives breathing room.

Example: (substitute "programming" with special interest of choice)
10 am hour is a programming hour
11 am is for lunch.
12 pm another programming hour.

You get into the swing of things with your project and next thing you know, it's 11:35. No problem. There are still 25 minutes available. Only 5 of them are obligated for lunch.

You spend half an hour on lunch. Now it's 12:05 pm. Are you "late" for your programming hour? No. That obligation is only 5 minutes long anyways and you have 55 minutes available. It is no doubt a time hack but one that works for me.

I get the five minute thing - good idea

The thing I do that probably annoys my wife the most is that I only clean up my work space before I start a project. So she never gets to see it tidy and thinks that I'm always in a mess.

With kids, I find it tough to set a rigid schedule. I tried to do a scheduled task list, but I get wayyyyyyy too annoyed when I get off track of my schedule. So, what I've started doing is every week I make a list of accomplishments I need to achieve the coming week. Then every night, I make a list of items to accomplish that day. I break all major tasks into subtasks. Then, midway through the week, I do an evaluation on my progress, and regroup as needed. By the end of the week, I hope to have accomplished everything. It never happens, but at least I don't feel like I've wasted a week.