PTPL 046: Using Mindful Productivity to Conquer Procrasti-Tasking

PLUS What I learned from doing without Obsidian for 4 days, and solving problems with things built for something else

Plain text, Paper, Less Productivity Digest text-based image by Author

This week — 

• Productivity and procrastination: how to avoid producti-tasking

• Solving problems with things built for something else

• What I learned from doing without Obsidian for 4 days

• Using my phone to scan the first bunch of Paper Saver pages

Productivity Tips and Inspiration

Understanding the relationship between productivity and procrastination 

Samantha Hodder knows how to be busy doing things all day, aka “being productive”, and still not get the important things done. She calls this “procrasti-tasking”. I understand what that’s like, and I’m guessing you do, too.How to overcome it? There’s no easy fix if this is a habit, but here are some things I think can help:

• Use structured procrastination 

• Put the item you want to do (instead of what you should be doing) on your to do list, allocate a specific period of time to it, then set an alarm and dive in (Samantha tries to incentivise these moments to be fun)

• Make sure you know what your priorities are — i.e. prop your ladder up against the right wall before you start climbing

• Use interstitial journalling to identify patterns of thinking and behaviour when you’re producti-tasking. Simply write down (when moving from one task to the next) what you just did, any notes about it, and what you intend to do next.

prop your ladder up against the right wall before you start climbing

I highly recommend Anne-Laure le Cunff’s Mindful Productivity masterclass if you’d like a structured walkthrough how to identify your highest priorities, and exactly what to do when you start getting off track. It was what convinced me (finally) to become a paid member of her site, and I continue to get value from it every day.

Solving problems with things built for something else 

In Ryan Cordell’s 11-year-old son’s school class, they (naturally) weren’t allowed social media—but they were allowed access to Google Docs/Sheets/Slides etc. His son set up a Google Sheets document as a secret meme-sharing platform for his class, completely under the teacher’s radar. One piece of content per page, and class members could comment in a similar way to regular messaging apps.

think broadly about what you can do with what you have, even if it’s not labelled as being for that purpose

What I took from this ingenious piece of sneakiness is that just because the tools before you may not advertise themselves as solving a problem you’re facing, it’s likely you can use their existing features to achieve your aims in unexpected ways. In other words, think broadly about what you can do with what you have, even if it’s not labelled as being for that purpose. Stand on your head if you have to.

Looking at things differently can lead to surprisingly pleasing results, as I found out when challenging myself to do without Obsidian for a few days last week (see below).

Adventures in Plain Text (and a little paper)

The #PlainTextExperiment illuminated my dependencies

From Wednesday to Saturday — that’s how long I lasted solely using TextEdit to interact with my notes. Using something other than Obsidian was a fun novelty at first, but it became both tiring and illuminating as time went on.

Here’s are three things that came from those four plainer-than-plain text days:

1. I proved that on the whole, I’ve been successful in setting up my notes so that they can be useful with nothing more than the simplest of text editors — hooray!

2. The Obsidian plugin I missed the most was Spaced Repetition, which I was using for my language learning flashcards, so I moved to Anki. (What took me so long?! It’s a fantastic app.)

3. My folder system + search meant that navigation between files was okay without wiki links, but boy did I miss the auto complete of existing files (and the creation of tag notes) when typing [[!

The experiment continues as this week I’ll be seeing how long I can last solely using iA Writer.

Paper Saver notebook — scanning week

Today I finished scanning the first batch of pages from my Paper Saver notebook. I love how not every page was worth scanning! I’m not left with a bound notebook to store on a shelf or in a cupboard; just a pile of papers that can safely be put into the recycling bin.

Scanning app of choice: Scanner Pro, by Readdle, on my iPhone. As I named and saved each scan on my phone, it almost instantly appeared in the correct folder on my Mac.

If you love the look of the Paper Saver, I’m chuffed to announce that you can get 10% off with the code ELLANE10. Disclosure: They’ve sent me some free stuff, but I don’t get a commission from people using the code.

Other plain text doings

• After a brief chat with the author, I’m taking another look at hledger to see if it’ll serve my needs better in the long term than Beancount

• I’ve downloaded Emacs and am determined to learn for myself if there’s any truth in the almost religious org-mode movement

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