What To Do When You Have Too Much To Do

(Reading time: 3 – 5 minutes)

I have too much to do.

My usual recourse (another cup of coffee) isn’t working.

One thing I could do is write out a list of everything on your mind, the sort it out using Covey’s or Blanchard’s methods. Eben Pagan recommends this technique as part of his Wake Up Productive info course on productivity. He uses a different sorting arrangement than Covey or Blanchard though.

But I’ve already done that. My Todo list is tyrannizing me!

By the way, it’s not that productivity tools DON’T work, it’s that people don’t use them. Productivity tools work great when you actually use them. Here’s a hint: if you postpone using a productivity tool until you’re too tired to think, it’s not going to work.

You have to use productivity tools when you’re fresh and well-rested…

…then you will have the vision and energy to follow through when you’re nearly spent… and can barely see the keyboard on your computer because you didn’t notice it was getting dark outside and you haven’t yet turned on the lights.

When you’re at the end of your rope, that’s a hint to go do something else.

One technique I use is to maintain emotional context while dissipating emotional tension and stress by doing something completely unrelated, which doesn’t require using the same part of my mind.

Shift your focus to dissipate stress

For example, if I’m working through a sticky programming problem, I might take a break and do some of the following. While these can be considered “wasting time” in some contexts, it’s important to understand that I don’t like doing these things either! I do them because they are chores that need doing as well, but won’t burden my mind.

• Upload recent pictures to flickr.com, this gets them backed up and off my laptop. I always have tons of pictures laying around. I’m weeks behind in my uploads. It’s a total chore!
• Take the next step in setting up a private Trac system so I can learn to use it easier in the future. This may result in a blog post along the “tutorial” line. The Trac documentation is fairly involved, but it’s hard to find simple information describing how to do simple things.
• Set up a git-based project. Git is becoming the tool of choice for collaborative development, I need to get with the program!

Sometimes, you just have to get away from computers completely.

Spend more time in meatspace

In my case, I’m to take advantage of of the warm, sunny weather and finish a surfboard repair for my friend Walter. I’ll have my trusty paper notebook by my side to jot down ideas as they come to me.

Here’s more things that mostly don’t involve computers:

• Fold laundry. Seriously, it’s a chore, it needs to be done, and about anything else is more fun. Almost guaranteed to get your idea machine running again.
• Clean the fridge (no, really, I do). Currently being a bachelor means I enjoy the luxury of living how I like, but I have to pay the consequences as well.
• Stay in motion. Brad Pitt: Be the shark, always be moving. Do something physical to free up your energy.
• Hot tar roofers starting at 7 am are a hint to either take the day off, leave for parts quieter, or just don’t attempt to accomplish anything overly involved.

But how well do all these distractions work for focusing your mind? Sounds like an oxymoron… use distraction to increase focus… I smell a future blog post!

Results from experience

All of these techniques above have worked for me repeatedly, and they may work for you. I’m sure I’ll be able to add to this list in the future.

What are your special tricks? Let us know below.

Similar Posts:

• 2 Techniques For Retaining Focus As A Writer
• Continuous partial attention, again
• How To Be Productive When You’re Super Tired
• How To Correctly Format hRecipe Ingredients And Instructions
• Practical Productivity Tip #2: Work on one thing until it’s done

• Being Productive With Severe Lack Of Sleep /caption]I was chatting offhand with my friend Bryce M at Super Tuesday Party a couple of days ago about my work habits. Bryce is a sleep scientist (for lack of a better description). The upshot here is that when you're exhausted, it's very difficult to focus, even when you don't......
• Being Versus Doing: Change what you do, not who you are Here's an excellent video from Chris Brogan on being who you are, even in business. There is a compelling business case for being who you are. In a nutshell, if being who you are isn’t working, you know what to change. You can test yourself against your audience. Many people......
• LaTeX. Word. Not. One of the most difficult tasks to perform on a computer: extracting a reasonable facsimile of a LaTeX document into an MS Word file. I am two hours into this. So far: Latex2html won't install. configure can't find DBM. Used cpan to update DBM Updated cpan. Exited cpan to install......
• Face time versus internet time I am struck more and more by the dichotomy between internet time and face time. Often, it's very difficult to time-budget my own activities, because I don't know which time class an activity is going to fall in to. Let me explain... Internet time Internet time is activity limited mainly......
• Time Versus Activity Based Project Management All of the project management software I have used or evaluated provides two structural elements, which I'll call "projects" and "tasks." A project collects one or more tasks into a block of time. Furthermore, all of these applications assume that The project can be decomposed into discrete chunks that can......

• Top Blogging Strategies Whether your blog is about general interest topics like how you washed a crayon in your son's pocket and there's...
• iiProperty Tracks your Rental Properties Occasionally readers will write me about a product or service that I might not have found otherwise. I review all...
• The Bandwagon Effect of Celebrity Perfume I've never been a girl who runs out to get the next hot thing, and that includes celebrity perfume. In...
• 10 things to do before listing your home I've moved too many times to remember off hand growing up, and toured literally hundreds of houses in my lifetime....
• Herbs Beyond Green Tea and What to Consider You will now obtain many popular supplements on the market. They can either be vitamins or herbs, but either way...

Tagged as: context switching, Project management