Today was just one of those days. You know the one, where the day just drifts on by, you can’t get into the groove and you don’t manage to get anything done. No matter how many “to do” lists you write, sometimes you just have to accept that these days are gonna happen.
I woke up feeling productive. I had lots of thing in my schedule and the day started alright. However, after half finishing a blog post, things started to go downhill. Motivation was drained. I started to get worried – I have deadlines and projects to complete. It was at this point, where I decided to stop myself, stop the negative thinking and take a step back.
From past experiences, if I was to “force” myself to try and work, I would end up producing crappy results. So instead of working today, I spent it just chilling out, watching a bit of TV, doing some exercise and giving my brain a break.
Without knowing it, I still managed to get work done. I wrote this post to start with, and came up with following list of things to do when I cant be f#@%ed
The Somewhat Incomplete List of Things You Can Do When You Can’t be F$(#ed doing anything that you’re supposed to be doing.
Thank Someone on Twitter
Surely, someone in your Twitter stream has offered some cool or valuable information over the past day. Go back through the stream and pick out someone to say thanks to. You’ll feel good. So will they. Win win! Effort required: 1/10
Delete All Your Icons on Your Desktop
Its amazing how crowed your desktop becomes over time. UI wise your desktop is badly designed. So get rid of every single icon and then put back only the icons you use on a daily basis. You’ve just saved yourself lots of time in the future! Effort required 2/10
Reuse Your Old Content
So you can’t be bothered creating anything new. So instead, just grab your old posts and make a “best of” article. If you’re feeling even slightly inspired you could add a unique commentary to each link. Effort Required 3/10
Tweak Your Sidebar
This ones for the bloggers. Take a look at your sidebar and see what can be removed. Often its full of dead blogroll links, old badges and “it looked like a good idea at the time” widgets. It you were smart, you would have already been using and installed Crazyegg, so you know exactly whats effective on your sidebar and whats not. Effort 4/10
Make a Video
This one sounds difficult, but fear not, its as simple as turning on a camera and talking. This video doesn’t need to be shown to anyone, instead use it as a way to quickly get all your thoughts out. Your current lack of motivation may be due to your brain being stuck in a loop (very scientific). Effort Required 5/10
Shred Something
If you don’t own a paper shredder you’re missing out on a whole lot of fun. Its like a grown up toy, that makes noises and everything! If you’re anything like me, you probably have some useless paper items that need a good shredding. You’ll be cleaning up and having fun at the same time. Effort Required 3/10
Go on a Blog Adventure
Ok heres how it works. Start on Twitter, your RSS reader or wherever you get your content from. Find a story, it doesn’t matter if you’ve read it before. Click through, read the article (if you can be bothered) and then head on down to the comments. Click on a random commentators URL to be taken to their site. Then simply find a comment on that site and keep your adventure going. I made it into a game (sometimes I get really bored) and tried to see how far I could go before I hit a blog with no comments (my record is 12, its surprisingly hard). Effort Required 6/10
What You Definitely Should Not Do
Do you find yourself in an endless loop? Stop checking your inbox. Checking it repeatedly is called insanity.
Get Angry
Chill out, stop being a productivity nerd. You can afford to take a step back (maybe i’m wrong. Maybe if you don’t check your inbox one more time, you’ll miss out on the nice offer from Mr Zimaabu from Nigeria who wants to transfer 1 million dollars to you.)
Just like email, if its the weekend and the middle of the night, there is really no point on being on Twitter/Facebook/whatever. Take a break, stop being annoyed by other people not Tweeting.
There you go. My lazy guide to doing nothing. Of course the ironic thing is, if you were to do everything on this post you would probably have a very productive day. And this unproductive day of mine resulted in this post….im cured.
live a little
Photo by – Spencer Finnley
10 Comments
Hi Anthony. my first time here.
can’t help but LOL at this post. it’s quite difficult to produce something good if you feel ‘forced.’ i guess, it’s a matter of maintaining balance between routine and ‘interesting’.
Mighty
Thanks Mighty! Hope to see you back again
You had me chuckling with the e-mail thing. I found myself doing that a lot today. My in-box stayed pretty darn empty too, except for an update on a local theater. The thing is, I had a couple blog post ideas floating around my head. All it would’ve taken was to start typing a word or two to get me going, and I would’ve had them done by now. I just wasn’t in the mood…I felt like vegging out, and so I did.
And are you happy you ended up vegging out? Or would you have preferred to do the blog posts?
Well, let’s just say it felt good while I was doing it, but after I typed that comment, it prompted me to finally start writing my post. So, thanks for the little push I needed
Having our desktop cluttered will lead to a loss in productivity. Most probably the clutters cause us to generate a negative emotion that leads to it. It is always a good habit to clear our desktop icons monthly and I love it when it is neat and tidy.
Cheers,
Vincent
LOL, love this post, you have highlighted all of my idiosyncrasies. Usually when I feel dull and unproductive, I take a note pad and pen and head to the beach (I live in the Caribbean), I absolutely love the sea and whilst just sitting there chilling I usually get a whole host of really good ideas. So I make notes and when I get home I get started on which ever idea excites me the most.
Thanks for the great info and a good laugh!
I would love to be sitting on a beach in the Caribbean right about now….i’m very jealous
I work best under pressure when I know things have to be done. Otherwise ill just get lazy and not put my full effort into things.
I’m reading this post right now because im supposed to be doing an assignment for TAFE but i really cant be bothered. Most of the time when im having one of these days i chill out some of the time and force myself to work the rest of the time. I find that it really works cause you can sit around and be lazy but you also get things done. Even if what you get done isn’t great you can always go back the next day and tweak things a bit to make it better!
If you try and do something on the days when you cant be bothered, you tend to feel less stressed the next day.