Task & Timer — bgfay

Task & Timer bgfay - March 23, 2020

Here's my situation:

I can’t seem to get myself going this morning. There are some things I could, maybe should be doing, but none are really of much use and most are dependent on communicating with others so I send email and wait for replies. Everyone is dealing with stuff and my email isn't top priority. Nor should it be. I have brief moments of productivity between long stretches of nothing to do.

Maybe you can relate.

I'm not complaining, just trying to find a way to deal with the way things are. Since I'm not alone in having this problem, maybe we can test-drive a possible solution. You'll need a task and a timer.

Task: Write a blog post
Timer: 45 minutes

One issue with working from home is boundless time.

Yesterday, I had five important tasks to do and finished before noon. Today, there wasn't even that much, so I read the news. Big mistake on two levels:

The news was the idiot man-child in the White House complaining that the virus is lasting longer than his short attention span.
Online, I fall into a spiral of clicking, clicking, clicking on nothing, nothing, nothing hoping to be rescued by something onscreen. Rescue never comes from the screen. It comes from within and involves shutting the screen.

(I'm typing this on a screen but in a minimal editor set to full-screen mode and free of distractions.)

When in doubt, block computer/phone distractions, assign a task, set a timer, and work for the allotted time.

I may not finish this post before the timer sounds. That's fine so long as I keep going for forty-five minutes, as long as I'm working and focused long enough to pass the points of frustration.

I'm most likely to abandon things out of frustration within the first fifteen minutes. Past that, I usually stay with the task and make something of it.

Here's my confession: I tried to quit this post twice already. At two minutes in and again at twelve minutes, I gave up. Both times I went toward checking email and news, but the timer called me back. I still have time on the clock, I told myself and kept going.

Having nearly finished, I'm not sure I've created much of anything, but staying with the timer is worth something to me.

Maybe it's worth something to you.

I'm home with my wife and kids, dog and cats, daily calls to my mother and brother, email from friends, and my work. Working entirely from home this way is quite a shift and a tough balance. I'll need time to grow accustomed. Having one specific task and a timer helps.

My timer, by the way, is up. I'm off that clock. Time for a break. Maybe a few push-ups to get the blood flowing. Then I'll set another timer, start at the top, and revise this into a post.

Setting the timer for this one task got me going. How cool is that?

What are you doing to adjust to working from home? Leave a comment below. Let's talk.

The idea for timed writing comes from Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down The Bones and Peter Elbow's Writing Without Teachers to name just two writing books that suggest it.

The idea for using a timer in this way also comes from the New York Times piece "Letter of Recommendation: Kitchen Timer" by Ben Dolnick that I have copied here for those lacking a Times subscription.