This month, I am experimenting with a new way of working (Inspired by Heather Waring’s tip to Do the most important thing first). In the past, I have logged into e-mail, facebook, twitter and gone through them first thing in the morning, then started on my endless ta-dah lists, usually having 20 windows open on my laptop and doing 4 things at once. This month, I am trying a new idea: Work on one project a day FIRST, then open facebook, twitter and e-mail afterwards. Then after half an hour, close them all down again and just open the programs I need for the rest of my ta-dah list.
Yesterday was an epic fail of this new way of working because the one project I was working on needed technology that wasn’t working. Sigh. Not a great start. Today, I needed to go into Facebook first…and found myself just clicking around and getting distracted (as usual) for 15 minutes. And I noticed something interesting.
Having been distracted by other people’s stuff on Facebook, I couldn’t settle to my own work for about an hour afterwards. Last week I talked about Too Much Information and how the endless stream of e-mail can pull you off your path. This week I’m aware of just how much that little ‘innocent’ 5 minutes of Facebook turned into 75 minutes of distraction. Hmm. A good reason to stay off facebook in the mornings!
How do you start your day? Are you constantly pulled off track by e-mails, facebook and twitter? Does the most important thing get done in your day or are you constantly trying to ‘find time’ to do the important stuff amongst the busy-work and endless lists? If your way of working isn’t working for you, try something new, experiment, play with new ways of working. Let me know what works well for you by leaving me a comment below.
Love
Donna.x