Day (11) 05 January: being productive

My greatest fear coming into lockdown early in 2020 and quarantine over the past two weeks was that time would just idle away. Too easy to turn the telly on, scoff biscuits and become a fat, lazy, slob. By good fortune I picked-up a useful book at the end of 2019; ‘Productivity Planner’. A book dedicated to; ‘lifelong learners and doers’, just how I like to think of myself. In addition to numerous titbits and quotes on time management and motivation the authors encourage readers to adopt ‘The Pomodoro Technique’. Using the task and time based Pomodoro and templates provided in the book you plan your most important tasks of the week and day, and allocate time in 25 minute blocks. It’s not perfect, but has brought more discipline to my daily life and a sense of achievement. 

How I spent my time in quaratine

 Prior to travelling I wrote a list of tasks I wanted to do whilst in quarantine. Some tasks where open ended like ‘search for a new home’ and others closed such as ‘complete a FutureLearn course’. (Pedantic's will argue that an open ended task is an oxymoron - tough, I said it’s not perfect.) Looking back through my daily planner in which I logged 13 hour days I can now reveal how I have usefully filled my time in quarantine.  

Almost a third of my time was spent on breaks: three meals a day, coffee, the weekends and getting over jet-lag. Not too bad. Pleasingly next comes hobby time including writing this blog and completing a FutureLearn course on genealogy. The next two tasks relate to moving around the world, looking for a new home, re-arranging subscriptions and continuing to learn Dutch. As I mentioned in an earlier blog one of my most pleasing achievements whilst living in the Netherlands was learning a foreign language. I intend to keep my Dutch studies up, my evening class restarts on Friday at 5am AEDT and I have homework to do. As we are in the midst of Australia’s holiday season only a little bit of time went on networking and job seeking. I would have liked to have seen more time on well-being activities such as working-out and mediating. I will find out when I get on a set of scales whether or not I have skimped on exercise.

During quarantine I read, but have annoyingly misplaced, a news article on this very subject - using your time in quarantine. The golden nugget of advice was not to be over ambitious, nor to stress too much if tasks do not get done. This is probably not the time to force yourself to write that best selling novel you have long had in mind (unless you are on of those incredibly focused people). The Pomodoro Technique worked well for me, I made commitments every day and gave myself a pat on the back for making progress. Bring on the weighing scales!

Daily facts

Sleep: quality 95% (don’t believe it), in bed 9h 06m, asleep 7h 50m

Breakfast: bircher muesli (better than last week’s, not that that says much)

Lunch: avocado poke bowl (nice, with a 1208 delivery it could be a long time to dinner)

Dinner: peri-peri pumpkin (I think I got the burnt left-overs)