How do you manage your priorities and workflow?
* Doing something productive before work. Usually, this is cooking a mildly-elaborate breakfast (kale & miso-onions, zucchini, English muffin w/ a slice of tomato & saurkraut, and scrambled eggs). Other times it’s going to yoga. The point is to do something that makes me feel like I’m making progress.
* Answer emails/texts and write down a task list for the day. Oftentimes this is the same as the day before, but the act of writing it out helps me psychologically solidify what I’m going to do for the day.
* Coffee. These days, I drink RYZE and really enjoy the elevated feelings (it def needs some honey and non-dairy creamer). Previously, I’ve been into single-origin coffees from Kenya, Ethiopia, and Honduras (can’t stand the stuff from Indonesia). It was a fun (if expensive) hobby for a while. The point here is to have a ritual.
* Ritalin.
My central job task is simple and involves one quite repetitive flow. It's piece-work, and so I claim up to 5 pieces at a time and I work through them. It probably takes me 3-10 minutes to work through each piece, longer if I stumble on an advanced case.
So at its heart, it is really not a problem for me to get distracted by Slack or email or something at home. Because I can finish one task so quickly and be at a stopping point, it doesn't affect my workflow.
My schedule is also 100% flexible, so I can choose my hours and clock in/out as I please. If I clock in and feel drowsy within 10 minutes, I clock out and go to bed, no harm, no foul. If I wake up full of energy, I can clock in and go for a 5-hour "marathon" (I work part-time).
Here are a few things that help, nonetheless: limit distractions. My home life is quiet, I live alone. My computers have a dedicated work account and there's no social media or geegaws sending notifications. My phone stays live, but it's well-behaved.
I also like to play soothing music that helps focus and lays down a rhythm. I found some ambient, instrumental public-domain tracks that last 1 hour, very repetitive. Very listenable. NEVER listen to vocal music if you're doing intellectual work! You will sing the lyrics or your brain will jumble trying to pay attention to both at once!
Good management, good coworkers: Slack is really quiet anyway. People don't do idle chit-chat and I work with a cast of thousands. Mute those Slack channels that spam you. Don't allow notifications to ping you unnecessarily. Management doesn't go in for 1:1 Zooms or extensive chats about something, they want us to focus on our job priorities, and they facilitate that in every way.
Stay well-fed and happy. Don't neglect hygiene and household tasks, they'll get you down and keep your mind off work. It's good to be at peace with yourself and the world. Meditate on a regular basis, religious or not: you'll obtain that serenity you long for.
I like the schedule many professional writers keep.
They start writing at 8 am or so and finish at 2 pm or so with a lunch break and a couple of small breaks. They absolutely make sure that they write for those hours so they only focus on writing. After that they do as they please.
It's smart , no burnout, any thing else can keep until 2 and they are productive.
