Sharing a personal observation, suspecting you might resonate with this…
I’m most likely to be unproductive and waste precious time when I sit down to “work” but don’t have a specific plan for the work I need to do.
This situation invariably prompts to do things like defragment my hard drive (again), sort through old emails, check the latest on LinkedIn, and rewatch a fun movie clip I’ve seen a dozen times before.
Develop a plan for your working time. Know what needs to be delivered, done, created, edited, reviewed, and imagined. Decide what needs to be done next. Don’t miss the opportunity to make progress on the important-not-urgent projects. Assign working times accordingly.
The key is to make these decisions early, so I have a plan and a schedule. It’s a mistake to think “I’ll decide at 1:30pm what I work on next” because it’s a low-energy part of my day.
Discipline yourself to do what you planned to do, when you planned to do it.
This is my best antidote to wasting time.
Yes, interruptions happen and priorities can shift. Adjustments need to be made. Sometimes I’ll fail to do what I planned to do. This is life. But this approach means I am still largely productive and effective over days/weeks/months despite the flux of the real world.
