I was already worried about my productivity before I did this exercise, but numbers make that feeling even worse: 35%!! First of all, it was not easy to categorize the activities. Twitter is very distracting, but at the same time it’s really useful in terms of finding readings about the topics I’m interested in. Communication can be very distracting (gtalk, for example), but it’s at the same time very important to build relations. I could go on and on, trying to explain how distraction and productivty overlap… but while I was writing this simple paragraph I’ve had two conversations in my gtalk. Interesting, but distracting at the same time.
During this year, all my media activity is around my computer, so this rescuetime exercise can be very accurate about my communications habits: no TV, no radio, no print newspapers or magazines. Serendipity, procrastination or multitasking are part of my personality, but one of this year’s purposes was to find a better balance with focusing and get the jobs done one after another. I still have five months to stop running and slow down.
Here goes some Data:
- 38% of productivity (great, it just went three points up while I was doing this!)
- I’m an average person (I spend around two hours on productive time per day)
- 4 hours and 11 minutes in my laptop per day. Doesn’t seem much
- My most productive day was Sunday. Shouldn’t it be just the opposite?
- My e-mail nearly doubles the next activity, social networks (Twitter)
- News and opinion goes third. In my real life it would have clearly been number one
And here some links about this topics:
- Procrastination: Positive procrastination, not an oxymoron
- Serendipity: In search of serendipity
- Multitasking: Why multitasking doesn’t work
Just to give a taste why procrastinating is not so terrible, I just want to share the best thing I discovered this week: Peter Sarstedt, 1969, singing ‘Where Do You Go To My Lovely’ Where Do You Go To My Lovely