Turning Anxieties into Productivity

I’ve had a few people over the past few weeks make a special point of pointing out how (overly) productive I am. And because part of the way I do things is doing them in public, I figured I’d put together an overview of how I work for The Internets. Much of it is not healthy – I battle with temporal compulsiveness in a way I can only imagine is similar to the exerted control over diets those dealing with eating disorders display. So this is a less a “how to be productive if you find yourself uninspired” and more a “how to funnel your anxieties towards good use.”

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This is actively not a way to interact with people you’re Not Working With. This is a constant battle with me, as it’s easiest for me to interact with people around projects. But that’s not fair to people I care about AND work with. It might not even be a way to interact with people you are working with. I’ve tried to have that tension/disfunction show through in this post – the same things that make me really good at productivity are what also make me have unreasonable expectations of carbon-based life forms.

Some of the following advice also has to do with deceiving yourself or other people, primarily about timelines, in exchange for projects being delivered on time. Every person is different – it’s important to ascertain if someone can self-regulate on time and deliverables, or if they need to be managed and reminded. It’s ideal if you can have a frank conversation with someone about this – but I’ve had this go both splendidly (“I’ve got this” or “Yes, please pad my time”) or horribly (“you lied to me? How dare you” (while still delivering late)). YMMV. Informed consent is important. Continue reading