The NormalNess Podcast – Season 2 Episode 5 – Productivity
In episode 5, I try to tackle a topic I usually can’t stand – “productivity”.
You can listen below or subscribe via iTunes.
Links mentioned in the episode:
Episode Transcript:
I’ve received a few compliments about being things like a “go getter”, or someone who accomplishes a lot. And that is so bizarre to me. I don’t feel like that’s me in the slightest. I feel like I’m always under achieving that so much more I want to do, there’s so much more I could do that I’m not doing as much as you’d have written before about hustle culture and how I didn’t like it. The downside of being someone with lots of interest is you feel like they’re always missing out on something. And there’s always more you could do, especially being someone who has had a lot of medical issues or caring passing gain new ones, because new ones that cause new ones. I feel like I’m always behind. There’s always more to do. And that’s why when I’ve heard a few people say to me that I’m a go getter or accomplish a lot.
It doesn’t resonate with how I see myself. It’s just as hard for me Mentally to think about myself as that because I do, I guess I do do a lot. You know, a lot of websites, I’ve got books I write, I think how things look on the surface and how things feel. I just very different. And the best way I can use this example is with the release of my book, The secret ingredient of I don’t even know when I started writing it. I can’t tell you that. But the majority of the work I did on actually writing the book and its first draft was in NaNoWriMo, which was in November 2019. was pretty much done, then, you know, those edits, covers, you know, lots of post production, I guess, things to do. But basically, the book was done in November 2019. And I didn’t publish it until June 2020.
So, for me, that doesn’t feel like are a go getter, because that’s what a month Six months of waste of, of time when I didn’t do anything with it. It was sitting there. I had
at least I could do it in January How long? I could do it in February. Maybe I could do it in March. And I eventually I did it in June. So people say that that’s being a go getter.
The the invisible time when you do your work just doesn’t doesn’t compute. For me. Maybe it maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe it doesn’t matter that there’s months and months of gap between when I wrote a book and when I published it. I mean, self publishing means that there’s timelines are already a lot shorter than they are. If you’re traditionally published. Now, we wouldn’t be talking about months. We’re talking about years, potentially. So maybe it’s being a go getter. Maybe, maybe I am amazing at productivity and I should take a compliment. I think that’s the case and I think I’m amazing at productivity in the slightest, but it just sits really weirdly with me. And I don’t know if that’s because of things like the gap in writing, probably due to publication.
If it’s things like, you know, if it’s personal image, you know, maybe maybe medical issues that I think hold me back. Don’t It feels weird to say that maybe they haven’t held me back. I mean, I spent last weekend (at time of recording) in bed because I messed up myself and anyway and couldn’t move for a day. So it certainly feels like to me, but they hold me back. Maybe they don’t. Maybe. I don’t know. I can be good at productivity, but my productivity doesn’t look like other people’s. And I think that’s where there’s sort of cognitive dissonance between someone saying, Oh, look at me Look, a lot of things I achieved versus me thinking about the day I’ve spent in bed, being unable to move happens, so I don’t work. Some things in tiny little bits. The writing software I use novlr does let you set things like daily and monthly goals and I do set them. I have a goal of 200 words a day. I think I’ve actually hit that goal and three, well, something was certainly not for any regular streak, as they call it.
I do get things done. I guess I don’t have to accept that about myself is that I can then I write in my last year I drafted about five books, I hit the 50,000 word, goal.
That is the purpose of NaNoWriMo and mosman books at the moment, its current satirical series and secret ingredient author quite short, around 10,000 words. You know, I guess I did write five books in a month, so that is productive. I need to edit and publish the rest of them. But that’s a different topic. And I guess it’s the same for blog posts. I’m a few months ahead and blog posts. I had a really good day or a couple of days on a weekend a few months ago, and Kind of wrote, schedule, put images into blog posts and got a blog post it out till about August right now, only post once a week at the moment, generally speaking. So if I want to add a new one that week, and new one if I feel like something I want to say, and I don’t want to wait a few months to say it.
So maybe maybe this just that difference that I work in batches, very, very intense batches. That makes me feel like the difference between being productive or go getter person, because I’ll do a lot. And then I won’t do anything with that content for months. So maybe that is productive, and maybe that I’m so mentally ingrained to the, we have to do a little bit each day and you have to set SMART goals and I’ll link to an article about why I hate SMART goals. But maybe maybe it’s just the cognitive cognitive dissonance between this is how you are supposed to be productive versus how I actually am productive that makes me think I don’t getting anything done? So? I don’t know, I think it thing is logically I think that everyone does work differently. So I don’t know why I can’t apply that sort of thinking to myself, and perhaps as a sort of thing, we do need friends who say, who will look at you. Thank you. And I don’t know. It’d be interesting to hear other people’s thoughts about how they work. And if they consider it productive on auto, how do you define your personal productivity level? It’s different for everyone. So let me know your thoughts. You can always drop me an email anytime Vanessa at Normalness DOT com.
