Kate Hutcheson - The Efficient/Creative

July Resource Roundup: Should You Bother Learning That New Skill?

by Kate Hutcheson | Aug 3, 2017 | Check this out, Productivity

Gentlewomen,

If you are anything like me (a multi-passionate creative type), you collect new knowledge and hobbies like others collect credit card rewards points. You may be like me and want to learn new things, but before you’re great at that new thing, you’re ready to move on and learn something else!

If so, here’s two great resources from July, both on the same topic. I recommend reading both because they each have individual takeaways.

1. “TOP TEN STRATEGIES FOR LEARNING NEW SKILLS” BY FAHREEN GANI FROM ZAPIER

Though the article isn’t chock-full of brand-new information, I appreciate the reminders (particularly about making information meaningful in order to remember it–telling ourselves stories really helps information stick!)

2. “THE 4 KEYS TO LEARNING ANYTHING” BY LEO BABAUTA IN ZEN HABITS

Oh, yeah, that’s the stuff. Leo starts out with the bad feelings that often accompany learning new skills or information: the feeling over being overwhelmed, the fear of failure. The article ends by flipping all of those negative feelings upside down and showing the benefit of each and how to be gentle with ourselves as we learn.

And, the paradox:

Earlier in the month, I downloaded a few language training apps. My husband is always trying to learn new languages and I’m always *wishing* I spoke better French. So I downloaded some new apps and decided to keep at it.

Then I read this article by Jenny Marchal in Lifehack. In it, Marchal describes the goal lists that Warren Buffett recommends and it breaks down like this:

Make a list of your top 25 life goals
Think about which goals are the most important to you. Go through your list of 25 and cross off the ones that are less important to you until you have 5 goals remaining. These are your REAL goals.
Concentrate only on those 5. Spend your time on those 5 and none of the others.

And I get what he’s saying: those of us who are always wanting to learn or do something new can have a hard time focusing on what’s important. So I wrote my list of goals and you know what didn’t make it to the top five? Learning better French.

Sure, it may be on that list of 25 goals. And maybe someday it will even be in the top 5. But right now, it’s not. So let it go! I feel better already.

What about you? If you’ve found an article or anything else that has been on your mind through the month, share it with the other Gentlewomen! Et merci!

DO YOU NEED HELP WEEDING THROUGH THE TASK CLUTTER IN YOUR LIFE? SIGN UP FOR A ONE-ON-ONE PRODUCTIVITY SESSION WITH ME!

What I Learned in a Week of Time-Batching

by Kate Hutcheson | Jul 7, 2017 | Productivity

Despite a natural tendency to be a bit scatter-brained (and a nagging suspicion that ADHD might run in my family), I pride myself on being a productive, fairly organized individual. I have a love for time-management, even if I sometimes lose focus and let my inclinations lead the day (I like to think that finding time-management that works despite my natural tendencies makes me even better-equipped to work with other easily-distracted creatives).

So when I noticed that my days were starting to run away with me, I knew I needed to get a handle on it.

A BRIEF, EMBARASSINGLY HONEST DESCRIPTION OF HOW MY DAYS LOOK WITHOUT TIME-MANAGEMENT:

6:30-8:00: Wake up, make breakfast and lunches for kids, get them off the school, walk the dog, eat breakfast, get dressed
8:00-8:20: Check some e-mails
8:20-8:40: Facebook
8:40-9:30: Respond to emails from earlier, make a list of things to do
9:30-9:45: Facebook, probably?
9:45-9:55: Remember that I really need to do laundry. Trudge up three flights of stairs to collect dirty clothes. See toothpaste globs in bathroom sink and stop to clean it. Immediately forget about laundry.
9:55-9:58: Go back downstairs and remember that I was *supposed* to be collecting dirty laundry. Decide I should probably get some work done before my morning meeting. Remind myself NOT TO FORGET THE LAUNDRY. Forget laundry until 8 pm.
9:58-10:20: Do some work
10:20-10:30: Know that I’m not going to get much done in the 10 minutes before my meeting. Check Facebook to pass the time.

You get the idea. Anybody else deal with this? Clearly, this (lack of a) schedule was NOT working.

ENTER: TIME-BATCHING

When I decided to try time-batching for a week, it wasn’t my first trip to the rodeo with it. I had tried time-batching before (maybe a bit half-heartedly), but I decided this time I was going to really put effort into it. One week of time-batching just to see if it made a difference in my productivity.

In case the concept is new to you, time-batching is really just a way of dividing your time into related tasks and doing all of those related tasks in one go. Then you take a break and move to a different set of related tasks. There’s a good article about it here, if you want some more background on the idea. I’m going to share with you some of the things I learned when I really gave time-batching an honesty try.

1. YOUR SCHEDULING WON’T BE PERFECT, AND THAT’S OKAY

There are people who swear by the concept of “only checking/responding to your email at specific times every day.” Honestly, I have not been able to get there. Because of the nature of my day job, I get random questions throughout the day that may need to be dealt with immediately. I deal with them. I go back to what I was doing. It’s not perfect, but I am not the type of person who can shut down her email server for four hours at a time.

Similarly, every day may look different. I may work 7 hours one day at one “job” and then only work that “job” for two hours the next day.

2. SOCIAL MEDIA: SCHEDULE IT. SERIOUSLY.

It’s good to take a break every now and then. It is NOT good to take a break every twenty minutes.

3. TIME-BATCHING HELPED ME ACCOMPLISH MUCH MORE THAN USUAL

Despite my possibly-imperfect method of time-batching, I was MUCH more productive during this trial week. I mean, I was checking things off my to-do list like a BOSS. I was checking things off my list that had been on there for weeks. Do you get that little rush of endorphins when you check things off of your to-do list? Of course you do.

If you time-batch, how has it worked for you? Have you found another method that works better for you? Let me hear about it below!