Productivity In My Home Office

Today, as my son had a medical appointment, I opted to work from home. My office is quite well set up for such. Much better than many of the other places I’ve lived.

I’m rather fond of this space. It’s MY space. Decorated to my sensibilities, and with my momentos and such.

Yet I faced disappointment.

I’m often ambitious regarding what I want to do during a day. And when I’m home, free of distraction (relatively, at least), I think I can get monumental amounts of work done. It never works out that way. Now, I often get way more done that I would’ve in my office, at least in diving into projects deeply, and reviewing certain minutia. But my task lists tend to be ridiculous, which I think is facilitated by electronic to-do tools like Todoist. All I need to do is move the stuff I didn’t get done into another day. I am trying to be more thoughtful about what I’m attempting to accomplish on a given day. Giving thought to priority, to my goals, my objectives. So much of my career has been spent chasing after whatever goals have been dropped into my lap on a given day. I have needed to spend time focusing, which, though challenging, has been really fun, too.

And, someday, I’ll get a realistic idea of what I can actually do in a day. Someday….

Reflections On Seth Godin

Seth Godin always makes me think. His writing brings me to the proverbial 30,000 foot level, where I can see clearly. His post today “Never smooth enough–a modern addiction” came with this great line:

“Accept the lack of perfect. Better to make something important instead.”

It’s so easy for me to get caught up in the lack of perfect, the gaps, the holes in the plans, and in all the things I don’t have to “pull this off”.

Just move, just start: it’s what matters. Everything else will come together.