How to be a Productive Nomad?
I would not say I am the most productive person I know. My mom is hands down the queen of productivity in my eyes. However, over the last 13 years (yes since high school), I learned a few tricks on being productive and multi-tasking. Multi-tasking is a bit different than productivity. In order to succeed in multi-tasking, productivity is needed - but multi-tasking can also decrease your productivity.
So why am I writing about productivity? During my corporate life, there were schedules and hard deadlines. Well, once I entered the student life - I no longer have a normal schedule and just aim to meet the deadline (include those last minute submissions). Then once I entered this nomad life, there are no schedule and no deadline. Sounds like a dream, but since I like to keep myself busy - I decided to make the best of my nomad life - because time is money.
Everyone has different needs and different definitions of productivity. It doesn’t just mean work or projects, it could be personal goals such as health (running marathons or quit drinking etc.) and learning (drawing, coding etc.). For the purpose of this, I will share with you how I tackle a project that doesn’t have a clear deadline and no schedule for it - my master thesis.
Here are some essences on how I become productive:
Set Goals
Build a Plan
Record It
Set Goals
Figure out what do you want to accomplish is key and give yourself a deadline. I don’t want to sound cliché, but set some SMART goals. It doesn’t have to be super formal but it has to be realistic and achievable. Also give yourself deadlines and get someone to hold you accountable for it. Once you set your big goal, create some realistic milestones to help you check your progress.
My goal is to write a report and an oral defense for my final thesis sometime before I graduate. However, since I am a person who do not believe in leaving everything to the last minute (really because of my anxiety) and almost never ask for an extension - I aimed to finish it in mid-December, before the Christmas holidays (I could have extended the project until late April for the following year).
Then roughly around middle of my project, I set a hard deadline date with my advisor (also the person who will evaluate my thesis). With the hard deadline, I start working backwards to set-up soft deadlines or milestones - such as when I need to turn in certain piece, when I need to have certain parts done by, when it needs to be edited by. Since I asked my friends to help me edit it, a lot of coordination with their schedule is also needed.
Here is a super important advise: give yourself some buffer time! Giving yourself a few days or weeks in your schedule is very important - because life happens.
Build a Plan
Whether it is using a gnatt chart or creating a routine schedule, whatever help you keep yourself organized, go for it!
I create routines to make sure I have sufficient time to work on my project (more about it in my previous post about routines). Make sure you plan is flexible and be okay with set-backs. Set-backs happen all the time, and some days are just not your day … it is okay - forgive yourself. Blocking off time to work on this project is important, for example twice a week one hour each or everyday for half a hour.
For my thesis, I basically outline earlier on how I plan to write the report. I recognized earlier on that what I plan to accomplish is very different than what grading scheme for the thesis was, so I hopped on a call with my advisor to make sure that she was okay with the new format I have proposed. I can write a whole book on how to work through set-backs, but I think the big take away is learning how to cope with them and move on from them. It will take time and some time you will get frustrated - take a break and come back later for it. I remember whenever I am financial modelling during my corporate life, whenever I run into a coding issue - I would take a coffee or washroom break and that 15 mins helps me clear my head. Similarly, whenever I run into a writers block on one part and I move to the next part or work on something else for a while.
One big reminder is try to stick to your plan: even if you are having a creative block - keep at it. I remember many famous writers said that they write at least 500 words a day, even if it was complete garbage and they hit a writers block. I hit delete on many parts of what I wrote, but it help me develop my idea and communicate better.
Record It
Write it down! Whether you use a calendar or journal, online or on paper, keep it somewhere.
I use tools like calendar (iCal and Google), Trello, and a written daily journal to keep track. I use calendar to set deadlines and Trello to see the grand scheme of the overall project - of course Trello and many project management tools have calendar embedded in their tools, so it’s all a matter of personal preference. Then a daily journal, because I am old … school.
I keep a daily journal, to help me visualize my day and my to dos for the days to come. However the most important feature is to recognize your progress. I find that many times when we are working on something, we lose focus on the big picture, having a journal to reflect back on what you did and how you made those progresses really help put things into perspective. I will share more on how I journal in a later post.
For my thesis, I used these tools to keep track of what I already did and what is the next few steps I need to make. My brain is so scattered that sometimes I forget things completely, and having a written record helps me keep organize and on track. See it as a tool to keep you personally accountable.
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Hopefully you can find some bits of my sharing to be helpful to be more productive when you are working with your own schedule. It doesn’t just work for me as a nomad, I used these methods during my corporate life to tackle a lot of life goals. Since, nobody else is responsible for you but yourself - so you owe it to yourself to make the best of your own life. :)