Shameless SEO

ok. I hardly write here, but this is a link I wanted to share.

5:14 pm

Today was pretty good. I was at work pretty early and I got right to it.

I didn't waste much time surfing the web.

I managed to demonstrate major progress on the laser to my advisor and I manufactured a particular part. There were mistakes and things, but overall, I'm not sure I could've worked more effectively (I feel like the mistakes were less that I was distractable and more that I am just not a particularly experienced machinist).

Overall, I feel pretty good about today. It wasn't miraculous, but it wasn't crummy. I was able to get out of the tutorial lab pretty quickly (no one came), so that was a nice little treat.

I suppose my major failing was that I didn't get a particular letter written that I need to make to request money.

Otherwise, good day.

5:16 pm

6:48:48

Today was pretty good.

I got right to work in the morning pretty much, which was a major step forward.

I was still distractable throughout the day. I checked my email too much and spent too much time reading articles online.

I feel like very little got done, though I am noticing a slight improvement in my ability to just get to work.

I don't feel like I have many insights on the day.

6:50:04

6:58:08 pm

I will put the time I started writing the post as the time. That way we can all see if I spend too much time on the posts.

Today was pretty good. There were two extremely productive times. One occurred after I left the tutorial lab at about 11:00 am, but before I left for lunch at 1:40pm. The other ended just now, but started at about 4:00 or 5:00 pm.

During those times, I managed to avoid distractions and work on the important things. I worked on the 408 nm laser. I also helped everyone move the vacuum chamber into place and I cleaned up my workspace, which makes me feel a lot better. My lab notebook notes were good.

I swung by Staples after lunch and I think I took too long there. Also, there was a lot of time when I would get distracted with intermittent web-surfing.

I wasted some time in the tutorial lab. I had to be there, but there were no students. I left, so that was a good use of time.

Also, I've noticed that I always waste time before getting to work. So, after the natural and good breaks (after getting in, after getting back from lunch, and even after helping move that vacuum chamber) it's almost like I have some list of things I have to do before getting started again, except that really they are just a waste of time--mostly I'm just putting off working and trying to do something that requires little effort--like surf the web.

Also, I didn't even really get into the zone between getting back from lunch at 4:00 or so and moving that vacuum chamber.

There were a couple of instances where I noticed a temptation to be distracted and I managed to ignore it. I was mostly tempted to check my email. Part of the allure is that it's nice to sit down and part of it is that I love getting emails. However, I only get enough emails to justify checking it like 3 or 4 times per day at the most.

Overall, I'd say today was OK. There were steps in the right direction, but I feel like there's a lot more productivity to be gained.

My goal for tomorrow is to write on this blog again. Also, I'm hoping to consciously try to get to work quicker--no more aimless stops along the internet.

Intro to the blog

This is my personal productivity blog. I will log what I do each day to evaluate it.

Part of why I'm doing it is because I feel like I struggle to work effectively. I've been looking for a metric that I can use to see how I'm doing and I've decided that the best way is to just evaluate my work qualitatively.

Here are some of the pitfalls I'm trying to avoid as I evaluate my productivity:

When I've tried to use objective goals, I've found that how effectively I work does not correlate well to whether I accomplish the goals because I do research in a physics lab at BYU and, by the very nature of the work, it is hard to gauge the relative difficulty of the tasks. Thus, I want to make sure that I give myself credit when I work hard on a surprisingly hard problem and that I am honest when I lazily tackle a problem that turns out to be surprisingly easy. I think this will also help motivate me since I should have at least something to show for a hard day spent testing ideas that didn't pan out.

I want to extricate my productivity from my natural talents. Sometimes I'm able to work ineffectively and get things done just because I'm good at them. I don't want to inflate my perception of my productivity, I want to improve my productivity so I can maximize the use of my talents.

I'm trying to avoid something that I'll forget to do. I've tried measuring how much time I spend on different things and it's hard because I would frequently find that I would forget to stop the timer and I would have, e.g., 30 hours of scripture reading or something like that (which was obviously untrue).

I also want some system that is impossible to game. I know when I've been working well. Sometimes I'll set goals (like doing work for a certain amount of time) and I'll reach them, but still manage to avoid working on the most important things. I always know, however.

I want something that allows me to evaluate my productivity on a wide variety of tasks.

I guess mostly I want something that's really flexible so I can get the most accurate view of my productivity.

This blog is mostly for me. I'm hoping it won't be too negative, but some days it will be. I'm hoping it will help me know where I stand. Others can read the blog if they want. The name is just a random number. I got it by taking the hundredths digit from my stopwatch.

For my part, I promise to be honest. I'm setting a goal to write on this blog every day.

With love,

492072

A few other thoughts: according to an article I read in the Harvard Business Review, whether a person has a good day at work is strongly correlated to whether they get things done. Also, check out this video about worker engagement.