Day 47

Day 47:

I think I made an important realisation today, one that may be the root cause of the issues I've been struggling with recently. Those concerning my output, and feeling like I'm not really making any forward progress in life.

I have become much less efficient.

I work for the same amount of hours (perhaps even more) now than I ever have in my life. My schedule currently dictates work weeks that are way longer than 40 hours, but I've noticed that I actually produce and achieve very little in that time, especially when compared to what I would output before. Even at primary school, we'd go to lots of lessons and write lots of things down and build friendships and learn things. While that output didn't create any economic value (at the time), it was definitely valuable output, since I wouldn't be able to create things without that vital language and creativity education. Yet, even though I spend just as much time today as I did then, I produce far, far less.

Especially in recent weeks, this daily writing practice has been the majority of the output that I've been generating. I've been doing lots of thinking about what I want to do, and how I could go about doing it, but I've not been actually doing it. Reading 'Deep Work' by Cal Newport and watching some productivity classes* has revealed to me why this is the case. I have become so accustomed to being distracted by random things that I hardly ever get anything difficult or truly helpful done during my working hours. 

Cal explains in his book (far more eloquently than I am about to) that the brain is a muscle, one that needs to be trained in order to improve at anything. When at school, we are training our brains constantly to avoid distractions (they aren't allowed) and constantly take on challenges that we find difficult. Over time, this becomes the norm for us, which is why going on the summer holidays would be such a huge shift; we'd go from having to work for 5 days a week, to not having to go in at all. At first, it would be a huge novelty, since our brains were not accustomed to having so much free time. However, as the holidays would go on, our brains would get more and more out of practice at concentrating for long periods of time. This is why it would be so difficult to return to school in September, and it would take a couple of weeks before the brain gets accustomed to working that much again.  In hindsight, suggestions of studying over the holidays make a lot of sense, since it keeps the brain well-trained for work, easing the transition back into school.

In my case, I have gradually been becoming less and less well-trained at this type of concentration for a long while. I work from home, so it's much easier for me to get distracted by things, since there are so few barriers between my work tabs and entertainment, like Youtube especially. This ease of distraction (and lack of immediate punishment for doing so) has allowed me to weaken my concentration muscles so much that I struggle to focus on one thing continuously for any length of time. During the course of writing this, I've gotten up from my desk or clicked away at least 3 times, it may well have been more. Even when I obsess over an idea, that obsession rarely lasts for long, before I'm distracted by something that doesn't contribute to my work.

You'll notice that I said 'immediate punishment', which is very important due to recency bias. The longer-term punishments for this have become clear: I've become less productive, I feel worse about myself and my prospects generally, I struggle to focus even on the things that I enjoy, and I end up ranting to you about it in my writing (hopefully in a way that is beneficial or interesting to you :). However, the human brain doesn't put a lot of emphasis on these, because they are not immediate threats. We have evolved to deal with short-term problems well, like finding food, being attacked by something, or finding a safe place to live. By contrast, having to deal with long-term consequences is a relatively recent innovation, one that the human brain is not currently well equipped to deal with.

I'm going to try something new as a result of finding this out. I am going to implement short-term rewards and punishments for how well I do in my workday, and how well I use newly learned knowledge. I think it's important to not rely too much on a punishment system, since it seems like it would build a mindset around avoiding the bad, rather than working towards and enjoying the good. Things like tracking a work streak could be good. Starting small, then working my way up. My current system on my habit tracker simply says 'Work, 8 hours'. I have not once ticked this off, it's just too unrealistic for where I am at right now.

Throughout the course of this piece, I'm sure that the direction and tone has changed harshly, making it not link together properly. I can't sustain one idea for the amount of time it takes to get this far down the page. (Checks by scanning up the page.)

Yes, I have become far less efficient, and I'm setting out to train my brain to be efficient and focused again. Hmm, this may be trickier than I thought.... 

More stories/poems/something else tomorrow, I've done a lot of talking again recently.

*Do you remember that piece about productivity creators I wrote on Day 10? Even since then, my personal use case for productivity classes has changed. I have been watching them instead of achieving the things I specifically set out to do, which is procrastination. If I'd planned to watch them (which I have occasionally), then it would be a productive use of my time. It's not just the case that the use of watching them varies based on the individual, but the changing objectives of each individual too.