Spring Cleaning My Productivity

Now that it’s getting warm outside (and by warm it was damn near 90 degrees here yesterday) I feel like I need to revamp my productivity schedule. There are always a few things that happen when the weather changes and these things can throw your normal schedule off:

Heat

The heat makes me lazy. Granted I love going out on a warm day and getting some sun, but I hate getting sweaty. I’m from Florida so I know heat but DC has an entirely different type of heat. It just makes me want to stay in my cool/dry apartment, and relax.

Vacation time

During the spring most people are preparing for some type of vacation. I, personally, am preparing for a week long vacation out of the country this year. Being away from home for that long and wanting to explore and enjoy my vacation can be hectic if I still have things (blog, school, chores at the apartment, bills, etc.) looming over my head.

No more School (or summer school)

When school gets out all of a sudden I feel like I have so much more free time. Then, it comes time to do something like take my car to the shop and all of a sudden I feel like I don’t have time because there are so many other things I can be doing. On the flip side, I’m also in summer classes this year. With summer classes comes the same academic commitment during the regular school year except now I’m like the lone student amongst majority of my friends so I have to balance school with all of my summer plans.

More visitors/trips to see friends

This one pretty much speaks for itself. Over the summer people have more free time so friends want to come visit and I want to go visit friends. It would be easy to neglect my responsibilities and just travel the country this summer BUT…let’s just not even pretend like that’s a real option.

"Shorter" nights

Shorter nights are only bad if you are a night owl like myself. I generally don’t feel my creative juices flowing full throttle until the sun has set and the moon is high and shining. With nights being so short that means my peak creativity is pushed back and I still need to get some type of sleep at night in order to be productive the next day.

HOW TO FIX THIS:

There are several things that I plan to keep up in order to make sure that my productivity doesn’t drop off over the summer. I’ll briefly share some of the more important ones here.

• Do work ahead of time- I’m sure yall knew this was going to be on my list. It’s the easiest and most practical thing that I can do if I know I’m going to have a hectic week/month coming up.

• Plan for interruptions- Life isn’t perfect. Some days I don’t feel well, some days my friends may have a crisis and need me or I may need them. Life doesn’t stop because I have things going on. Allotting time for these interruptions saves me from scrambling later. Plus, if I finish early and didn’t have any interruptions, that’s just more “free” time for me.

• Use a planner- Just because it’s the summer doesn’t mean you may not still need a planner. Lord knows I would be a mad woman without mine. I have been using the bullet journal method recently and it is truly a life saver.

• Know what can be done later- This is probably one of the most important things from a mental standpoint. We are in the era of brunch and happy hours and knowing what is priority and what I can put off and do later allows me to still get all of my work done while maintaining and growing my friendships with others (and enjoying brunch!)

•  Learn how to say “no”- Did anyone really think I was going to NOT mention this? Saying “no” is important because you don’t want to overwhelm yourself and you also don’t want to produce half-assed work or be at a gathering but be distracted the whole time by your other obligations. Caution: there are certain ways to say “no” so try to remember to decline things with tact. Just because you’re saying “no” now, you may still be able to do whatever is being asked of you later and you don’t want to close yourself off from that by your “no” coming across wrong.

That’s it, really, for how I’m going to spring clean my productivity. I could go into saying I’m going to go to bed earlier and wake up earlier but let’s be realistic…it’s almost summertime and I will probably still be up until all hours of the night. I’ll be back tomorrow (yup you read right, tomorrow!) talking about how to spring clean the relationships that you have to make sure you don’t drift apart from those you have spent time cultivating relationships with. See yall then!

~Tea