March 15, 2013
tl;dr - when you start working on something, it takes some time before you start getting productive. take this into consideration when you plan your day, and when you interrupt someone.
It can be frustrating that you struggle to get things done. And confusing. Sometimes you go through your day’s schedule to see why you don’t have time. “I spend an hour doing this, 4 hours doing that, a half-hour doing this etc. So I should have this much time left over to get stuff done. That’s more than enough time!”
Consider this: it takes time to download the task. What does that mean? It means that when you do some task, it takes time before you can get started. You often have to set up, re-familiarize yourself with certain things, re-understand the goal/directions, go over the logic/reasoning you previously used to get to the point you’re currently at in your task.
It's sorta like sleeping. First, you ease into sleep. Once you fall asleep, it takes time to get into the deep sleep stages. Then, after spending some time in the deep stages, you resurface back to lighter stages to take a break before going back into the deep stages. Imagine how distracting it would be if you had a meeting every time you started to enter deep sleep.
Two things about downloading the task:Think about the things that people do to procrastinate. They all require basically no downloading of the task. Facebook, YouTube, checking email, checking sports, news, stocks...
Another thing: consider how valuable uninterrupted chunks of time are. Say that in a 4 hour time span, you do 4 tasks, and give yourself an hour each. That means that you have to download the task 4 times. Now say that you do one task in that 4 hour time span. In that case, you only have to download the task once. That saves time! The less you have to download the task, the more time you save. In the long run, this really adds up!
A lot of people seem to have lives where they have small chunks of time to do things. You come home from school and do some work, but then you’re hungry so you have to eat. And then you do some more work, but then you have a doctors appointment. And then you do some more in the waiting room, but you’re called in by the doctor. Then you get home and do some more work, but then you have to stop for dinner. Then you do some more after dinner, but soon enough you have to leave for your basketball game. And then you get home and do some more, but your favorite show is on, so you watch your show. Then you do a little more, but you have to go to sleep.
Notice that so many kids/people seem to get so much work done late at night. Why do you think this is? During the nighttime hours, there are no interruptions! Are kids lazy procrastinators because they end up leaving their work to be done late at night? Somewhat, but not as much as people think. Maybe they’re trying throughout the day, but they just can’t get anything done without that uninterrupted chunk of time.
As you plan your schedule, consider the time it takes to download the task in your cost-benefit analyses.