Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Unproductive

I am starting to notice a pattern in my work. Or, perhaps, I should say, lack of work. One day per week, often early in the week, I have a day in which I can do virtually nothing at the office. I am distracted, restless, I look at my arm-length "To-Do" list and shrug (or shudder), and click over to Facebook to check on my Scrabulous games.

Yesterday was such a day. I started the day with a brisk walk (always a good thing). I arrived at the office feeling energized. But as the day unfolded, I got precisely nothing done. (Well, nothing tangible. Well, only a few things tangible. I did reading for my sermon and I submitted some financial reports.) A very positive meeting in the evening rescued me from feeling a total sloth.

I am beginning to wonder whether I ought to restructure my week. Normally I take Friday as my day off. But when I have an unproductive day, I often end up working on Friday anyway... and then by Monday I'm pretty tired and burned out. I muscled through Monday, only to find that Tuesday became my near-zero productivity day.

Bleh. Not sure what the answer is. I'm hoping for a better day today. Off to swim.

7 comments:

Sarah S-D said...

what about working from home one day? like my monday study day. might help.

steve said...

Hmmm...it's my personal bias, I suppose, but I tend to think that these moments or areas we'd prefer to discard (like being "unproductive") actually have important things to teach us.

Just a thought.

Anonymous said...

what's not getting done? if something is falling through the cracks or getting dropped on its head rather than just rescheduled to a later day in the week, then sure.

but if this is some presbyterian work ethic thing about productivity for the sake of productivity, well then. i've got a times crossword puzzle giving me some trouble...

sermon-borrower

Unknown said...

Just don't give up on Scrabulous.

Anonymous said...

I think your idea of changing your day off sounds like a good solution. I'm hopefully going to be changing jobs which will result in major changes in how I read blogs and write. Yikes!

I think you're onto something though. You should try it!

Jennifer Garrison Brownell said...

hey mags - looking for empathy or problem solving? I've got heaps of both, but for now just take the empathy. if you want more problem solivng, emial me :)

Diane M. Roth said...

I tried taking friday off when I was on internship, and I just couldn't discipline myself on Monday. nobody else was in the office then. Now I take Monday off -- it's not for everybody, but it has been a good rhythm for me. The whole week moves toward Sunday. And sunday afternoon and Monday are my weekend.