Saturday 5th June 2021

The way my productivity system works is that it works both up and down.

The “up” way is the most obvious.  I have a task management system in which I do tasks.  Completed tasks go towards completing milestones which in turn completes goals.

Last year I added a “down” component to my system.  That means that I set my goals at the start of the year and break them down into milestones for each quarter, which result in tasks.

Then each, week, month, quarter, I review where I am and make any course correction I need.  Have things changed that I need to alter my milestones and goals, or do I need to create new tasks to put my goals back on track?

It feels like it works as the bi-directional nature of the system means that if something gets missed one way, it gets picked up the other.  I’ve found it particularly useful where I have tasks that I keep punting forwards.  It’s caused me to break those tasks down further to get a bit of traction rather than just punt off into the future again.

One of the things I wanted to do this year was learn more.  I’ve done a range of courses but recently my weekly review has asked me what I learnt this past week and I have nothing to enter there.  It doesn’t need to be something as concrete as theoretical physics.  Sometimes, just having a small insight into something I already know is enough.

But I’ve had nothing which in turn has caused me to think that I need to learn something new.

I have a habit of picking up courses.  I’m fascinated by writing craft and have read just about everything there is about different writing methodologies.  I’m also big on productivity (I love building systems) and social media.  Whenever I see Udemy has a free offer on, I’m in there picking up all the freebies.  One day I may actually do them.

One of the things I want to do this year is something writing related on Youtube.  The original plan was to wait until I had something to promote, but… well, that could be a while off.  But I picked up a free course that I think specifically covers the niche areas I need to do if I was to do this idea, so I decided to do it today.

I’ve recently started taking notes on courses  I want to be able to review in years to come without redoing the entire course.  And I have to be honest and say that I have yet to perfect my note-taking.  Still working on that one.

As a result, I’m summarizing the entire course as I go along, pausing video to do so.  I probably need to wait until the end and then do a more succinct summary… but as I said, I’m still perfecting my note-taking.

So you can imagine how long going over a 90 minute presentation took me!  Way too long.

I ended up with no time to write, which annoyed me, especially as I’m at a natural break where I’m not sure exactly how to stage the next scene.  And I’d been making such good progress this week.

This course has loads more modules and I hope they aren’t as long, otherwise they’re going to eat my entire week next week, and I was really hoping to continue this latest spurt of activity on The Accursed.  Still want to get it done by the end of the month.

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Past Years: 2020 – The Year of Being Fearsome | 2019 – The Year of Soldiering Through | 2018 – The Year of Priorities | 2017 – The Year Of The Offensive