Staying Motivated Week: “Productivity”

Staying Motivated Week

We’re almost at the end of Blapril! We’ve hit Staying Motivated Week, and next week is the final Blapril week where we discuss lessons learned. Bel outlines Staying Motivated Week as  follows.

Towards the end of the proceedings we start to have a drop off in post frequency as folks hit their writing wall. The idea behind this week is to share the tips and tricks that we have learned throughout the years on how exactly to stay motivated and keep posting on a daily basis. I feel like this is even more relevant this year since we are all going through massive disruptions to our usual schedules and having to deal with all sorts of external changes impacting our well being both physically and mentally.

I want to take this idea/prompt in a slightly different direction. Most of us know that after the challenge of Blapril, we probably won’t be continuing a daily posting schedule. But many of us will still want to feel productive, and churn out posts afterwards in some semblance of a schedule (whether that be once a week, thrice a week, or another idea that fits our daily lives). But I’ve seen an undertone of “lack” of productivity around the blogosphere the past week or so and I want to address it in the guise of staying motivated.

Productivity

Most recently, Endalia/Tessa mentioned how she’s running out of writing juice.

I’m running out of writing juices and I know I’m not the only one. Blogging every day is hard and if you dive in without building it up or preparing something, you’ll find yourself in a burnout. I’m not at that point yet, no burnout. I’m just tired.

This is an important point about too much “productivity”. Too much focus on being productive can leave you burnt out. This can happen in any area of our lives, so we need to also make time and space for ourselves to relax and enjoy what we’re doing. When something becomes too much of a job, or too much of a drain on our mental/physical resources, we will burn out, even if we feel we are being productive.

So please, think critically about how you want to continue blogging after Blapril is over. Don’t tell yourself being productive means continuing blogging daily if it will eventually lead to burn out. You may be better served by blogging less days per week and spending some more time gaming or reading.

Last week, both Kluwes and Krikket mentioned productivity in their posts in regards to gaming/blogging.

Kluwes discusses how they’ve been getting up earlier to coincide with their spouse’s new work schedule, and covers what they’ve been experimenting with to fill that time. After discussing how they have been using it to relax and game before work, they throw in the “productive” word.

Of course, it would be more productive to use that time for blogging…

Krikket spends time talking about how she’s reactivated her WoW account, and might take advantage of the Impressive Influence buff that’s currently running. But she also says,

Hopefully, it’ll come back to me sooner rather than later, and I won’t squander my token and a month’s worth of Impressive Influence chasing battle pets or conveniently forgetting to log in.

Both have at least alluded to not feeling productive in their relax/gaming time. And I very much want to counter that attitude. “But Chestnut, you yourself do gaming goals! Isn’t that about productivity?”

On the surface, sure, it may appear that it’s about being productive. But to me, it’s not about doing everything on the list with my free time to where I burn myself out. It’s more about helping to shape what I’m interested in completing or experiencing throughout the month. Plans change, and that’s okay.

So, as I said, I want to counter this attitude. I don’t want Kluwes or Krikket (or any other bloggers/gamers) to feel that they’ve “wasted” their time on pursuits that make them happy and bring them enjoyment. We don’t have to be productive 24/7. That’s a lie that corporate capitalism has fed us for a very long time.

And right now, we’re in a pretty messed up time that can make this lie of productivity sting even more. As the quote above states, “that world is gone now”. We are allowed to have fun pursuits. We can have ideas of what we want to do, but we need to learn not to beat ourselves up for not accomplishing those, or being productive. Enjoy your downtime for what it is.

This is post 20/31 for Blapril. You can find out more and sign up at Belghast’s original post. You can view those participating on Twitter via the Twitter list I put together. Nogamara of Battlestance has put together an RSS feed of all Blapril participants.