Goals Shmoals--What Comes Next?

How to be productive (and not burn out)

Hello! How is your 2024 going so far? Have you set some goals for the year? How is that going? I have some good ideas for making it a productive year that I’ll share.

My New (Temporary) Home

I’m thrilled to be back in Scotland. I’m living on the fourth floor of an old building next to the sea. The apartment is small and some of the furniture is not the best. In fact, the first evening I arrived I was having serious second thoughts. Then the sun came up in the morning, and I walked into the living room and found this view:

Now I wonder, how will I ever leave? I’ve extended my lease here through May 14, when I will embark on a trip around Italy with fans and scholars of Constance Fenimore Woolson. (Learn more) In the meantime, I have 4 glorious months to walk by the sea and write, which brings me to the topic of this letter: getting stuff done! Goal-setting has been on everyone’s mind, but I’m interested in what comes next, so let’s get to it.

Goals and Word of the Year

At the start of the new year, I knew that I had to have a new beginning. Last year was a year of travel and discovery. This year has to be about writing. My word for 2023 was OPEN, which served me well. I opened myself to so many new places, experiences, and people, and I grew leaps and bounds. This year my word is, simply, WRITE. It is time to reflect on the past year and capture it on the page. But this requires discipline. As a writing friend put it to me, it’s time to design my writing life.

My goals are relatively simple: complete a manuscript and try to sell it. These are big goals, though, and need to be broken down into smaller, monthly and weekly, goals. So I’m doing that. But it’s the day-to-day work where I can get in trouble. It can be a real challenge to sit myself down and focus. If you are writing or working on self-imposed deadlines, it’s so easy to let the morning or the whole day drift away without doing anything concrete related to your overall goals.

There are emails to respond to, Wordles to do, friends to text, and newsletters to read, among a million other distractions lurking online. Then there are also the books to read, the video classes to watch, and the zoom meetings to attend. If I’m not careful, a morning or even a day can pass without much progress. Do you have this problem, too?

Productivity: Friend or Foe?

I’m determined to make this a productive year. I was intermittently productive last year, most so when I was settled into Edinburgh for three months and had some stability. This year I need to settle into a sustained productivity.

Productivity is not a word that I utter without trepidation, though. In my years as an English professor, I fell into its trap and worked myself into exhaustion and illness—I had a classic case of burnout. I wrote about this a fair bit back in the early pandemic times. The pandemic saved me, in a way, freeing me from a daily cross-city commute and toxic campus work environment. But the damage had been done after eight years of writing and publicizing trade books on top of my responsibilities as graduate coordinator, professor, and mom.

Every day I worked myself to exhaustion, collapsing on the couch about 8 o’clock, barely able to move. It’s no wonder that my body had enough and literally made me stop my insane work life. (It gave me Meniere’s, which comes with debilitating vertigo. I couldn’t do anything but lie on the couch at times.)

I will never go back to such punishing routines of productivity, carrying around to-do lists and cramming too much into every day. My body won’t let me, and I listen to my body more carefully now. I have learned how to put it first. If I go on a long hike, I give myself plenty of recovery time. If I work for three hours straight and my brain is getting tired, I put the computer away and go out for a walk, no matter how much I would like to power through.

Where I’m walking these days—another view of the beach outside my apartment.

Pomodoro Productivity

This year I’m trying something new, and so far, so good. It’s only been a week now, so hardly time to celebrate. But I’ve found a tool that I think is going to keep me on track and help me avoid burnout. It’s a pomodoro app. If you’re a writer, then you’ve probably heard of pomodoros--basically short bursts of timed writing, for which you can set a kitchen timer. (Apparently some of these look like tomatoes, or pomodoros.)

I’ve been doing 30-minute pomodoros, and when the bell rings, I get up and walk up to the windows and look out at the sea. I stretch a bit, make a cup of tea, stare out some more, then start another pomodoro. I can track how much time I’m spending on certain projects or tasks, and the app produces a visible record of the day’s work.

The best thing about pomodoros is that they are helping me to stay focused—no straying to email or Instagram!—during those 30-minutes stints. The classic is 25-minutes, with a 5-minute break, but I prefer a round 30 minutes, which makes my overall work time easier to track.

The second best thing about the pomodoro method is that the short breaks get me up and moving, something I have a hard time remembering to do. Often when I’m working, once the juices get flowing, I work and work and work with no sense of time. I can sit on my butt for hours barely moving, which is not good for me! A lot of my body’s complaints have to do with not moving enough.

The beauty of this approach is that it combines focus with healthy breaks. When the bell rings to signal the end of your break, it’s not hard to click on the app to start a new focus session. And in no time, you are ready to work again. I’m finding that my brain appreciates the breaks, as well as my body, and I’m often returning to the work fresher and with new ideas.

I haven’t quite developed a daily schedule, but so far I’m trying to fit in at least 3 pomodoros in the morning, and 3 in the afternoon. That is a minimum 3 hours of focused work. And if I’m feeling good in the evening, I’ll do another 2 or 3. So far, I’ve been working 3-5 hours per day, which is what most writers say they are able to accomplish, so I’m feeling good about my new approach.

There are many pomodoro apps out there. I’m using Focus To-Do, which is easy to use and has a good, basic free version. You can pay a one-time fee of $11.99 for more functionality. I’m still learning all that it has to offer and so far I’m satisfied with it. There is a desktop version as well.

I’d love to hear what techniques, approaches, or apps you use to get your work done during the day. What helps you get and stay focused? Respond to this email or comment online or in the Substack app so everyone can learn from you.

Until next time, with my best wishes for the New Year,

Anne

https://anneboydrioux.com/