I always end up at the same local coffee shop to do work: Espresso Royale. Sometimes, it's a little counter-productive because so many people I know head there too, or stop in simply because they know I'll be camped out there. I don't concentrate as well in my apartment because I always have the temptation to reorganize, curl up on the foof and watch tv with the roommates, or crawl into my bed to sleep.
However, lately I've had difficulty focusing anywhere. Danielle (www.beingabeginner.blogspot.com), suggested setting concrete blocks of time for specific tasks, and not veering into tryng to multi-task or do multiple other things in a short span of time. [Like right now, I should be writing my philosophy paper on civil disobedience. But I'm blogging. Because that's semi-productive, too, right? Ugh].
Sometimes the library works. Sometimes setting goals, like announcing to myself that I can't read the new Wired until I've written xxxx number of words for a paper, or can't go to sleep until I've replied to all my actually important emails, is the solution. But sometimes, its like there's no getting anything real done. And it's frustrating.
Part of it is that my mind has been all over the place lately. Part of it is that I can't seem to prioritize my to-do lists in any way, shape, or form. What comes first? Getting in shape? Keeping in touch? Finding a job? Apartment? Schoolwork? Stuff for my dad? Sleeping? Freaking out about the future? Usually, the last one takes priority in some combination with one or two of the others as background.
Reading has been helping settle me, however. The Witch of Portobello and Eat Pray Love both have passages that caught my frenetic little mind and clarified a few things. The Witch of Portobello, by Paulo Coelho, talks about learning to be ok with the blank spaces in your life. I have a very hard time actually doing nothing, so instead I fill my time trying to do multiple things at once. Extremely unproductive. So. My current theory is to learn to love the blank spaces--meaning, when I have time to breathe, time to think, time to be, I won't try to multi-task. And maybe, in time, it will help streamline the rest of my productive time.
Ramble, complete.
In other news: Some Reasons to Blog. I think I'm going to try to ramp up my efforts here. We will see how it goes.
my roommates and i used to do the "15 Minute Challenge." For 15 minutes (we sometimes changed the length, as needed) we did work. No phones, no im, no gchat no tv no music no talking. nothing! it was actually very effective, usually the most productive fifteen minutes of our day.
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