These are my thoughts on the journal prompts Ali gives in this class. I wrote each one after watching the respective video.

Answers to “The Productivity Equation”

The part of the plane/pilot/engineer equation l struggle with the most is definitely the pilot. I write a to-do list, but I have trouble deciding specifically what to do. For example, in my Todoist app, I have “art creation” and “art promotion” programmed for every weekday. I don’t give myself specific tasks in these areas, though, because I’m afraid I’ll either give myself too much to do and be overwhelmed or just not able to finish it in the time I’ve allotted myself or I’ll give myself too little and not make enough progress on my goals. Because of this, I tend to just work until a certain time of the day because otherwise I don’t know if I’ve done “enough”.

Answers to “The Myth Of ‘I Don’t Have Time’”

Well, I was avoiding taking courses like this using this myth, but obviously, I’ve made the time. I’m not really in the habit of telling myself I don’t have time to do things I really want to do. If it’s important to me, I squeeze it in somehow, even if that means only doing it for five minutes. There are things I’ve chosen not to prioritize. Some things I don’t get around to doing in the day because I’ve prioritized other things over it and I no longer have the energy.

Actually, something I have avoided doing using this myth is taking a break. I normally take a coffee break in the middle of the afternoon, but sometimes when my day has been filled up and I’m trying to squeeze a lot in, I’ve brought my coffee to my desk and drink it while I kept working. I tell myself I’m being efficient, but it’s probably during these busier times that I need those breaks the most.

Answers to “The Myth Of Motivation”

I want to say that this video in the course made me think a lot about a quote I’ve heard by Joyce Meyer, which is “Stop letting your feelings vote”. My problem is sometimes getting myself to move the couch or bed and do anything else. I went through that this morning, having to force myself to put the phone down and get ready to go to the gym. A goal I’m trying to achieve is to become more efficient with my time and cultivate better routines, which is why I’m taking classes like this one. I like to have something sweet in the evening with some coffee and I’m seriously considering making it a rule for myself that I’m not allowed to have that unless I can cross off everything productive on my to-do list for that day.

Answers to “The Myth Of Multitasking”

Multitasking, or switch tasking is a habit I need to get out of. The comments on the comfort vs stretch vs panic zone resonated a lot with it, as did the question of “what skill can I work on that will help me on this platform”. I have a YouTube channel and I know the skill that will help me achieve success on it, probably more than any other if I work on it, is learning to talk engagingly, particularly while giving instructions in a voice over. The problem is only “practice” this skill when I actually have a voice over to record. That

means I could be practicing it everyday for a few weeks and then another few weeks where I’m not practicing it at all. So I need to challenge myself to practice my speaking skills even when I don’t have anything to record.

I can’t think of a time specifically where I’ve been in the flow state, but I might get into it Monday and Thursday afternoons. On those days I’ll be going to a room designated for doing art. Even though I love painting and drawing, I actually find it hard to stay focused on it, for long stretches of time. If I get bored, or I can’t think of what to do next, I switch to something else.But, on the days I just mentioned, I’ve decided I’m going to go to this room, and, for around an hour, I’m going to force myself to stay in “art making mode”. That means no jumping up just because I don’t know the next stroke to make. If I really can’t bring myself to work on whatever my current project is, I can play with color mixing or work on a sketch or “side project”.

Answers to “Parkinson’s Law”

I don’t give myself deadlines for the things I do because I’m afraid of not reaching it, or rather not being able to finish the thing in time and feeling bad about myself. Although, for the last three weeks I’ve told myself I have to hit send on my newsletter by the end of the day on Monday and I’ve succeeded. For a long time I’ve been wanting to have a weekly upload schedule on Youtube. If I really had to get a video done in a week, I would start by identifying the most important parts of the lesson, the parts people really needed to see, and time-lapse and add voice over to those parts. The other parts would probably get chucked right away. I don’t know how I would find the most important parts amidst hours worth of footage though, but I could skip the filler parts of my voice over, ie, those parts I know I’m putting in just to fill time. I’m applying Parkinson’s law while writing this entry, by the way. I’m giving myself five minutes in which to do it.

Answers to “The Pareto Principal”

Something that’s taking up 80% or more of my time, but contributing practically 0 results is something I eluded to in my answers to the previous prompt and that’s trying to fill every second of my video with voice over even on parts where I can’t think of anything valuable to add. What contributes to 80% of my results is those few sentences sprinkling here and there where I’m giving truly valuable tips. Writing my weekly blogs and newsletters take almost no time at all, but they probably have a big impact. I don’t know where I’m going with post. I need to think more about this concept. I’ll keep in mind that fussing over details is less important than the rough draft, the laying out of the concept. I tend to be a perfectionist and think I can’t put anything out into the world until it’s perfectly polished.

Answers to “Newton’s First Law Of Motion”

I know there wasn’t a writing prompt for this lesson, but I wanted to write something anyway. I can relate to what Ali said about doing a small habit when he’s not motivated, like setting up camera gear. It takes more discipline for me to do videos where I’m on camera, because I don’t do it often. To get myself to do it, a lot of times I just start setting up my makeup in my bathroom. Once I have it on, I’m like, I’m all polished up, I might as well go make that video.

Answers to “The Power Of Habit”

I don’t know if this would help my productivity, but a habit I know would improve my quality of life I learned to stop doing it, is rushing. I never feel like I have enough time to do anything so I’m always rushing from one thing to another. I know I make more mistakes when I rush and I therefore have to correct those, so it defeats my original goal of getting things done faster. Actually, this probably would help my productivity because if I’m rushing through my work, it’s obviously not going to be as good quality as it could be.

Forming habits has helped me tremendously in areas like fitness and turning off screens at night. Like Ali refers to in the video, I haven’t had to muster the motivation to go to the gym in a long time and I’m getting to the point where I don’t have to force myself to turn my laptop off a little after 8 in the evening.

I know getting in the habit of practicing my speaking skills would improve my overall success. I’m not sure about my productivity, though. The way I get a new habit to stick is to commit to it for a certain number of days and force myself to do it everyday, even if I don’t feel like it.

Answers to “The Power of Productive Downtime”

When do I find myself wasting time and how can I use that time better?

I took advantage of productive downtime by watching this class in the back of a car. I find that I waste a lot of time before meals. I tell myself I don’t know how much time I have, so I just sit on my phone. During that time, I can watch online classes, like this one. I can write on my blog post for the week. There’s actually a lot I can accomplish in five or ten minutes if I make up my mind to use that time wisely. I’m waiting for my computer to start up. That’s a time where I tend to waste time, but instead I’m writing this journal prompt thingy with the pages app on my phone.

I actually used productive downtime without knowing what it was in elementary school. The teacher’s gave assignments and we mostly finished them at our own pace. If you finished an assignment early, there would inevitably be time when you had nothing to do before the next assignment was given. The way I often filled this time was by grabbing a piece of paper and drawing with the same pencil I used for my school assignments. I was thinking, how can I be more productive with this time? Drawing was just more fun to me than sitting there or even reading some of the books that were provided. Even to this day, if I’m bored at a function, a lot of times I entertain myself by bringing out my sketchbook and sketching people around me.

Answers To “The Power Of Productive Procrastination”

Well, a big goal of mine is to get a grip on my anxiety, so a way I could productively procrastinate is by doing some meditation/breathing exercises. I productively procrastinated on this journal prompt by writing in what’s going to be my post on my blog this week.

Answers To “The Fun Factor”

One thing that I do that I don’t enjoy is adding the voice overs to my videos. I’ve written before in these entries about practicing my speaking skills, which I’ve been doing. The reason I don’t enjoy doing these voice overs, though, is because I worry too much about how I sound. I want to say every word perfectly, while also sounding professional and polished and writing it out on my computer is making me realize how unrealistic I’m being. I’d enjoy this process more if I thought more about who I’m making them for. I also really need to stop agonizing over those parts of the video that I just don’t have any instructions or advice to add to.

Sara Millett

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