Nat Eliason, in his article titled, how to be more productive with a daily system for high output, provides a great quote, “The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one“. The article presents useful advice to counteract procrastination. However, getting started on small manageable tasks is easier said than done. Especially when you’re working on a personal project or do not have oversight or direct accountability. Because as Tim Urban says, through his iconic blog post about procrastination, we find it hard to force ourselves to undertake short-term difficult tasks until we’re faced with the threat of a deadline or the resultant consequences of missing the deadline. This is where mastering the art of self-management becomes key, to ensure that we tick off the small manageable tasks on a regular basis and eventually get ahead. Also, “with more companies going remote, people with good self-management skills are more likely to do their job properly without being constantly watched“.
I’ve found adopting self-management skills extremely useful, especially now that I am actively seeking employment, creating content and learning additional skills. The three self-management skills that I’m actively honing are organisation, self-motivation and accountability. Let’s start by talking about organisation.
Organisation
Organisation aids self-management. There’s always a system in place to ensure the smooth functioning of the self-management engine. Organisation is the backbone of this system. “The real ‘trick’ to being more organised is to offload the storing functionality of our brain to external systems“. The most effective external system that I use is Notion. In a recent blog post, I went into length about my favourite productivity app, Notion. Notion is my go-to app for managing projects, calendar events, to-do lists, note-taking and harbouring ideas. In order to manage my calendar events, I do use a combination of Google Calendar and Notion. It’s easier to add a Google Meets invite within Google Calendar. The good news is that now you can sync Google Calendar with Notion as now Notion API can be integrated with the Google Calendar API. I would like to direct you to this video if you would like to try this out.
Self-Motivation
“The biggest problem we face with completing our projects isn’t productivity or time management, but motivation management“. Motivation management is key to overcome the dips we come across within the journey of personal projects. “A dip is a long period of low motivation, little excitement, and unrewarding challenges“. A dip is what pulls us out of personal projects and makes us quit. However, Seth Godin, the author of The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick), argues that if you can manage not to quit during the dip, you can reap the rewards by making it to the end.
One of the ways to get over the dip is to treat motivation as a myth. In a post about the importance of continual learning, I discussed how discipline needs to be the focus rather than motivation when it comes to self-learning or self-management. Leading ourselves from thought to action serves us better in the long run. Another recommendation is to break our personal projects down into smaller more achievable tasks. Defining a daily task for a project acts as a drop in the ocean, but over time this consistency results in the effective completion of the project at hand. For instance, ‘write a blog post’ looks like an intimidating task on my to-do list. However, if I change it to ‘write the first draft of section 1 of blog post’, it seems like a more achievable task.
Accountability
“When you’re on your own, “it’s easy to let yourself push things down the road. But when others are expecting you to do the work,” Markidan says, you’re more likely to push through and get it done“. Yes, self-management does require you to elevate your internal accountability meter. However, in the long-term, it does become impractical to maintain a high level on the meter. It is usually easier to ignore your own expectations of yourself. However, when an external force is introduced, for instance, an immediate superior, it’s a lot harder to ignore the concomitant expectations. Now in order to ensure that I have this external force to keep the ball rolling, I lean on my accountability buddy. An accountability buddy is someone that doesn’t fall for any excuses or tricks that you might throw at them. My accountability buddy is also a content creator, who has a day job and is making YouTube videos weekly. It is easier for her to relate to my woes and my pitfalls, which also means that she’s in a good position to inform and ‘condemn’ me for not keeping up with my publish schedule for both my YouTube videos and blog posts.
Another external force that helps me greatly is dubbed as a Ulysses Pact. Ulysses was the name given by the Romans to the hero of Greek literature, Odysseus. In order to pass the Island of Sirens, Ulysses had to encounter the luring sound within the island, which would enchant him and pull him to his death in the sea. Ulysses wanted to hear this sound, so he ordered his crew to stuff beeswax into their ears and tie him to the ship’s mast. This enabled Ulysses to hear the beautiful sound from the island and escape the island unharmed. So, the Ulysses pact is basically an agreement that you make ahead of time that traps you somehow and ensures you fulfil your promise. And a great way to trap myself and introduce external accountability is to put money on the line. I just hand over a significant sum of money to my cousin and give her two choices. If I do end up completing my tasks on time, I can get the money back. If not, she gets to keep it. Putting money on the line works like magic in a personal project management scenario! It’s what helps the self-management engine running smoothly.