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Thursday, March 15, 2018
How to Counteract the 'What Else' Mindset
lifehacker.com: For many of us, checking boxes on a to-do list is a never ending cycle, the key way we measure our productivity and self-worth. And we’re constantly adding new things before we’ve checked off the old.
8 comments:
Sarah Connor
said...
This mentality is probably the most common one in CMU, and especially in School of Drama. We rarely, if ever, aren't asking What's Next? or have that 'white space' where we have nothing to do or nowhere to be. In our program I think a lot of this advice is important and needs to be taken, but we also have a very limited ability NOT to ask 'What's Next?', since that one question is the basis of our whole program and how our workload necessarily evolves over time. What we DO have control over, from this, is how we use our time and when we choose to work and not to work to make ourselves healthier and reduce stress. Doing things like trying, however difficult, to make our own White space to pursue our passions and spend time with ourselves is so important, and shouldn't be overlooked no matter how strenuous the program gets. The other one that's interesting and is something we as DPs can implement is the 'stop doing' list to help us remember what our priorities are and just what we can and can't be doing.
This is an extremely beneficial article that addresses many things that I have been struggling with in both my day to day and month-long thought process. Many times I find myself getting overwhelmed with the amount on my list of things to do. Mostly because of how all the deadlines roll and the need and habit of always having something in the works. Not having a time in my schedule where I take a breath and notate the accomplishments that I have already achieved that day or week I think have started to add up in accounting for any self-imposed stress build up in my life. The tips that have been suggested in this article are helpful but require a significant commitment of self-inforcement and policing of oneself. I have to agree with what they said "We have to celebrate, appreciate, and analyze our past performances, so that we can synthesize what we’ve learned and applied that knowledge to take it up a notch next time" thus expressing the importance of that reflective time in the process.
This is a very real real world problem that i know I have personally experienced and know so many other people have. it's hard for us not to do this though as we are constantly in this checklist mindset of clearing off whatever is on our plate and looking to finish everything as soon as possible as its the most "efficient" in our heads. This means we are often not thinking about the subject at hand and thinking of what we are needing to do next instead leading to bad or less then satisfactory work and we loss the joy in the work as it becomes a box on a checklist. Yes this mindset can sometimes help us in our process making sure that we are able to understand the entire picture and are not happening our selves for future moves but it can often hold us back as this article points out. This article does a great job showing tips and stressing that we need to live in the moment and look back in order to learn and grow for the next moment and help our process as we move forward.
I feel that this article is probably one of the more personally relevant pieces on the green page that I have read. As a student in the School of Drama, the question of "What else?" constantly plagues every waking moment of my day. When I wake up a bit later than I am capable of, eat lunch, or when I choose to take a nap or do some form of self care, I always ask myself whether I could be more productive and successful if I just continued working instead of taking a pause from coursework. However, taking these moments is incredible important to me; By taking these brief periods of time, or as the author writes, "creating white spaces", I allow myself to decompress from the weight of all the stress on my shoulders and just exist. In doing so, I allow myself to mentally transition between the parts of my day, as well as process the nigh- constant flow of information from my professors.
The part of this article that resonated with me the most was the part about leaving white space in your schedule. I think this is really important and something that I need to start doing. This semester I have a lot of projects where my time working on them will have to be coordinated with others and written into my schedule as time blocks where I am busy. When I look at my schedule I see the free space and I tend to schedule all of that empty space to meetings and working and that tends to leave me feeling overwhelmed and a little frantic. But, if I start to use this tactic of putting white space into my calendar I will see that that time is not free for others but it is free for me to do what I need to do to be healthy and take a breather (something that I often forget to do). I think this tactic will help me be more productive in the long run and it will make me feel like my time and my life is in my hands and not in the hands of others who need to meet with me or at the will of my work.
I loved reading this article. There is a lot that I can learn from this. What struck me the most is to add in “white space” in my schedule. I often find that I am taking a lot of small breaks during my work that don’t really add anything to my day. It would be great to schedule a time every day to go outside and take a walk, or go for a run. Especially on the front of giving myself time to think and reflect, I don’t give myself much time for that everyday outside of showering and I’d love to find time to just sit back and listen to music and think through everything that’s going on. The work culture at CMU has been overwhelming my self quite a lot recently, but I don’t think that is necessary to succeed, and is probably hindering my success a bit. I hope that I can learn from this, and maybe revisit this article every once in a while to remind myself of things to do and what to stop doing.
This is a really great article, and, while, at first, I thought it would fall into the same category of the repetitive productivity articles that have been written again and again, but never really present a new strategy or idea, I was proven wrong. This article finally pinpointed the flaw in the system of only ever finding the most efficient pathway to complete tasks, and letting that take over to the point that we become a little machine-like, in that we don’t know how to approach tasks differently and we don’t have off buttons. I really liked the part about keeping “white space” in my calendar. It is so often overlooked that we need that time to decompress, organize, and have a bit of balance. I often run the risk of having white space, and filling it with a task that I underestimated the time on or trying to jump ahead in more work, and I think that is something that we need to really be aware of, and do our best to respect ourselves and our processes in a way that will, in the end, benefit us significantly more.
The “What else mindset” is so prevalent in not only the work place but also in daily life, and I frequently find myself asking myself “what else”. I think one of the elements I can use in my own life that the article speaks of to combat this “emblematic of a toxic state of mind that’s starting to become quite commonplace”, is the idea of creating “white space” in your calendar, or just time that can be you time. Looking at my calendar I frequently mark down everything and leave little room actually scheduled in for things that can be enjoyable or relaxing for me as a person. Self care so often gets pushed to the wayside in light of work and experiences to create a full (or outward appearing full) lifestyle and its toxic and leads to the “what else” plague. Taking time to reflect, acknowledge and understand (and truthfully just be in the moment) is so crucial in this world, but it is so often overlooked because we are always looking for what is next.
8 comments:
This mentality is probably the most common one in CMU, and especially in School of Drama. We rarely, if ever, aren't asking What's Next? or have that 'white space' where we have nothing to do or nowhere to be. In our program I think a lot of this advice is important and needs to be taken, but we also have a very limited ability NOT to ask 'What's Next?', since that one question is the basis of our whole program and how our workload necessarily evolves over time. What we DO have control over, from this, is how we use our time and when we choose to work and not to work to make ourselves healthier and reduce stress. Doing things like trying, however difficult, to make our own White space to pursue our passions and spend time with ourselves is so important, and shouldn't be overlooked no matter how strenuous the program gets. The other one that's interesting and is something we as DPs can implement is the 'stop doing' list to help us remember what our priorities are and just what we can and can't be doing.
This is an extremely beneficial article that addresses many things that I have been struggling with in both my day to day and month-long thought process. Many times I find myself getting overwhelmed with the amount on my list of things to do. Mostly because of how all the deadlines roll and the need and habit of always having something in the works. Not having a time in my schedule where I take a breath and notate the accomplishments that I have already achieved that day or week I think have started to add up in accounting for any self-imposed stress build up in my life. The tips that have been suggested in this article are helpful but require a significant commitment of self-inforcement and policing of oneself. I have to agree with what they said "We have to celebrate, appreciate, and analyze our past performances, so that we can synthesize what we’ve learned and applied that knowledge to take it up a notch next time" thus expressing the importance of that reflective time in the process.
This is a very real real world problem that i know I have personally experienced and know so many other people have. it's hard for us not to do this though as we are constantly in this checklist mindset of clearing off whatever is on our plate and looking to finish everything as soon as possible as its the most "efficient" in our heads. This means we are often not thinking about the subject at hand and thinking of what we are needing to do next instead leading to bad or less then satisfactory work and we loss the joy in the work as it becomes a box on a checklist. Yes this mindset can sometimes help us in our process making sure that we are able to understand the entire picture and are not happening our selves for future moves but it can often hold us back as this article points out. This article does a great job showing tips and stressing that we need to live in the moment and look back in order to learn and grow for the next moment and help our process as we move forward.
I feel that this article is probably one of the more personally relevant pieces on the green page that I have read. As a student in the School of Drama, the question of "What else?" constantly plagues every waking moment of my day. When I wake up a bit later than I am capable of, eat lunch, or when I choose to take a nap or do some form of self care, I always ask myself whether I could be more productive and successful if I just continued working instead of taking a pause from coursework. However, taking these moments is incredible important to me; By taking these brief periods of time, or as the author writes, "creating white spaces", I allow myself to decompress from the weight of all the stress on my shoulders and just exist. In doing so, I allow myself to mentally transition between the parts of my day, as well as process the nigh- constant flow of information from my professors.
The part of this article that resonated with me the most was the part about leaving white space in your schedule. I think this is really important and something that I need to start doing. This semester I have a lot of projects where my time working on them will have to be coordinated with others and written into my schedule as time blocks where I am busy. When I look at my schedule I see the free space and I tend to schedule all of that empty space to meetings and working and that tends to leave me feeling overwhelmed and a little frantic. But, if I start to use this tactic of putting white space into my calendar I will see that that time is not free for others but it is free for me to do what I need to do to be healthy and take a breather (something that I often forget to do). I think this tactic will help me be more productive in the long run and it will make me feel like my time and my life is in my hands and not in the hands of others who need to meet with me or at the will of my work.
I loved reading this article. There is a lot that I can learn from this. What struck me the most is to add in “white space” in my schedule. I often find that I am taking a lot of small breaks during my work that don’t really add anything to my day. It would be great to schedule a time every day to go outside and take a walk, or go for a run. Especially on the front of giving myself time to think and reflect, I don’t give myself much time for that everyday outside of showering and I’d love to find time to just sit back and listen to music and think through everything that’s going on. The work culture at CMU has been overwhelming my self quite a lot recently, but I don’t think that is necessary to succeed, and is probably hindering my success a bit. I hope that I can learn from this, and maybe revisit this article every once in a while to remind myself of things to do and what to stop doing.
This is a really great article, and, while, at first, I thought it would fall into the same category of the repetitive productivity articles that have been written again and again, but never really present a new strategy or idea, I was proven wrong. This article finally pinpointed the flaw in the system of only ever finding the most efficient pathway to complete tasks, and letting that take over to the point that we become a little machine-like, in that we don’t know how to approach tasks differently and we don’t have off buttons. I really liked the part about keeping “white space” in my calendar. It is so often overlooked that we need that time to decompress, organize, and have a bit of balance. I often run the risk of having white space, and filling it with a task that I underestimated the time on or trying to jump ahead in more work, and I think that is something that we need to really be aware of, and do our best to respect ourselves and our processes in a way that will, in the end, benefit us significantly more.
The “What else mindset” is so prevalent in not only the work place but also in daily life, and I frequently find myself asking myself “what else”. I think one of the elements I can use in my own life that the article speaks of to combat this “emblematic of a toxic state of mind that’s starting to become quite commonplace”, is the idea of creating “white space” in your calendar, or just time that can be you time. Looking at my calendar I frequently mark down everything and leave little room actually scheduled in for things that can be enjoyable or relaxing for me as a person. Self care so often gets pushed to the wayside in light of work and experiences to create a full (or outward appearing full) lifestyle and its toxic and leads to the “what else” plague. Taking time to reflect, acknowledge and understand (and truthfully just be in the moment) is so crucial in this world, but it is so often overlooked because we are always looking for what is next.
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