Dirk Rambler started to talk into his iPhone's voice recorder:
"Okay, I am just going to ramble and see where it goes. I guess I am thinking about how I can be more...energetic. I think probably aiming for a flow state is probably the main thing--a flow state is a psychological state discovered by a psychologist with a long name I don't know how to pronounce. Anyway, when I am in a flow state a produce a lot.
"I am interested in Lean Manufacturing and its ideas. But I'm not sure how to apply it to my life. I suppose in a perfect world I would make tons of money and I would do only what I want when I want with who I wanted. I would have all things immediately, magically.
"Well, I can't have that. But per Lean Manufacturing I might look towards intermediate steps. How about work? I don't want to work. Could I telecommute? That would save time. I don't think so. Could I do work from home without my boss knowing and then slack off at work doing things I am interested in? Possibly. Possibly. The problem is I work with sensitive material and and I have to be logged into company computer systems and if I did that from home they would know, I suppose--my employer. And I would possibly get in trouble or fired.
"Maybe I could stay late some days when I feel energetic and work until I don't feel like it and then leave other days or just stop working some other days. The idea would be that sometimes I have energy to work and sometimes my energy would be better spent doing non-work, but the nine to five dictates rigidly I do work at the same time every day. So Monday I feel energetic. I get in early and work before I'm technically supposed to. Maybe I do work that can't easily be verified by checking some computer system. Maybe I set up some work the night before using computer systems in order to work offline with the material I have gotten. That could work possibly.
"I could maybe stay later...the problem is my boss stays late too. See, what I am thinking is Monday, I feel energetic and so I work from say 630am, a half an hour before we technically are supposed to start working, and go till say 6pm, and take an hour in the middle there--possibly I work even later if I can. But let's say 630am to 6pm with an hour lunch. So that would be 10 and a half hours. Then say I do 10 hours the next four days and on Friday I pretty much just spend my time looking like I am working while I am actually just working on a novel or something.
"That would be interesting, but hard to do really. My boss would probably notice I am staying late and would think I am working OT, and expect to see it on my time card, when I am really just trying to get my 40 hours in quicker and then use Friday more or less as my own time, just at the office. This doesn't appeal to me either, this kind of week, because I'd be spending about 48 hours at the office while only getting paid for 40, which isn't very appealing I must say.
"Telecommuting would be great though. Too bad we can't do it. The government should mandate it. It would totally save companies in office space, and would save people in gas or bus fare getting to work. It would reduce road congestion and would reduce the wear on roads as they would be used less. Plus if you telecommute you could be around your kids while you work, so you could save on daycare.
"The problem is that your bosses wouldn't easily monitor you, but that can be gotten around a bit. I know a guy who telecommutes and his company has him leave his computer camera on. Companies could monitor how long people are logged on to their computer and how many keystrokes they did. But the simplest thing would be that companies pay people for productivity. You did x widgets and you get paid your pay check.
"Anyway...one big improvement for me was when I started taking the bus to work rather than driving in. I saved a lot of money because owning a car ended up costing me something like 200 bucks a month, when you tallied up all the expenses, while taking the bus is about 70 bucks a month, and the quality of the bus ride is better than the car ride, because I can read or listen to music or close my eyes and relax. Big improvement, though I wouldn't have thought so until I tried it out and saw for myself.
"What else...well, could I be more efficient in how I do my work? I think for me the big waste factor is probably in interruptions and maybe being forced to do work I don't have the energy to do at the time. One way to handle this might be to focus as much as possible on one thing--for example I have to do X form twenty times over the day. I could do them in a few sittings or I could do them in one sitting. One sitting is probably more efficient. Productivity gurus call this batching. So batch as much as possible. Being forced to do things I don't have the energy for--well, if you have to you have to, but maybe you can sometimes hold off on it till you have energy. I guess you have to read the situation and see if you can hold off till later. I don't know. Boss says do X thing now, and you think you can hold off till tomorrow when you'll have more energy, so you do. That sort of thing.
"I get energy from being productive, and I am productive when I am energetic. There's a positive feedback loop between the two things I think. I also get energy from listing ideas. Creativity gives me energy. A good conversation with someone I like gives me energy--someone I like or someone I think is at least probably okay.
"Interesting reading gives me energy. Whenever I can I try to keep my headphones plugged into my Kindle, which can read me text via its text to audio function.
"Energetic music gets me going--Slayer. Andrew WK--that's when you are in the mood for that kind of over the top stuff. Motorhead. The Misfits. Stuff that also energizes me in a different way might be Guided by Voices.
"Beauty gives me energy too sometimes. A beautiful painting. The paintings in the bar downstairs at Red Bones--a restaurant in Davis Square, Somerville, MA--those give me energy.
"Scott Adams recommends fantasizing to gain energy and I think he's right. I have to try it more. Plus you might get some ideas about what you would like to do in this world.
"Writing gives me energy. Just rambling. Rambling and rambling on the page.
"Coffee. A walk. Getting good sleep. Keeping stress levels down. Accomplishing something cool like putting on a show--I'm in a rock band. I had a job interview a while back and that gave me a boost of energy. Felt good to be looking into my options.
"But yeah...waste. How about waste in my personal life? I waste money. I spend money on coffee rather than making my own, which is silly I suppose. Or eating out. Or on drinking beer. Beer makes you tired, fat and poor.
"Parties give me a boost when I get to hang out with my friends. Or going out to dinner with a friend or two and just talking about interesting things.
"Usually being uninterrupted in what I do and doing one thing for a long time--as long a time as I practically can--is a good thing for my mental health. If I could figure out a way to turn my to do list into something a little bit easier to focus on intently. Things that are easy to focus on require a kind of repetitiveness--writing you're typing on the keyboard. Playing guitar you're repeating a riff. Talking you're going back and forth with someone, talking and listening--oscillating--not a rhythm necessarily but I suppose a focus on communication, maybe? But with chores--for me it seems like they are often piecemeal affairs. Elements have a repetitive quality--doing the dishes, or doing the laundry. I suppose you could do all your bills all at once. Or all your emails to people. You could make all your appointments in one session. I guess it's doable.
"I guess the main principle is to stick with things as long as you can, until you get sick of doing the thing. Productivity gurus have more or less championed this idea or something like it. Don Aslett talks about getting into the zone or something like that and keeping with it for productivity's sake, which I think is probably right. Other productivity gurus talk about time-batching or avoiding multi-tasking or switch-tasking as I read someone call it. Steve Pavlina has also I think recommended sticking to something for a long time and this being good for productivity. I'm inclined to agree.
"One thing that is annoying at work is that I get coffee or have to go to the bathroom and that breaks things up a bit. I have this little french press I can make coffee from but it's just one 20 oz coffee that it makes. Maybe what I could do is to make one coffee, pour it into my cup and then instantly rinse out the thing, pour more grounds in and then hot water and have that ready to go for when I want another. The coffee would cool but that's not a big deal really. I'd need to put milk in it which would mean I would have to go to the fridge. I guess if I had a little thermos with milk in it I could keep it at my desk. Save a trip. Still would have to piss though. Can't bring a chamber pot to work...or can I?
"No...at home I could, but my fiancee would kill me. Do people use chamber pots anymore? I bet you could sell chamber pots to college guys and other young bachelor types. Put it right by the bed--drank too much? Don't piss out the window--just use your chamber pot and empty it in the morning.
"I like it. I was reading Otto von Bismarck had enormous chamber pots. I don't remember from the reading if it was because he had enormous shits, but you can imagine he did given his girth and eating habits.
"I wonder if it's better to do one big exercise session compared to ones broken up throughout the week. Health recommendations seem to change over time--right now I think most health experts would say no, break your work outs up throughout the week, but I don't know. Say I just went did like three hours at the gym every Sunday or something and that was it?
"Seems like a bad idea. So don't batch exercise for efficiency. I have a jump rope I need to start using."
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