Moving forward has gotten easier and easier to do. I'm definitely on an upswing when it comes to most of my goals for the last couple of months.
What am I attributing this new to this success?
More regular reviews via OmniFocus and a desire to accomplish what I set out to do.
For the longest time, I would have OmniFocus on my laptop and and iPhone and just wish that it would organize my life - that everything would just fall into place by some kind of magic. I think this is why productivity software will always be in demand. People want things to happen, but they forget that it's just a tool and if you don't change who you are or your approach to the problem nothing is going to happen.
Reflecting in what needs to change
I realized that I had a problem. I was doing the constant yo-yo of getting organized moving my life forward for a couple weeks and then finding myself overwhelmed again. I feel that it's because I couldn't trust that everything in OmniFocus was something that I should be working on. I would have 20 plus items available for one day and those items would be individual actions or projects.
I would procrastinate and think 'I'll just do this later' because the deadlines and defer dates where just useless pieces of data. Later I would kick myself because I spent hours surfing the internet instead of marking something off.
I needed to become more aware of what I was doing.
Time Budgeting at home
Just like in financial budgeting, I needed to have more of an idea of where my time was going. I started using the app Timing to see how much time I spent goofing off versus actively using my computer1.
Some of this, I already wrote about in a previous post, but I wanted to re-iterate how this is a continued reminder of how I keep myself on task.
There was a couple pitfalls with the process as my computing life is divided between a MacBook Pro and an iMac, but I'm hoping to clear some of that up with the new timing sync feature that was introduced.
New Screentime for iOS
With the new version of iOS, I’m able to get a better idea of what I’m using my phone for on a daily and weekly basis.
Currently, I’m not using the App limits because I’m hoping that being aware of how I use my phone will prompt me to change my habits and increase my will power.
It’s definitely a great start to quantifying what areas I want to work on. There is still one more tool.
Streaks
Streaks is an App on iOS that I picked up one day shortly after New Year’s Day. I’ve been using it off and on for making sure that I mediate3 and write in my journal.
It wasn’t until recently that I made reviewing my projects a priority to review in Streaks and I feel that it has really made a difference2. I get two kinds of positive reinforcements when I do this. The first, the fact that I get to mark it off. The second, I get to see evidence of my changing habit as a number.
End result
I feel better about myself as a responsible adult. There is true freedom in knowing what you are and are not doing.
I understand that this is a just a process for me and there is a possibility of me back sliding into bad habits. That is ok, because I know that getting back in the good habits is easier than ever before.