At one point the computers we sit in front of were simple productivity tools. You could sit down to get work done, and the optimistic among us hoped that these amazing devices would help bring about the best of us. That they'd help us write the books we had in us. That we'd get more done and thus have more time for other pursuits outside of work.
Unfortunately, that's not what has happened for most of us. In large part computers have merely brought more distraction to our lives. These distractions steal our time.
Most of us don't notice these distractions in our daily lives. We figure that being attentive to the flow of information going by is a good thing, or at least it's something you have to do now. Science fiction books surmise that one day we'll be able to sit in this information. They lionize the accumulation and processing of information and speak to a future human that can process information from different sources at the same time.
I suppose it's possible that this future human will be evolve, but that's not the people we are today.
We Don't Focus Enough
While social media is often blamed, rightly so, for stealing our attention many of us have far too many interests on the go. I'm an example of this, with 3 partially finished courses currently sitting around. I have a programming career, a few fiction books I've started and never finished, and at least one non-fiction book on the go.
By all accounts most people would say I'm busy and it's a good thing. The problem is that all of these projects are in states of not being finished. No one can read a book I haven't published. No one can take a course I've written, but done no videos for.
I recently came across a video from Cal Newport that brought me up short on my varied interests. In this video he talks about the exponential benefits that can come from focussing on a single thing for an extended period of time. If I had spent the time from the 3 partially finished courses on a single course and finished it, I'd have another course selling. This would increase my income and give me more freedom to build more courses.
I've been falling in to the trap of seeing busyness as a proxy for productivity. Just because I'm doing lots of different things, doesn't mean I'm getting anything worthwhile done.
We Default to Trivial Tasks
The most insidious part of being busy is that we feel overwhelmed and then default to the trivial tasks just to feel like we're making some type of progress on our never ending task lists. Writing this is far harder than responding to some YouTube comments. I may even get a bigger dopamine hit from checking off 3 minor tasks than I would from writing, because the writing is hard.
Even when you know better, the path of least resistance always leads you to completing a bunch of trivial tasks. It feels good to have less on your list in the moment.
It's only months later that you look at your list and realize that you got little of substance done for your long term plans. It's only later you look at your life and realize that you're on a terrible treadmill of doom that will force you to keep cranking out widgets that amount to nothing substantial.
Give Yourself a Time Budget
The best way I've found to combat this is timeblocking, because if you don't give your time a job before you start using it, you'll spend your time on the trivial instead of things that are worthwhile. Heck, I even did an entire course on timeblocking, and still in the overwhelm of life that's thrown at me I stopped doing it because I figured I "knew enough" and didn't need to stick with basic principles.
I know my first task each week should be to make my weekly schedule and set time aside for the work that pushes my big goals forward. I know if I don't do this, I'll make no progress towards the financial freedom I've wanted for years.
As I write this I'm committing to myself to sit down and write down my weekly schedule on paper every Monday morning first thing.