Rating Productivity Tips | Spoonie Edition
If you're a Spoonie, you know how utterly unhelpful many common productivity tips, task management, and time management systems can be. I specialize in helping Spoonies be productive on their own terms, and today I want to share some of my opinions on common advice given to those struggling with procrastination, overwhelm, anxiety, and feeling stuck. By the end of this video, you'll have a better idea of what tips and systems can work for you, instead of trying to force yourself into an able-bodied or neurotypical box.
Watch the video below, or read on for the full transcript.
For the best advice on getting unstuck, being productive and living your best life with chronic illness, trauma, and neurodivergence, subscribe to my channel and hit the bell to be notified when I post a new video every other Tuesday.
Before we get started, I need to explain what metrics for rating I'm using because I'm doing something slightly different from the common YouTube rating thing that's been popular over the past half a year. I'm gonna be rating things on how good they are for those with chronic illness, how good they are for people with neurodivergence, and how good they are for people with trauma, depression, anxiety, that kind of stuff. And I'll be using the same emojis I use when I'm referring to the three gas tanks, which you can hear about more in this post.
But basically, battery bars (🔋 - 🔋🔋🔋) will signal whether something is good or not for someone with chronic illness. Little brains (🧠 - 🧠🧠🧠) will indicate whether or not something is good for neurodivergence, and hearts (❤ - ❤❤❤) will indicate whether or not something's good for someone with trauma or mental health issues. Now, if you ever see one of these (⛽), however, that is an indication that the corresponding metric is just empty, zero, it's no bueno, it's bad.
Now that we have that out of the way, let's get to rating. I'm excited. I'm feeling spiteful.
All right, let's start with some common tips, tricks, hacks, those shenanigans. These are in no particular order. They're just the order in which they came to my brain while writing this script.
So, first one, "Deep Work."* This is by the author Cal Newport, from the book of the same name, but the basic idea being that, as humans, we got four hours of deep work in us each day. Gosh darn it, we should use all four of them, right in a row. Get it over with! Here's the score: ⛽⛽⛽. Just... (laughs) Ew. You have to be so able-bodied and neurotypical for that to be helpful. (sighs) Four hours straight? No, just, no.
Let's move on, shall we?
Pomodoro Technique, this is the idea of alternating timed intervals of work with shorter intervals of rest to stack them up and then take a longer break later. Normally, the kind of classic Pomodoro is 25 minutes of work, five minutes of rest, do that whole 30-minute chunk four times, and then you get 15 minutes of rest. I don't necessarily use it that way. However, I'm a huge fan of this for some people. It's a tool that I use for myself sometimes, but not always. It kind of depends on the mood I'm in and what kind of support I need to help me show up for my work.
And in my coaching program, I actually have a Discord channel, it's all about doing Pomodoros together for coworking. (smacks lips) It's one of the most popular channels. It's fantastic. I use it rather frequently, myself, actually. It is a great way to support each other.
As for the score, here's what it is: 🔋🔋, 🧠🧠, ❤❤. The reason why I'm not giving it glowing reviews is because everybody's unique and just simply setting a timer for 25 minutes might not help you do something. It might just be another way to beat yourself up. And then the timer goes off and you're like, "Oh yeah, I didn't even get up off the sofa, awesome." If you're someone who has tried the Pomodoro method and it has not been helpful for you, and has maybe even caused you some distress in any way, shape or form, don't force yourself to use it. There are other things.
Next we got prioritizing. If I had a $20 for every time one of my clients struggled to prioritize things, I would be much wealthier than I am now. I am not wealthy now. I'm just chuggin'. Prioritizing is more of a skill that you practice and learn over time. It's a very personal thing, and it is a skill that I feel like everyone in their lives should develop. So in that way, it gets all the scores.
That being said, (laughs) just telling someone who doesn't have the skill to prioritize and then running away is so unhelpful. Don't do it. No! We're gonna give these scores: 🔋, ⛽, ❤.
Eisenhower Matrix, this is just a fancier version of prioritizing and therefore gets similar scores: 🔋, ⛽, ❤. Basically what happens is, ultimately, once you've built up your prioritizing muscles, the Eisenhower Matrix can be helpful, but if you do not have those muscles built up, if this is not a skill you have developed, now you have four boxes to put things in instead of just one, when you're just prioritizing things, and like, "Yeah, I'll do this first." And if you were someone who struggles with analysis paralysis, decision fatigue, no, it's bad, bad.
All right, I've been salty for a prolonged period of time, so I'm gonna throw in my tip that's like what I tell everyone to go watch at the end of each one of these videos, but it's my Butt In Chair Time method that I teach in a Masterclass. At the end of this video, you'll figure out where to go, sign up, to check it out. But it's not just the actual system for actually doing something with your time. It is three mindset shifts to help you actually use the three-step process. So unlike, I was ranting about prioritizing earlier, just telling someone, "Hey, why don't you just prioritize your to-do list?" And then they scamper off and are ultimately unhelpful. I don't do that.
If you ever catch me doing that, please, please tell me, so I can remedy it, and as fast as possible.
Butt in Chair Time is what got me out of my decade-long "Groundhog Day." I invented it for myself because nothing else helped, so that's where that came from. I, of course, give it this score: 🔋🔋🔋, 🧠🧠🧠, ❤❤❤; but if you have taken the class, share in the comments below what you would score it as 'cause, I mean, feedback's great.
Now let's talk about accountabilibuddies, or accountability buddies (someone else to provide external accountability for you to help you do things). This can be great if you're someone who is an obliger, which is something Gretchen Rubin talks about in her book, "The Four Tendencies,"* and basically it just means you are someone who benefits from external accountability. Not all people do. And then there are also other complicated layers. Like, I did a whole post on this. Long story short, it can be so helpful if you have a good accountabilibuddy, it can be amazing.
So here's the score if it's a good accountabilibuddy that you got: 🔋🔋🔋, 🧠🧠🧠, ❤❤❤; and here's the score if it's a bad one: ⛽⛽⛽. So getting the right accountabilibuddy or a coach is like super important, not just the fact that they're an accountabilibuddy.
Now let's talk about deadlines. This is another form of external accountability, and if you're someone who benefits from external accountability, it's probably because your accountabilibuddy is giving you some sort of deadline, or you agree to the deadline together, that they are enforcing for you. Often, if you are someone who needs external accountability, if you are an obliger, setting a deadline for yourself is not going to help. That's another skill to learn and develop. It's another muscle to build up.
If you are someone who does not have that muscle built up, setting a deadline for yourself, probably not gonna help that much. So here's the score: 🔋, ⛽, ❤.
All right, now, let's talk about batching. This has been really popular over the past few years in the productivity space. It can be really helpful. If I remember correctly, this is something I talked about more at length in this post. It's basically the idea that you do more of the same type of task together, so that way you're not having to task switch, which can be really difficult for people who experience any form of neurodivergence.
But that being said, sometimes it is easier for your brain to do all 10 steps in a project for that afternoon than it is to do step two of project A, step two of project C, step two of project Z, just because they're the same type of step. Sometimes that just over-complicates things. So this is one of those tools to use if and when it will actually help you. (🔋🔋, 🧠🧠, ❤❤.) So it can be really great for those who have neurodivergence, chronic illness, and any sort of mental health issues, but it can also be bad.
I'm gonna use a really simple example. If the task is to fold brochures, going back to my high school administrative-assistant memories here. Your task is to fold brochures. (laughs) That's all you're doing for hours. It's probably gonna result in a lot of pain, and you should maybe take breaks and break it up over a few days. I legit developed a blister in my thumbs doing that, and then fast forward a few weeks, and guess what? Guess what? They had a machine. They had a machine to fold brochures.
Delegating. So many white, able-bodied, often men, people of the productivity space are all like, "Do it, delegate it, axe it," as in, get rid of it. Delegating gets this score: ⛽, ⛽, ⛽. That whole delegation thing just makes me so angry because it is so inaccessible, not only from the part of someone, like if you have a chronic illness, or neurodivergence, or mental health issues, history of trauma, you are likely not as affluent as someone like that. You just do not have the means to delegate to someone to pay it out, or your family is just taking care of you, so asking them to do even more things, you don't feel good about that. Not great. You pick and choose the things you ask for help for because you appreciate that help so much that you don't wanna ask for too much, so you just ask for what's really, really important to you.
Then on the other end, you need to be paying people a living wage, a living wage. $15 an hour is not a living wage. You need to be paying more than that per hour. I had hired an assistant over the summer. That fell through because their schedule got too complicated and I just haven't had the bandwidth to find another good fit, but I was paying them the money. Yeah? Yeah? Okay, so we pay people living wages. Yeah? Mm-hm? Awesome.
All right, now we've got the two-minute rule. This is the idea that if a task occurs to you, and you know it would take you less than two minutes to do, you just do it right then and there when you think of it. This can be really helpful, but again, it's like, do you have the muscles built up to be able to do that? Because, and this is not only what I help my clients with a lot, but it's really the reason why I started my coaching business. It's because that transition from not doing to doing was a mountain. I couldn't just do it if a thing occurred to me. I can maybe do that sometimes now, but sometimes the tasks that occur to me that are under two minutes, they don't make it past my red-velvet rope for my task list, and I'm just like, "Meh, nah." I either do it or I don't, and I don't really care.
That being said, like, it can be helpful, but if you're really struggling with neurodivergence and/or mental health problems, or chronic illness, 'cause like, yeah, that would take two minutes for an able-bodied person, but it's gonna take 30 for me.
Don't measure yourself against able-bodied, neurotypical, and mentally healthy expectations. That is cruel to do to yourself, so please don't do that. So anyways, two-minute rule gets this score: ⛽, 🧠🧠, ⛽.
"The 5 Second Rule" by Mel Robbins.* This is very similar to what I just talked about about the two-minute rule. (🔋, ⛽, ⛽.) Basically, what the 5-second rule is when you want to do something, you count down in your head, "5, 4, 3, 2, 1, go!" And as soon as you say go, you go (snap). Great for able-bodied, neuro-typical, mentally healthy people, but for the rest of us? There are a lot of reasons why something like the five-second rule or the two-minute rule might not be working for you, but one of them, and I've talked about it at length in this video, is that you might actually be in the autonomic nervous system state of freeze, which is the human equivalent of playing dead, essentially. You don't move, and getting out of that is hard. It's not gonna be done in five seconds. Might not even be done in under two minutes. Sometimes to get myself out of the freeze state takes like 10 to 15 minutes. I'm not joking.
Just something to consider, that if the two-minute rule or the five-second rule or other similar things don't work for you, and because they don't work for you, you're being really hard on yourself, please stop being hard on yourself. You simply need different accommodations and different tools, and to be taught differently, so you can move forward in a way that is compassionate towards yourself and allows you to build up agency and self-trust with yourself.
Side note, if you get to the end of this video and I haven't rated a productivity tip that you really want my thoughts on, let me know what it is in the comments below, and I'll rate it in a future video.
All right, so we've talked about a lot of different productivity tips. Now let's talk about systems. First, I'm gonna talk about done-for-you systems. First of all, the analog variety, so planners: Passion Planner, Panda Planner, Happy Planner, Full Focus planner, Erin Condren planner, planners that are physical, that you have to write in by hand, pen, or a pencil, or the writing implement of your choice. Here's my score: 🔋, 🧠, ❤❤. The main issue here, it's literally more labor-intensive to use an analog planner, and for those with certain disabilities, neurodivergence, or even like trauma (like writing by hand couldn't be a triggering thing for you), analog planners might just not work for you. No matter how much you love the aesthetic.
So this is the thing, I love fresh paper, I love beautiful journals, I love pens that just feel good to write with, but I have come to the realization that an analog planning system does not work for me because I simply do not have the spoons or the capacity or the time to keep an analog system up-to-date and trustworthy for myself. It'd just be too much work, and it would gather dust, and then it would no longer help me, and then I would fall steadily towards my "Groundhog Day" behaviors again. That's analog.
Now, let's talk about digital systems that are also done for you, as in they have a given workflow that you use. There isn't much wiggle room for customization. So we're talking things like Asana, Trello, Todoist, Google Calendar. If you have the kind of brain where a done-for-you system works for you, awesome. Some people find freedom in that kind of confinement, that kind of structure, but others feel confined by that structure, and that's fine. So we're gonna give digital done-for-you systems, a just, like, middle of the road: 🔋🔋, 🧠🧠, ❤❤. Like it could be your, (smacks lips) chef's kiss or it could be your kryptonite.
Now let's talk about customizable systems. Analog version is like a Bullet Journal. Again, for all the reasons why I didn't like done-for-you planners, I also don't like a Bullet Journal 'cause that's even more labor-intensive to build and maintain, because if you wanna use spreads, you have to make and design them yourself and make them over and over... (ugh) Yes, there are things like stencils, stamps to make that faster, but for people like me, going analog 100% of the time, just not feasible because of our disabilities. So like while the Bullet Journal is a great method, if I'm going to Bullet Journal, per se, I do it digitally. That makes my life easier. But scores for analog customizable systems: ⛽, 🧠🧠, ❤❤.
Now let's talk about digital customizable systems. And for this: Notion. For those of you who have been here a while, you know I use Notion pretty much exclusively. The thing about customizable digital systems like Notion is that the possibilities are endless. And for some people, that is paralyzing. If you just know you need something custom, and you can't go analog, and you wanna use Notion, but you are paralyzed, you can get help. There are amazing people like Marie Poulin and her Notion Mastery course,* or if you also are interested in the main kind of coaching I do, I can also help build Notion. That's something you get help with, and then you'll be off and running and you'll be fine.
But if it's like, "Eh, I wanna try it," and you're procrasti-planning, maybe don't try Notion. But I think Notion is amazing if you can get past that hump. Either you are willing to do the learning yourself, either by watching lots of YouTube videos or getting a course like Notion Mastery, or you're willing to get a coach to help you through that, that's great. But like don't make yourself do that if the ends do not justify the means 'cause that's a huge hump. It can be so worth it. It can be so worth it. But for some people it's not worth it, and that's okay.
There you have it, my ratings for many common productivity tips and systems from a Spoonie-informed perspective.
Like I mentioned earlier, you can sign up to get access to my Masterclass and Butt in Chair Time at this link.
Check out these posts next to learn how to manage your time as a Spoonie:
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I'll be back next week with another video 'cause I'm ramping up to my course launch, so I'll see you then. Bye.
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