Yesterday I did massive braindumps to get myself oriented. In hindsight, I am looking for a simple algorithm to help me have creative, productive, and stress-free days.

Rather than emphasize working hard, I made a sign that distilled the essence of working lazy:

The bar on the left is a 24-hour day. It expresses my desire to have mostly unstructured creative time scheduled (my so-called Happy Bubble Time). For must-do tasks, I’ve scheduled a minimum of 15 minutes per task area; the gym gets 30 minutes because that is the minimum time with driving factored-in. I’ve also allowed for 8 hours of sleep.

While the amount of time is very low, I’m figuring that once I get that pre-requisite 15 minutes going, I’m very likely to keep going. The theory is that if I’m engaging projects daily, even for short periods of time, productivity nevertheless ensues.

The trouble with forming new habits, of course, is remembering that you’re trying to form one. Because I want to be reminded that this is my ridiculous, self-centered, and irresponsible goal, I taped it to the side of door so I could see it prominently.

By flying a giant sign in my living room, I am both planting a defiant flag and making it impossible not to see it. Booyah! We’ll see how it goes.

[xpr-2013a]