productivity Archives - Page 2 of 2

Tonight I am learning about the science of chocolate making. Should be a great First Friday, even with no art involved (actually, fine dark chocolate definitely qualifies as art in my book). I hope you have some First Friday events to attend!

Since we’re in Finish Yer Dang Projects mode, I thought a good topic for this month would be getting more crafting done. It works well since I had found a MAKE magazine article by Pam Harris on this very topic back when I was researching December’s First Friday post. In fact, it appears to be an expansion of a post linked to in the December First Friday, also by Pam. The article is mostly about making sure you keep and can find all of the ideas you have or run across, and then schedule time to actually work on your favorites.

There are a few aspects to getting more done, of course. You can make more time, make better use of the time you have, or simply work faster. I won’t repeat all the general productivity advice out there, but here are some more craft-specific pieces of advice:

Progress is progress, no matter how small – although there is often time needed to get started and stopped in each work session, even 15 minutes usually allows you to make progress. Set a timer so you’re not late to your next obligation, and then you won’t be distracted by clock-watching.
Reduce your sense of obligation – projects you don’t want to do but have begun (or even just purchased materials for) can often sit in your mental space, blocking other work. If there is something you don’t want to do and there is no genuine obligation to do it (e.g. commission or promise), dump it. Reclaim what materials can be reclaimed and pitch the rest.
Figure out better and worse spots to leave off – and make a lot of notes and labels to increase the number of better spots. Determining what the heck you were doing when you left off can eat up time.
Leave yourself presents – I don’t like cutting patterns out of fabric. If I get in a mood to do it, I cut as much as possible. Between cutting and sewing is an excellent spot to leave off, and later on I get the boost of being able to sew immediately.
Work to reduce errors – the extra time to stitch a gauge swatch is less than the time to re-knit or re-crochet a sweater that is far enough along to reveal incorrect sizing. The extra time to start and stop when using 2-foot lengths of embroidery floss is less than the time (and aggravation) to repeatedly untangle longer strands (not to mention that all the trips through the fabric wear the thread a bit thinner).
Assembly line whenever it makes sense – I find it easier to separate the strands of embroidery floss standing up, so I try to do it in batches. Of course you can only sew at the sewing machine and iron at the ironing board, so try to consolidate those as well.
Get things finished – when I have a lot of works in progress, I find a decent amount of time is eaten up simply deciding which to do next. Prioritizing bulkier projects increases how much you feel like you’ve gotten done, too, by freeing up a lot of space at once.

The tips above are what I think getting more done is all about – they don’t try to speed up or take away the enjoyable parts of crafting, just fit more of them in and reduce the less-fun parts. However, I also tried to find advice online for simply working faster in specific crafts (aside from practice, practice, practice). I avoided advice to simply choose simpler projects in easier materials – that’s definitely not what this is about.

There was an abundance for sewing, but only a Crochetville forum thread for crochet. Here’s a video of Lisa Gentry crocheting ridiculously fast in case you want to time yourself. Materials make a difference, of course. I crochet fastest with hooks that have points at the tip and end of the hook (Boye style), but others crochet fastest with inline hooks that are blunter at the end and have a broad end to the hook (Bates style). Style matters too: as far as I can tell, the current record holder for speed knitting knits continental style, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be faster in a different style – at least in producing the items you care about. Small motions are faster than large ones, and any posture that is awkward or cramped will slow you down in the long run by reducing the number of hours per week you can work. Even how you hold the yarn can make a difference, and I continually forget that strong light can help even when I already have enough light to see by.

For sewing, I’m going to defer to the aforementioned links. Historical recreation is the place to look for hand-sewing tips, such as The Dreamstress and Extreme Costuming. For machine sewing, especially garments, my favorites of the pages I found were from Lladybird, Boppingbeth, and The Coletterie. Lladybird’s is more about high-level process and organization, whereas the other two are about techniques for the actual sewing. There’s a lot of overlap between the two but they’re written differently enough that it’s worth reading both if you’re looking to sew faster.

Let’s see how much we can do in three months – my bet is, it’s a lot!

I’ve been pretty obsessed with productivity and organization recently. It started with wanting to get my horrifying email situation under control – messages from last fall that were unanswered as of this June. It expanded from there, though, because as someone who works from home for herself and various contract employers, I am fully responsible for making good use of the hours available.

I started with Getting Things Done, the system in David Allen’s book of the same name. I actually haven’t read the book; there’s enough material online to get you started (in addition to the summary above, try zenhabits and 43 Folders). My initial goals were Inbox Zero and emptying my brain. I started by purging my email inbox of everything that could have been archived or trashed long ago, clearing space for a physical inbox in my work area at home, and writing down everything I could think of that I wanted or needed to do, regardless of deadline or level of detail.

Next was processing my lists into a more organized form (which took multiple drafts) and dealing with the items left in my email and physical inboxes. Inbox Zero actually refers to the state of having decided what to do with each item, not having necessarily done any of it, which didn’t seem that helpful to me because it is too easy. My initial goal was Inbox Zero meaning everything has actually been dealt with, but early on I realized that’s a moving target. I settled on having nothing more than three weeks old to deal with. I’ve already fallen off that wagon once, but five or six week old email is far less anxiety provoking than eight or nine month old email, so getting back in shape is easier.

In order to actually do my projects, I tried out a few to-do list schemes. Possibly the main point of Getting Things Done is allowing you to work without worrying there is something more important you ought to be doing instead, because you’re on top of your project list and know everything important is on track to being done on time. I did not have this experience. I was drowning in a huge unsorted list of projects.

One of the traits of academic life I disliked was the feeling of never having done “enough” work. If there was more time, there could be more work, and should be more work. In addition to not being sure how to prioritize my projects, I was in danger of having no (reasonable) definition of “enough” in my new career either.

Enter David Seah and the Printable CEO. A Sew-op friend tipped me off to his site, where he wrote about the same problem I was having: how do I make sure the work I’m doing every day is actually moving me forward? His answer was a point system and bubble sheet. I had to change the contents of each point value, since it was aimed at graphic design and programming, but the idea transferred. I’m still tweaking my point system, having begun just a couple of weeks ago; for now suffice to say it seems to be working well.

I realized this would also help me keep track of hours worked, if I adapted the record keeping. I made my “bubble sheet” a set of 4×4 grids, each square corresponding to 15 minutes of work at the grid’s point level. I had previously tried to keep track of time hour by hour, with a list on which I would write how I spent the hour, a check box (so I could plan ahead as well as record), and a space to write which day of the week I did it. It was cumbersome and I abandoned it in a month. This is working much better. Four categories with check boxes make for easy recording, and combined with the point accrual I enjoy doing it. However, it’s still enough division to keep me on track.

Dave also has a nifty Creative Cootie Catcher that I couldn’t resist, even though like his original Printable CEO it isn’t quite adapted to my work. And in case you’re looking for other productivity inspiration, here’s a long list of productivity tips, in which you are bound to find something that strikes your fancy.

Images in this post from a lovely site I just learned about called Pixabay.