[Daniel] Feeling Unproductive ...or... How To Waste An Evening

Today was not a highly-productive day. Joel, of Joel On Software fame, has written on this topic before, in a short entry he called "Fire And Motion". He basically describes how sometimes knowledge-workers can't get into the groove (or flow (or zone) if you will).



I bring this up because I struggle with this a lot. I'm the type of person that feels like if I'm not being productive 24/7, I am wasting time and watching my life pass before me. And sometimes, I do myself proud, churning out line after line of clean, concise code and ending the day on a good note. Monday this week was that day for me.



On the flip side, today (especially this evening), has not been nearly as productive. I grind through the task in front of me, like a 16 year old thrashing through the transmission while trying to learn to drive a stick-shift (which I also was, thank you very much). I try to get started and I almost immediately lurch to a halt, stuck on a detail or struck by something I hadn't thought of before. Perhaps my motivation, present just seconds ago, vanished to who knows where. I think about it and what I did wrong and, a few minutes later, try again.



This time, maybe I jump forward a few feet. Or maybe I don't go anywhere. Sometimes I give up, sometimes I yell, curse and shout. And sometimes I beat my head against the dash (the keyboard nor my forehead ever look good after this).



The problem never seems to be a lack of desire. The unnamed project I'm trying to push forward is something I feel very strongly about and have sat on for too long. I've done plenty of thinking on it (though there is more to do) and I know that I should have no problems moving forward.



The line from Joel's entry which strikes most true for me is:

Maybe this is the key to productivity: just getting started.

Every time I face this struggle, I realize my problem really lies in that I just have to successfully get moving. Once I get going, I can usually at least accomplish simple and/or relatively-mindless tasks that need doing and steam builds from there.



When I learned to drive manual, all I needed was to get rolling and then I could shift like nothing, smooth as butter. The tipping point came when I stopped and thought about my problem of getting started. Rather than try-try-again, I stopped and practiced killing the engine. Turn it over with the clutch down and let off the clutch slowly until I figured out the point at which the clutch disengaged. Once I knew when that point was, I was able to start out (however rough) every time from there after.



Maybe the way to solve my problem is, rather than blindly fighting to get started and push forward, to find where my tipping point of being productive is and exploit that instead?