My Current Productivity Strategy

Everything just feels dire so I imagine that these crazy times are impacting productivity. Right now, it seems like we have a combination of a 1918-style pandemic and a great depression coming on. The economic numbers have been described as “off the charts”. Not very encouraging or uplifting. And let’s not forget, we still have climate change barreling down upon us; I’m dreading summer/fall when hurricane season is in full swing. I’m just dreading that.

There’s been quite a few articles and news about productivity during these scary times and I believe I did a post a while ago on this topic. I would like to revisit this topic since it is a recurring theme. Quite a few people are having problems being productive and that’s quite understandable.

I also have my share of problems of not being productive.

Here’s what I do to remain as productive as possible:

Continue to dress up and do the usual hair and makeup so that I don’t feel lazy.
Restrict the gobbling of the news, which is kind of hard to do as my natural tendency is to “scan the horizons to see what is going on.” So, I have to try to restrict the reading to morning and evening.
Keep exercising.
Have some planned activities that I can switch to when my mind starts to wander or when I get stuck. Some examples: learn algorithms and Python, read for education, statistical work on Power BI, and art.
Maintain my website content activity – keep that schedule going.

On the second to the last point, my main activity is learning algorithms and Python but there are times where I get stuck because my knowledge about Python impedes my learning about algorithms. That’s when I’m most likely to get the impulse to go search for the news. My tactic is to go do another activity such as some kind of art work in my sketchbook/journal (right now, they tend to veer toward the political news of the day – as a general rule I’m not political, but these are crazy scary times), read some kind of educational book or do data work using Power BI or Excel.

I was doing clean up in one of my back rooms and I still need to finish it off. I’m trying to figure out where to put the last remaining items in the room or maybe I should just get rid of them.

Right now, I’m learning about sort algorithms and I have to admit that I get stuck on perceiving the overarching concept of the sorting method. There are 4 of them listed in the book and I finally got 3 of them figured out in a big picture way. The last one is a bit more problematic because I’m having difficulty discerning what the Python is actually doing.

The book I’m reading is actually a history book written in a fictional style, telling the story about the American ambassador to Germany during 1933, when Hitler was in power. The description of the people, the culture and the emotional tenor of the time is an interesting backdrop for me when I consider what we are going through today. I feel like there are some parallels

The Power BI is just keeping up with the daily data and watching what is going on with those states re-opening.

And the art work is kind of being deployed as a comment of what is going on around me. Unfortunately, drawing and painting does take a while to execute, so I get behind on responding in my sketchbook to what is going on in the world. But it is a way of commenting in privacy and thinking through things. And just enjoying the colors, textures, and doodling.

The main point about my current productivity strategy is that I have a couple of “projects” that I rotate as my motivation waxes and wane. If my motivation for one “project” starts to lag, then I pick up another project to reinvigorate my energy and move forward.

“Nowhere have I had such lovely friends as in Germany,” she wrote. “Looking back on it all is like seeing someone you love go mad – and do horrible things.”

In the Garden of Beasts, Erik Larson, 2011, p107 (softback version).

That quote struck a chill in me. I haven’t finished the book but there are already some things that frighten me because I see some similarity. For one thing, Hitler didn’t change the people to doing evil things; those evil tendencies were already there and he gave them the license to express them.

There was another book on Hitler which first brought that point out. In all of the books I have read about WWII, I have never read anything that implied that the people were already expressing hatred towards the Jews (or maybe that point was glossed over). It was early on, maybe 1933 or 1934, Hitler was telling his men to restrain their bad behavior towards the Jews. Instead, he wanted the people to first express it before he would roll out regulations against the Jews. Once the people expressed it, then he would roll out in quick fashion the harsh regulations. I believe the people of Austria gave him the impetus when they came out and demolish the Jewish shops without provocation. I need to find that book and re-read that section but that is what I recall.

In this current book, it was the people of Nuremberg eagerly waiting for a parade; there was an aura of a festival around the town. But the festival turned out to be Storm Troopers parading a woman down the street, with a placard hung around her neck, to be taunted and laughed at by the townspeople of Nuremberg, all for trying to marry a Jewish man. The people of Nuremberg eagerly participated in this display of cruelty. These people went all in for Hitler’s cruelty without any encouragement from him. It was within them.

The question I have is what was the percentage turnout of both towns, one in Austria and the other in Nuremberg? Was this an overwhelming majority or just a minority? Where the majority of the people actually opposed to these cruelties?

I compare to today. At this point in time, you are either all in with what’s going on or you are in opposition. There’s no excuse. Whoever still supports him support him because they believe in what he espouses in regards to immigration, fake news, the “libs” or the “others”. I’m guessing these supporters are all in for the cruelty. Those protesters who showed up with guns do not sound like they are protesting because their kids are starving. For the most part, it sounds like they are protesting for their right to just go out without masks or go to restaurants or go have their haircut. They are not really thinking about how they could be endangering others around them. They just want to do what they want to do; these protests are not about jobs. And, in Michigan, they are bringing in their guns to be threatening. Those guns aren’t being used in self-defense. They are being used in a threatening manner to get what they want. There is nothing Second Amendment about this – this is just threatening behavior.

The news and polls say that the protesters (and true MAGA supporters) are a minority.

And there is another group – the conspiracy believers – people stupid enough to believe in the conspiracy theories. I fear these group of people won’t learn until it’s too late.

I was reading today about an artist, an extremely talented artist, who was reposting conspiracy theories about the pandemic (saying it’s a hoax) from a white supremacist poster, but she got such a backlash from her followers that she deleted her re-posts. She apologized, saying she did not know that he was a white supremacist. That’s the extent of my knowledge of this particular incident but it goes to show that there are still be some believers in conspiracy theories who could be persuaded to see the “light”. But I fear they are going to learn too late the hard way.

Right now, I see two groups in the protesters: the hard core MAGA supporters who are very similar to the Germans in 1933 and the conspiracy believers. I just hope these two groups are very small.

Back to the opening quote: there are some people I know who I suspect are Republicans and/or evangelicals. I wonder what they think about all of this. Where do they stand? Do they believe the coronavirus is a hoax? I’ve been shocked at how they supported him back in 2016. That’s why the opening quote chilled me because I thought of them. Nice people but do they actually have a core of cruelty within them? This is the nature of the whole movement that will always puzzle and astound me: how could they have gone off the rails. They changed and yet, didn’t really change.

And the virus is still spreading. It has now reached a level below the top echelons of the administration. Is this enough to cause some changes in behavior or belief? I’m hoping that this will cause some of the more stupid ones to wake up. Those out in the rural areas are going to be hurt really badly if they don’t “wake” up.