The comedian Jerry Seinfeld
once said that he marks a cross on the calendar for every day that he writes,
and that he doesn’t want to break that chain. This became known as the Seinfeld
Productivity Chain, which was what inspired Richard Herring to write a daily
blog at a time when he wasn’t working, as a way to combat writer’s block. This
in turn is what gave me the idea to do the same, this time last year I recorded
an audio book version but it proved to be far too time consuming. The nice
thing about the Productivity Chain is that you can assign yourself any amount
of time you desire to carry out your chosen task, and once you have carried out
that task you get to mark the calendar. I don’t have a calendar to motivate me,
I have a week-to-view pocket diary that I always carry about with me (if you
want proof of this, then stop me in the street and ask to see it). In my diary
I make a note whenever I do something productive regarding my work. Wednesday
is taken care of because I do a radio show, as is Sunday so I simply write that
I have done those shows, also writing whom that week’s guest was. When I record
my American show I write ‘Robin 73’ (this week’s number on Sunday’s entry. Even
if I don’t necessarily write or film something, all I aim to do with each day
in my downtime is to cross something off my tasks list.
I was up most of last night
faced with the job of uploading every single edition of The Sound of
Nottingham UK to Mixcloud, including the track listing. This week’s
show is the 73rd, and I had started the Mixcloud with good
intentions but didn’t continue to upload after 31. Every time I start to do
this I maybe upload one edition before finding something else to do. However, I
decided to knuckle down last night and complete the Mixcloud profile for the
show and bring the whole thing up to date. The two cups of tea I made for
myself was all I was allowed until the job was finished. Once I found where the
shows were, (spread over several memory sticks) the job was a piece of piss. I
applied myself to it and by the time I was getting fed up of the job, I was
finished and able to cross something off my list.
It was interesting to see how
many different artists I have played in such a relatively short space of time,
some names only appear once but others appear again and again so I guess I do
have my favourites. On the other hand, if people don’t send songs in then I can’t
play them can I?
Crossing ‘bring USA Mixcloud
up to date’ off the list of annoying jobs was a good feeling, especially as I
had stayed in my office and not left until it was done. I kept telling myself
that I only had so many left to do before I could reward myself by going
downstairs to make myself a cup of tea and nipping out onto the porch for a
cigarette, as I’d usually go and do that halfway through the job and lose
interest. Hopefully I can continue to keep up this level of discipline and
bring myself up to date a bit more.
===
My daily blog can be delivered straight to your Kindle
for 99p a month (link)
Any money donated to the PayPal account above will be
put to good creative use, find out more here.
