Chunks for Every Temporal Budget

I talked about hour-long chunks before, but I wanted to point out that I also use chunks of time between 5 minutes and 8 hours effectively. Today, I'm using half-hour chunks because after moving, I'm behind in EVERY area of my life, and need more chunks than there are hours in my work day. The biggest drain on my productivity (besides wanting to do ANYTHING besides write) is an anxiety that I won't have time for whatever it is that I need to make time for. But if I can convince myself that I'll only be doing it (it being folding clothes, cleaning out my dad's truck, blogging, whatever) for half an hour, then I don't have to feel guilty that I'm not billing (and therefore eating).

And here's the other, more important part of the equation. Those of you out there who are into productivity writing (generally the same people who, like me, are procrastinating by reading all the really good stuff at lifehack.org) have heard of Pareto's principle, or commonly, the 80/20 rule. F'rinstance, I got 80 percent of my writing done today in 20 percent of the time I spent doing it. Twenty percent of the people control eighty percent of the world's wealth. Only 20 percent of all you all out there have well-thought-out goals, and of that 20 percent, only 20 percent (or 4 percent total) write them puppies down.

That sort of thing.

So if I know that I only have one hour (or even a half an hour) to write that press release for my client, my time's going to be spent more productively than if I give myself four hours. It'll take an hour either way, but in the second scenario, the hour will come after three hours of inwardly howling about my crap luck to be writing a press release.

So there you are. Hour chunks. Or half-hour chunks. Or even five-minute chunks (as when I had a house and would spend five minutes straightening each room first thing every morning). Or, if you must, eight hour sleepy chunks so you awaken dewy fresh each morning.