Scenario: "Dude, we can't play. We gotta work. Yay!"
Say you have a client project due next month.
What's the best way then to "Wow!" your client?
- A) Schedule play everyday.
- B) Schedule work everyday.
Conventional wisdom would tell you: "It's B! It's B!"
But, conventional wisdom -- as seemingly always -- sucks.
Locking yourself up into your office will get you shabby results, where you keep yourself busy without producing much -- according to Berkeley Psychologist Neil Fiore.
Scheduling play everyday instead stimulates your soul to work much more productively, while keeping your morale higher than a freakish eagle.
How Play Speeds Productivity
Remember a big 10-page term paper in college that you had due in about a week, but hadn't yet started?
Did something interrupt you between those days (e.g. a ball game, a concert, a night club, an evening run, a yadda)?
Let's decipher two scenarios that could happen:
Option #1: "Nope! I wasn't interrupted."
If you didn't let anybody interrupt you, you probably still completed your work -- albeit, you felt pretty dull during most of the process.
Instead of driving your entire heart, body, and soul into every minute of your working hours, you instead went through a similar route:
- 1st day: Go over notes.
- 2nd day: Go over notes.
- 3rd day: Go over notes.
- 4th day: Write 1st page.
- 5th day: Edit 1st page.
- 6th day: Write 2nd page.
- 7th day: Write 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th pages. Proofread, cite, review, design cover letter, print, yadda.
You scheduled 7 days to work -- but, you really completed the majority of your work within a fraction of the alloted time.
According to Fiore's study:
The anticipation of extended isolation from friends and recreation is likely to promote procrastination.
Option #2: "Yes! I was interrupted."
Now, if you scheduled play:
You not only (1) had a frickin' good sexy time, but (2) your productivity most likely soared.
Why? Your badass subconsciously told yourself:
"Since I have limited time to work on my paper, I will have to work more efficiently. Therefore, I will have to smartly plan my working schedule."
- 1st day: "Crap! I only have four days to write ten pages. I'll go over notes and write the first 3 pages today, so I don't feel guilty about going to the concert tomorrow."
- 2nd day: Fun-sexy-time! Attend concert.
- 3rd day: "The concert energized me. Let's write the next 3 pages."
- 4th day: Fun-sexy-time! Attend ballgame.
- 5th day: "My morale's rockin'. Again, let's write the next 3 pages."
- 6th day: Fun-sexy-time! Run the College Invitational.
- 7th day: Write final page. Deal with logistics. Finish!
Cheesy language aside, scheduling play ironically drives you to be much more productive according to Fiore:
We are more likely to work productively when we can anticipate pleasure and success rather than isolation and anxiety.
How to Schedule Play
You'd think to schedule play, you'd have to:
- Schedule work first.
- Schedule play second.
- Schedule play first.
- Schedule work second.
You'll start seeing yourself churning the shizzle out of every working hour.
We promise.
Play first, playa.
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ndtwc
Posted @ 06:34 AM on March 14, 2007
Oh schedule play first, and work next! I think this can only work for those who can follow their schedules perfectly. And honestly I can't LOL. And I really don't like being interrupted while I'm concentrating on something. And play? Yeah I do play, but I try to put all plays after I have finished all of my works.
This is my mum told me when I was a very little kid: Wanna play? finish your homework first! Or do you want to play while still having to worry about your unfinished homework? You can play freely only if you don't have any burden! Blahblahblah...
But um... it looks like thinking in that way is just concentrating on the quality of play, but not work huh? I get the work finished faster (yeah just get it done, forget about the quality!), so I can play earlier! Whatever... but at least I can still have the job done! And sure I m not this kind of person: I have to finish something first, "so I don’t feel guilty about" going to play something next. I have never think in this way, really.