The Weekly Review

Jean and James revisit the 15 Styles of Distorted Thinking, discussed in Episode 81, and note how our current circumstances have given rise to new or different patterns of distorted thoughts that hamper our productivity.

Disclaimer: as we frequently like to say, we are not gurus. We are not experts on productivity or psychology. We are just two friends talking about what works for us.

15 Styles of Distorted Thinking

PDF: 15 Styles of Distorted Thinking

PDF: 15 Styles of Distorted Thinking plus 15 Rational Alternatives Offers a strategy for each of the 15 Styles of Distorted Thinking.

After spending a number of weeks at home, Jean and James reflect on how routines have become a bigger part of their lives. Jean describes how weekly routines help keep the days from running completely together. James talks about how he seems to be adding many small routine tasks to his trusted system, many of which take only a minute or two. And James talks about Dexter’s adorable drinking water fountain.

This episode’s “Weekly To-Do” morphed into a full-fledged topic, as Jean recounts how reactivating a simple to-do brought back difficult memories of procrastination and avoidance during especially challenging periods of mental health issues. James reminds her that she is hardly alone in having used these “strategies” when stressed, and it’s counterproductive to beat ourselves up when we’ve missed something, even something important.

This episode explores some ways that even pleasant surprises can upend your plans. James tells the story of how an unexpected package delivery necessitated a quick leveling up of skills. For Jean, the opportunity to be with her family at a safe distance led to a choice between the gathering and ending a personal project early.

James and Jean have their second week of “The Weekly To Do,” a new feature (with a bonus jingle!) where we pick one item from our to-do list and commit to getting it done by the next episode. We are both 2 for 2 on this accountability strategy; Jean’s organized her streaming subscriptions and James’s coffee maker is no longer nagging him to clean it. In the context of real life, which is hard to distinguish from The Onion lately, those are big wins!

Felt App, Hand-Written Cards for the Modern World

Man Not Sure Why He Thought Most Psychologically Taxing Situation of his Life Would Be The Thing to Make Him Productive, from The Onion

Musicland, Bel Air, Maryland

Quarantine Viewing recommendations:

Star Trek: Picard

Survivor

In this episode, Jean and James dive into the new “Weekly Accountability Task” segment of the podcast, including a catchier name suggested by a listener and the world premier of the segment’s musical intro.

Jean has an update on her planned return to Slovenia while James gives an update on his quest to get a REAL ID driver’s liscense. The conversation turns to a variety of extended deadlines including for filing taxes. James talks about the technique he is using in OmniFocus to keep recurring projects like paying taxes correct for future years while adapting to this year’s new dates.

The new segment name and the new jingle it inspired was suggested by Beck, one of our listeners. Thank you Beck!

On our 100th episode, we announced that we were going to add a weekly check-in on a specific task to provide mutual accountability at the task level, not just at the weekly review level. Apparently, we didn’t add this new feature to our trusted systems, and (no surprise!) we forgot about it until now.

We are still looking for a name for this new segment of the podcast, something catchier than Weekly Accountability Task, but at least we have launched it with both of us committing to a task for next week.

In this episode, Jean and James discuss topics from two articles. One talks about resisting putting pressure on yourself to be hyper-productive, especially in these early days of adjusting to the realities of the coronavirus pandemic. The other talks about how with new and unfamiliar experiences in day to day life can lead to feeling like life is surreal. James unveils a new tag he is using in OmniFocus to put projects and actions on hold because of the shelter in place order in the Bay Area.

Conversation turns towards the notion of not being able to make concrete plans you can look forward to such as travel, but that instead, you can look forward to specific things you will do in the future, even though you cannot plan the details.

Why You Should Ignore All That Coronavirus-Inspired Productivity Pressure

Why Life During a Pandemic Feels So Surreal

OmniFocus

This week Jean talks about how she looks forward to doing her weekly review now, even though a lot of tasks will be deferred or deleted, because it helps to feel a bit more in control. James not only got his weekly review done, he got his email inbox count down to zero. Jean also wonders how to use her 2020 year-at-a-glance calendar which is starting to look pretty empty now, as future events get cancelled.

This episdoe Jean and James talk about how they are adjusting to changes due to COVID-19. The conversation explores the notion of actions having a context—the necessary requirements to get a task accomplished—and how some next actions that may have seen trivial a week ago are now postponed indefinitely. Jean suggests taking the opportunity to review the existing context tags in our trusted systems and James describes how he has had to discontinue the garbage can game he plays with his 92-year old neighbor.