What is inspiration? Where does it come from? How can it drive productive output? These are all valid questions.
At this moment, it’s a little misty outside my window. It’s early and I’m almost on my way to a nice hot cup of tea. This doesn’t seem related to the post at all, does it? It is. All of these factors are instrumental in driving productive output from within me. A relaxed environment with average, slightly overcast, weather conditions and the want for a soothing cup of tea.
But… how?
It’s really straight forward, actually. The environment affords me the calm and free space to think laterally and let my mind wonder a bit. This, I’ve found, is incredibly important with the majority of tasks I do (whether it’s writing a blog post or exploring a code snippet). My mind is allowed to wonder naturally down the various avenues of possibility, possibly exploring areas I may not have arrived at, had I been in a different environment. This post is itself a product of said environment.
Okay, and how does that drive your output?
This part, like the first, is person-specific. It’s about finding what works best for you. The solution I have found that works for me is almost a domino effect. The output of one task drives the output of the next.
While many people may choose what I refer to as the “reward” system of “oh, I worked so hard on task A, let me relax for a bit as a reward and then get on to task B”, I’ve adopted a similar, yet slightly different method. The output of task A drives me to work on task B. This continues until there’s either no time left to spend for that period of time, or a simply cannot do any more at the time. In today’s case, task A is writing this blog post. Task B is various errands and such and then task C… well, who knows. 🙂
I was thinking about my output this morning, stopped and realised, “wow, this is actually kind of weird”, so I thought I’d share it with you all and see if there’s anyone out there who has a similar process. Right, on to task B.
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