THE LAUREN PROJECT • Power Hour

Power Hour

I’ve always had a lot of trouble falling asleep—mostly because I’m constantly worried about forgetting to do X. Crap I didn’t email Maggie back. Gotta call Mom tomorrow. Fuuuuuuuuu I HAVE to go to the DMV soon!

When I was 12, my dad bought me worry dolls to help deal with these panics. (The idea is that you tell the tiny stick dolls your worries before bed, and then you feel relaxed, having recognized your stressors aloud.) As I got older, I started keeping paper on my nightstand to write down anything that popped into my head that needed to be dealt with. But then what would happen? I would end up with a pile of unorganized to-do lists.

After realizing that some of my biggest stressors are little, hard-to-prioritize tasks, I started doing what I’m calling a Power Hours.

A Power Hour is an hour of doing stuff, when I take care of as many small tasks as I can before the hour is up. I’ve been keeping my Power Hour list in the Clear app. Things can only go in that list if they’re gonna take less than 15 minutes to complete. These are usually tiny tasks that are easy to put off, but take very little effort—things that are incredibly annoying, but aren’t bothersome enough to be at the forefront of your mind throughout the day. (e.g. Asking someone to Venmo you money, then remembering you still haven’t finished setting up your account; Needing to make an exchange at the Gap during your lunch break, except the receipt is on your kitchen table.)

Power Hour is amazing for many reasons, but I like it best because of how good it feels to cross multiple items off a list at once. I’m taking back control of my life in small doses.

Jessica Lawrence recently pointed out that

Productivity has veered away from its original definition. Now, instead of productivity referring to being as efficient as possible in a set period of time, it now means working as much as possible all the time.

I like the way she put it. That being said, I’m trying to become as efficient as possible during my go-get-‘em hours so that I’m not forcefully trying to reset my brain and snap out of work mode at the end of the day by doing some activity I don’t actually find relaxing. (For instance, I may have started watching “Accidentally On Purpose” on Netflix before bed…and that is just awful.)

This brings me to my second new list: “Waiting in line”. I fill this list with the tiny things I can do on my phone while (duh) waiting in line. Though I’m not going to go into this one because it’s pretty damn obvious how it works, I’ll say that I’ve been doing these exercises for about a week and I FEEL AWESOME.

That is all.