Productivity & Procrastination
By: Maitreyee Kalaskar
Tags: Productivity, Illustration, Graphic Design, Design, Procrastination

Illustrated by Maitreyee Kalaskar

2020 started out very different for me & I guess for all of us — January was far too long. January felt like a year of its own & still felt like I didn’t accomplish anything. A lot of my projects were continued & many of my clients came back, which I am super grateful for. I’ve been an Independent designer & illustrator since 2018 & it has been a great journey so far but this freedom comes at a cost. Being solo means there is really no one to keep you accountable.

I can be crazy productive for hours & can slack off at the next moment. Being an independent creative or a freelancer gives me huge advantage freedom, I can schedule my own meetings at my own leisure, pick which work I want to do first & if I can go get a coffee in a cafe. I started taking advantage of it & slacked off more & worked less, but in the end, I love my work — I missed it & I felt useless.

Mental Health! Yes, it suffers the most here. For me Productivity & Procrastination go hand in hand it’s just the matter of which gets the most time. I have kept myself accountable for so long & I felt the need for something that can do it for me. I have found great friends along the way who has done that job for me & I really felt blessed. BUT is it really their job to do so?

I recently checked my mobile’s most-used apps, and I was shocked!

What my stats showed me - How much time I spent on Social Media!

How can someone keep themselves accountable?

Mute all notification alerts (even vibration alerts) If you have a light blink alert for notifications, I suggest you switch that off too. Start using Do Not Disturb. (It’s the Best) Just putting my phone into it’s most minimalistic mode made me productive at that second.

Making your phone work for you & not the other way around is so important. Blocking apps for your laptop:

Yes! I started using a Chrome extension called Cold Turkey. It blocks the sites that I am addicted to for example YouTube. I can tell it to block it for an hour & it will do so. Once I block it, I cannot unblock it manually, the app will do it on its own after an hour or the timings you set for it. There are many such other applications that you can use for you to stop using certain websites during your work period.

I have come across these two methods for now but If both of these doesn’t work, you may give this responsibility to a close friend. I have also put up on my Instagram stories that keep me accountable for posting an illustration or an article. A friend of mine posted it to his story by tagging more people, which gave me a sense of pressure which I needed at the time.

I also find that having good time management can help too. Apps & planners can help you immensely in this matter. I wrote an article on my blog regarding which apps have helped me the most in 2019! Go check it here: Apps to Organize your Digital Space in 2020

Your phone is not a bad thing, it can help you out if you allow it to. In today’s world, Social Media make or break careers & to use it right can take time. But how much is too much depends on person to person. Let’s hope I can bring it down a bit. I wish you good luck if you are trying to keep your phone’s use to its minimum.

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