With their unique pen and their own sensitivity, artists present their vision of the world around us. This week, we are giving free rein to author and publisher Stéphane Dompierre.
Some people envy my productivity. “You’re a publisher, but you also find the time to write books and columns. wow! How do you manage to do all this? Here is the opportunity to spread my wisdom, to reveal all my secrets.
My routine is quite simple: first, wake up at 5 a.m., ice cold shower, long walk in the woods with the dog. Then, I settle down at my work table in front of the chalet’s large window, the one with a view of the lake, with my two liters of lemon water, which I drink before dinner. From 6 a.m. to noon, I work tirelessly. Then I… Wait. Are you really taking notes in a notebook here? Stop immediately ! I lied. I don’t do any of that. I don’t have a cabin. My dog runs out of breath in 15 minutes and, in the morning, I do not arrive among the living until I have had my coffee. Also, and this detail seems quite important to me: I don’t find myself more productive than anyone else. Quite the contrary. I’m mostly convinced that I haven’t done enough work in my day.
There was a time when I was self-employed and single, without children and without a dog (who frequently asks to go out because one of his canine friends left a wee on a shrub nearby and it’s important to go the feel without delay). So I could work seven days a week, and evenings too. And, sometimes, that’s what I did. I still had the impression of not working enough.
I saw colleagues publishing one novel per year while I only published one every three years. I found it abnormal to be so slow, to let so many sources of distraction rob me of my precious time, when they seemed to have an inflexible discipline and secrets of productivity that I did not know.
While searching, I discovered them, they are quite simple, and, more or less, always the same from one book to another:
1. Write down a list of things to do, in order of priority, and do them.
2. Destroy the WiFi router and burn your phone.
3. Do one thing at a time; THE multitasking does not work.
4. Apply the Pomodoro method (25 minutes of non-stop work, 5 minutes of break, and we start again).
5. At the end of your day, plan for the next day.
Want to be even more productive? Good news: you can. The important question to ask yourself is why you want to be. If you’re wondering if you’re working hard enough, you probably are. Lazy people probably don’t even ask themselves the question. Your real need may not be to be more productive, but to be more rested.
Yes, you want to travel, get in shape, lose weight, cook more and better, write your memoirs, run a marathon, speak six languages, keep a vegetable garden, get to the bottom of your pile of books to read, succeed in put your legs behind your head with yoga, become a star on TikTok, be an artist so you can do your number, but does all this really have to be done before next Sunday? When was the last time you stared into space and did nothing? More than two minutes, there, without taking your phone out of your pocket to manage some emails, organize your schedule or send text messages? Me, it was probably somewhere in 2016.
I have to tell myself this over and over again: my problem isn’t a lack of productivity, it’s not feeling productive enough. It has nothing to do with the amount of work done, it’s a feeling. And a feeling, it comes from you. It is a view of the mind. And it can’t be quantified.
I try to work on that.
If you set clear and realistic goals for the day, and you achieve them, congratulations, you’ve been productive. If an unforeseen emergency prevented us from achieving our goals for the day, we were also productive. This needs to be reminded often, and it should be a footnote on our to-do list: remembering that life isn’t all about productivity. There is also life. Because living, breathing, taking your time, it’s absolutely not productive, but it’s important too.
I say it as much to you as to me: relax, it’s summer. And summer, as we used to sing in Master key, it’s made to play. Or to enjoy an Aperol Spritz on the terrace while discovering new music and forgetting what’s on our to-do list.