THE CONTINUITY PRINCIPLE/LAW
THE EFFECTS OF CONTINUING ACTION AND MOMENTUM ON PRODUCTIVITY
Rough, rough draft, but understandable points that are valuable.
This is one of very biggest productivity principles of all. Honor it and your life will improve dramatically.
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A "BREAK" IN CONTINUITY
Breaking, and braking, causes loss of momentum, unless the short term working memory is still working. We can take a break for up to 10 minutes and still keep track of where we are, hardly breaking our momentum, while upping our energy. (You should be sure you absolutely know and understand and can apply to life: SuperPrinciple: The Law Of Inertia And Momentum, And Getting What You Want In Life.)
What would happen to total production if a production line was constantly stopped because of diversions and lack of focus of some of the workers. You wouldn't get much product out the other end. And so it is with life and productivity of intangible "products" - it just seems that we don't "see" it so we don't cognate about it!
Doing multitasking is the ultimate violation of the continuity principle of productivity, although many people think that it gets more done. It actually impedes productivity as it involves switching attention back and forth between tasks with a cost of refocusing and getting back into the type of thinking needed and starting anew each time. That refocusing process can impede productivity for up to 11 minutes and also leaves us with no progress while we are in the actual space from on activity's start to the next. (See The Huge Costs Of Multitasking - A Fool's Errand!.)
One of the keys to a loss of productivity when you stop to return later is that there is a complete new set up time, the start up time, to get reorganized, to wrap my mind around things, to get the perspective and have many things in my life so that I can see how they relate and can be put together...
With continuousness, we can even use our silver time (after our gold time) to get much higher benefits per hour... sometimes its value can be greater than in gold time if that gold time includes an extra startup and winddown.
Each new project or task started, just like in a manufacturing plant, requires a new "set up" time. (See the example in Living Based On "Continuous Paths".)
A day long retreat of say 8 hours = 12-16 hours of broken up work, plus it pulls forward the wrok to be done quicker and earlies...
If you are to keep continuity going, it is essential that you are ruthless about not accepting (or setting yourself up for) being interrupted. Close the door. Hang a sign on it "Do Not Disturb As I Am Deep Into High Value Work". Don't answer the phone (listen to the voice message and see if it is important to answer it right then - put it off til later if possible!). Don't act on any of your ideas (just note them down quickly onto a sheet of paper)
MAKING THE RETURN TO THE PATH EASIER AND BETTER
At the end of your work period always leave notes for your future self that comes back to continue the project, so it is better briefed on the train of thought and the things involved and how they relate, perhaps even direct instructions where you can, so that self can begin directly ona "doable" rather than a a hard thinking of regetting one's perspective.... When you stop working on a task or project, you are not finished until there is a sufficient set up for returning to the project smoothly.
Of course, you don't continue until your're driven into the ground, exhausted and dysfunctioning and useless. You make sure you are in The H Zone...of functionality, taking breaks on a disciplined time and content basis.
When we talk of continuity we are not just talking about staying on the same task but also about keeping of our productivity level, continuing to operate at a good level, avoiding those things that break our effectiveness.
A COMPLEXITY OF FACTORS INTERACT
My productivity (per hour, of course) fluctuates vastly, as I tend to wander around when I do not feel at my most energetic, conflicting needs drawing away my focus (like needing to take care of myself, either realisticially or just falsely believed)
It's not just that my brain efficiency and energy diminish but that we also take away from our productivity by scattering the energy, focusing on other things, etc. and on top of it all we make poor decisions that have further repercussions. We can drop from, say, for the purpose of this conversation only, that we can produce a 100 units per hour and at time drop to a productivity of 1 unit per hour, even though our energy might have dropped to 1/10 of our highest energy). There are more than just one factor!!!!!! Know that. And know that they compound, so you can cut off the factors that are going to exponentially drop yhour productivity.
While linear thinking may have us realize that our "processing" capability might diminish in proportion to our energy level, comprehensive understanding will have us see that it is not just straight processing but the introduction of other factors, not being able to keep them from interfering, diminished abilty to use our most effective instrment (the hgiher brain)
1. Processing capability2. Concern of primitive brain about being out of the zone of good functioning.3. Energy level, alertness level - restore and know how to access energy (should I rest or should I move and if so how much and what do I do?)4. The point is to look at it multifactorily and make sure no factor is so strongly impaired that it throws the whole machine's productivity off dramatically.
the indicators, have to know what is severe, workable, etc. what has the most effective,big effects
Feel wiped out, unable to think - that's a sign (!)
Matching what is needed to what is available during periods of time of differing alertness, clarity, and capability, so that you know you won't be out of sync with what is needed. It is predicatble mostly!
This is kind of a "make hay while the sun shines" instead of try to do it when it is less feasible and harder...
Trying to "overpower" is not a reasonable approach, though our "heroes" many of them seem to have that ability - but that is not a true perception that they have the ability of superpowers to overcome the reality, but they have developed certain viewpoints that make it such that the forces against them are zero or less than powerful. They don't say "all is lost if this doesn't work out" and then try to fight it, they say "I can't handle this, etc.
treat high energy processing time as Gold!!!!!! for sowing.... then reap in times where it is easy....
Directly related
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A similar concept with Gold time
When we start off in our Gold time, we must not break our momentum and/or divert to spending our Gold on anything less than what pays off at the highest level (i.e. is worth the gold).
In this case, if we get a package at the door, we may bring it in, but we put it down immediately for later, as we do not want to break our momentum.
We don't want to get bogged down in low productivity items like email, so we keep our time to less than a minute. No diversions are to allowed or we are wasting our Gold, interrupting our continuity flow.
See "Minimizing The 'Spending' Of Gold", referring to Gold time, in The Extraordinary Value Of Golden Time.
