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At the start of a New Year, its natural to reflect on how you can improve the way you work.
There's hundreds of simple productivity hacks out there. But let's be honest, you're not going to successfully implement any of them, are you? Newsbiscuit has helpfully summarised the top 5 hacks you'll definitely be ignoring in 2022:
1. Reaching 'Inbox Zero'. Gurus promise that you can ruthlessly scythe through your inbox, reaching a Zen like state of zero emails in just a couple of hours. They obviously haven't factored in your propensity to tick the 'yes, please spam me with loads of crap by email' box on just everything you do online, Be realistic and aim instead for 'Inbox 23,678'. Sorry, we mean 'Inbox 23,679', no hold on...Inbox 23, 680 - that Nigerian businessman has just messaged you again with an offer to deposit millions in your account by the close of play today.
2. Batch cooking. Prepare school-refectory amounts of delicious base tomato sauces and then freeze them for use throughout the year, saving you hours of time, say productivity experts. Remember this in September, as you reflect on just how much this process has sucked all the joy out of cooking whilst you try and to break up a frozen chunk of tomato sauce with a wooden spoon after you've forgotten to take it out of the freezer in time for your tea.
3. Time blocking - block out 20 minute blocks of time for particular tasks, and don't get distracted by anything else. Simple, yes? But you are unsure about just how many blocks you are allowed to allocate to 'sitting on the sofa looking into the middle distance' or 'checking twitter'. And the whole system is flawed anyway, since everyone knows each episode of Seinfeld is 24 minutes long.
4. Set a single goal for each day. Ideally this should be 'SMART' say all the best guides - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Based. But can taking a dump really be classed as an objective, you ask? You are unsure whether it is 'achievable' after that carb-heavy Sunday dinner yesterday, but it when it comes it will definitely be measurable by the length of time others should avoid using the toilet.
5. Avoid reading productivity hack articles - this advice never actually appears in productivity-hack articles, but it is a nugget that could save you days of your time each January, if you could have been arsed to read to the end of this piece.
It's the end of another year, start of a new one. Time to celebrate, overindulge and make some ridiculously unrealistic pledges about what you might be able to change in 2022. Here are 6 things you'll be looking back on with self-loathing, regret and anger early in January when you yet again have failed to make even the most basic adjustments to your humdrum existence.
Do more exercise.
On New Years Eve, you imagine a daily 6am routine in which you are running effortlessly through your local park, listening to motivational podcasts on headphones, nodding with collective respect at your fellow athletes as you crank out some more fartleks and intervals. In reality, you can't move for a week after a 5 minute walk on January 1st, and tread in some really smelly dogshit early as you trudge back to your house, and the trainers are still there in your garden waiting to be cleaned in September.
Cut out red meat
We all want to save the planet, yeh? And improve our bowel function at the same time? Dead right. But the lure of a quarter pounder with cheese from the 'Golden Arches' drive through to cure your New Years Day hangover is too much to resist. And when the text comes in from Dave on January 2nd about the regular Wedensday steak night with th e lads in Wetherspoons, you know you're already f*cked in this one.
Drink less alcohol
Usually pledged late on New Years Eve, just as the ill-advised Warninks advocaat or Pernods are being doled out. Sticking to 21 units a week can't be that hard after all can it? Especially with that handy app you've downloaded which allows you to track your consumption. When you realise that that bottle of Malbec you've just polished off watching a new years day afternoon film is another 12, you're pressing the delete button on that app quicker than you can down that first cold pint of stella in your local (5 units).
Be kind
You're definitely going to give people the benefit of the doubt in 2022, even your manager Dave, who in 2021, wound you up every time he opened that mouth on his leathery face. He's a person too, and deserves respect and decency at work as much as you. Fast forward to 1030am on 4th January, and you are already slagging him off round the water cooler after he failed to ask you about how your Christmas was and predictably asked you for the sales report that you promised him before Christmas. Why does he do that ridiculous impression of David Brent from the Office when he asks you for something, and does he realise he has a stain on the front of that ridiculously ill-fitting shirt he wears? Oh, no, that's another one to try again in 2023.
Learn a language
It's so easy to learn a language now, you tell all your friends on 31st December. Gone are the days of ordering 12 lingaphone cassettes, or that £200 DVD box-set with the French guy in the suit on the front, that sit gathering dust in your spare room all year. No, now you can get an app. You just switch it on, and all the vocabulary, sentence construction and complex contextual language cues are all imparted to you almost by osmosis during one 10-minute-a-day lesson. You're going to start with Mandarin - its the most widely spoken language in the world after all. By the end of January you can still only say 'Ni-hao' in a piss-poor accent, and realise you don't understand even basic grammar rules in English. Au revoir.
Finish satirical lists with a short and pithy punchline.
You've been trying to do this for years, but just can't find the right phrase or killer line. Its going to be different in 2022 though, you'll be able to end every 'funny' story that you write with a gloriously succinct one-liner, making readers laugh out loud, and think at same time. Ah well, maybe next year.
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