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Dealing with Deadspace

Preamble

I have this problem that happens every week. In fact, it happens several times every week. I call it ‘dead space’. That’s not a technical term, just one I have made up. Despite it having a made-up name, it is something that I need to deal with. Hopefully, by sharing this post with you, I might make some progress towards dealing with the ‘dead space’ in the future.

Being productive

I have this dream to be super productive. I’m 56 years old when I am typing this but I have not yet reached my productivity dream.

Every day, hour, minute and even second, I want to be productive, I want to get the most tasks done and completed that I can possibly achieve. In order to achieve this I use a task manager called ClickUp.

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Without ClickUp I would safely say that I would get nothing done at all. All my daily tasks have their own place in the software. I plan and prepare all the content for every week within ClickUp. I even have reoccurring tasks such as cleaning or collecting medication within the system. Indeed, if something needs to be done, it will be in my task manager.

Overall, people would perceive me as a productive or organised person. But despite all this organisation I still struggle when trying to deal with ‘dead space’.

What is ‘dead space’

You are probably wondering what I mean by ‘dead space’. Surprisingly it is nothing major. Specifically, it relates to times within my day when I have not allocated a task.

Let me give you an example. Sunday is a well-structured day. This is how it unfolds.

  • 9:00 – stream Minecraft for 2 hours
  • 11:00 – do the ironing.
  • 11:30 – set up the stream for the afternoon
  • 12:00 – Lunch
  • 13:00 – Stream Elder Scrolls online for 3 hours
  • 16:00 – A well-being walk
  • 17:00 – Prepare, cook and eat my evening meal
  • 18:00 – Do the dishes
  • 18:30 – DEAD SPACE!

There! 18:30 – Dead Space! This is a time that there is nothing organised or planned for. You might be saying, you can just chill at this point in the day. You don’t have to fill every hour with something.

While I understand this. For me, I need to feel that I have used my time effectively. If I have nothing planned then I fill the time doing something ridiculous. At this point, the common task I end up completing is spending several hours watching random YouTube shorts, TikToks or Instagram reels!

All equally, a complete waste of time!

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How can I deal with ‘Dead Space’?

At this point, I have to say that I am typing this blog post in the aforementioned ‘dead space’. Definitely progress!

In order to deal with the space in my routine I am trying to fill it with regular tasks that need to be done. At this point, I am writing this blog. This would become part of the routine for a Sunday evening and the current ‘dead space’ would be eliminated.

This would then become part of my routine meaning that every Sunday evening I would, straight after the dishes, write or research a blog post.

There are other times that dead spaces occur during the week. Essentially these are after I have finished work. I come home, eat and then drift around getting nothing done and going to bed feeling I need to do better!

My plan is simple. From the publishing of this blog post, I will be dealing with my ‘dead spaces’!

From now on!

First, I will need to identify when the ‘dead spaces’ occur. Then I will start to think of tasks that match how I feel at that time of the day. I am tired at the end of the day. Because of this, I need to allocate a simple regular task to this time. Something that needs to be done but does not require a large amount of brain power!

Secondly, I am going to decide on appropriate tasks for these dead spaces. I will work these into my existing routine. Eventually, these will then become part of the routine for the day and I will become even more productive!


Outro

It appears to be a simple task and one that I can achieve. Essentially I have filled this dead space with blog writing which has worked very well. I can therefore achieve similar tasks in the other dead spaces.

This is a good start and I feel I will be able to make good progress with this as a mini-project.

One way to find out if I am successful. Come back to the blog and see what my next post is all about!

Hopefully, it will be celebrating that I no longer have dead spaces at all!

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