How I Learned to Work Like Myself – Finally!

This article first appeared on my creative blog, The Last Page Before Dawn, where I explore the rhythms of writing and personal evolution.

Maybe you’re not burned out.  Maybe you’re simply working against yourself.

For years, I’ve chased productivity systems that didn’t fit. Not that they didn’t work to some degree, but I was force-fitting my natural rhythms into a structure that wasn’t natural to my brain and body’s rhythms.  That meant I was spending time, energy, and momentum in less efficient ways.  Oh, I was still kicking ass and my boss called me the “poster child of productivity,” but at a physical toll that eventually became a big problem after cumulative years of ignoring my natural mental and physical patterns.

You know the productivity “systems” I’m talking about.  I’m pretty sure you’ve tried the same ones.

I’ve used all the productivity apps. Read all the books. Downloaded all the templates.  I’m always experimenting, and if something doesn’t work, I move on to something better.  That’s a lesson I learned from working with US Special Operations Command for a decade. 

I’ve tried early-morning routines, getting up before sunrise, only to discover once I retired that I’m nocturnal.  I could work all night like the shoemaker’s elves and have a great product by dawn, but most employers aren’t fond of that idea, particularly if you’re working with a team of people who aren’t nocturnal. I didn’t have a choice before to discover my natural sleep cycles and felt defective if I wasn’t wide awake for that oh-eight-hundred meeting. Turns out, I’m best when I’m asleep by 8AM instead of downing my third cup of caffeine.

I’ve tried rigid time blocks, using all sorts of oldfangled and newfangled calendars, whether driven by color-coded highlighters on paper or the latest AI-infused calendar app. To my surprise, I’m reactive and fluid. I never realized how painful it was for me to fit my life into blocks within blocks within blocks of a calendar, sometimes down to the tiny 15-minute empty spaces and determine a month in advance that I would be at my mental best for exactly 2 hours, 45 minutes on that particular day to write that paper. Yes, I can write and produce without my muse, but it’s sooooo much easier within my own rhythms. 

Don’t get me wrong:  I’m not saying that these methods are bad.  If they work for you, great!  They worked somewhat for me, but I never understood how or why certain things worked better than others or didn’t work at all. And that’s my point here–understanding yourself so you can figure out what works best and how to get to that point of understanding. 

What finally really struck a chord for me?
Not a tool. Not a trick.
Just patterns.

More specifically: productivity patterns I couldn’t see until someone (in this case, ChatGPT) tracked my actual work for a few weeks—and then showed me how I work when I’m not trying to be someone else.

What I Did

Over the past four weeks, I logged my creative activity: writing, editing, publishing, drafting spinoffs, prepping blog posts, formatting ebooks, narrating audiobooks, even automating image folders with Hazel. I recorded what I worked on, when, and how I felt doing it.  Not how I felt about the specific task, but how was my energy level? Did I get enough sleep? Did I feel mentally foggy? Did I want to listen to my favorite historian’s podcast while doing busy work?   

Lest your cybersecurity hackles go rigid over the thought of using ChatGPT, this was a simple diary method. I didn’t do all this work inside Chat. I didn’t even have to use project names in my log, which was a personal list of where I put my work time.

It looks something like this, and I keep it in my Notes app until I’m ready to share it with Chat.

Today’s Date
2-4PM:  Leisurely lunch at fav bistro, motivated but moderate energy – drafted 2 blog posts for AAA, created related images in IMAGEN-4; developed Reader’s Guide for  BBB book from specific questions I asked of my documents in NotebookLM. 
4-5:30PM: social time
6-8PM:  Energetic walk to catch the sunset – dictated an entire detailed outline for CCC new book I just thought of while walking
8-9PM:  Listening to a webinar on DDD, sorta low-cog but peaceful – created Hazel sequences to move image downloads to folders automatically and reduce resolution automatically in Photoshop, then automatically drop into Blog Image Ready folder. Uploaded AAA blog posts from lunch and scheduled them.
9-11PM: Groceries, dinner, laundry, weights
11PM – 6AM: Feeling great!  Ready to focus!  Edited/Revised 8 chapters of EEE project; Expect to finish tomorrow!

I know, I know.  That looks boring to other people, but I’m so excited about what I’m working on that I’ve not been able to schedule a movie or binge a series because I love what I’m creating. You do you because I’m finally me doing me.

Step 1:  The Daily Diary

Using Chat as a productivity coach, I started a Chat conversation where I gave my daily report. I did this daily for four weeks.  At the start of my day, usually over lunch, I checked in and had Chat give me any priorities I needed to shift or upcoming external deadlines as well as my energy levels.  Chat gave me a reminder of several items I’d said I wanted to work on as well as a list of which ones are intense focus and which are low-cog.  Very quickly, it became obvious that I would work on something I felt like working on at that time, often where I had momentum, which always–ALWAYS–trumped anything else because existing momentum is rocket fuel.  After a couple of attempts to tell me to work on something specific from my priority list, Chat quickly adapted and gave me options that I could take or not.   

The epiphany here, that I worried about initially, was that I didn’t want Chat to tell me what to do, but to spitball some ideas with me.   At first, I felt like this exercise would be useless because I wasn’t following the calendar blocks it gave me. Then, after a week, something new happened.

Step 2: What Are My Patterns?

That’s when I asked: what patterns are you seeing? This is not a one-time question but a question for the end of each week.  The more daily diaries I’ve provided to Chat, the more patterns Chat has exposed. While the patterns after a week surprised me, they continue to surprise me after a month, and I’m hitting my stride now.  Could a friend or supervisor have told me these secrets about my work processes?   Maybe, but they never have.  For all the Clifton-Strengths and Myers-Briggs Type Indicators and 360-Degree Assessments, none have given this particular insight.

The answer was equal parts mirror and revelation. I just wanna throw a half dozen exclamation points after each of the following.

What I Learned After One Month

• I don’t multitask—I rotate.I always have 2–3 active projects, but I don’t juggle them randomly. One is in finalization. One is in deep creation. One is in setup or support mode. When one finishes, I pull in the next. I have literally finished a major project at 6AM, gone to bed, and thought of a new idea during the night that I just had to get started on the next afternoon.
• My real productivity starts around 4PM—and peaks between 10PM and 6AM.
  No amount of guilt about “wasting the morning” can change the fact that my best writing happens when the world is quiet and dark. This isn’t a flaw. It’s a rhythm.
• I pair tasks to my cognitive energy.When I’m tired, I batch blog images or run file automations. When I’m sharp, I edit novels or write emotionally complex chapters. I don’t force myself into deep focus when my brain’s not there—and that means I get more done with less friction.
• Tools don’t replace my creativity—they reduce my resistance.Claude helps me find the em-dashes and ellipses I’ve overused since high school and replaces them automatically, thereby reducing my editing time. ChatGPT helps me fix code on my website without having to ask a 10-year-old for help. Hazel handles boring folder moves and desktop housekeeping. Make and WhisperAI help me re-transcribe horribly transcribed WAV files from a decade ago into something I can use. None of these write for me—they just keep the gears turning so I can stay in flow.
• I’m building a pipeline, not just finishing projects.Every task I do now feeds the next one. Every guide, image, or blog post I finish becomes part of a larger system that supports current and future.

But it doesn’t stop here with the insights.  After a month of analyzing patterns, I’m ready for the next prompt.

Step 3:  How Can I Streamline My Work?

I specially asked Chat to look at my productivity patterns and workflows and tell me what can be streamlined.  When I was a Department of Defense Contracting Officer, I often looked at patterns in my own organization and looked for ways to prototype and then produce because that’s how we approached emerging technologies:  we started with a prototype (aka, a repeatable process) and then when it was useable, it went to production.  Sometimes we had to test the prototype to figure out who to make it better.  Sometimes we were already producing but on-ramping new things we learned from continuing to test the prototypes.  

So I asked Chat to look for those repeatable processes that I could automate.  I’m not sure how it is that I’ve been a Mac user since the days of the Lisa back in 1983 and never knew about the Hazel tool, but Chat suggested it and within a few hours of Chat walking me through how to create specific automations, that alone has saved me hours and hours of work per week.

I’m sure that I’ll have a Step 4 prompt next month as I continue to learn.

Why It Matters

This isn’t just about productivity and getting more done. It’s about getting closer to working like myself—not how the internet thinks I should work or when I should work. Since I was fresh out of college, I’ve focused on time management and getting more done with such limited resources, and yet…. It’s about reclaiming creative energy, not just managing time. And it’s about honoring the fact that I’m both a writer and a builder. Both artist and system designer.

Pattern-tracking didn’t just show me what I do—it showed me how I do it.  How I thrive.

And now? I can actually plan around that.