After a week observing my productivity vs. fun had on each day, I have noticed several things:
1) Saying you are having fun does not equal actually having fun, but it encourages movement in that direction.
2) I have WAY more fun when I am working with other people during crunch time than by myself. For example, Tuesday I ran around the school trying to organize things, share information, get projects approved, etc. for the big event but since it had to do mostly with communication, it wasn't a group effort. I didn't have very much fun on Tuesday (see Figure 1) because I felt stressed out the whole time. I also didn't feel like I got very much done because I felt like things were slipping out of my control. As a result, I ended up working in the office late trying to catch up - also not fun.
On the other hand, I had a blast on Thursday! That was the day before the projects and we had to get all the prep work done so it would be ready to go Friday morning. All five of us worked from 7:30am to 8pm during on and off rain to get it done. Lots of stress, lots of moving pieces, but because we were all working together there was lots of joking and craziness. So much more fun.
3) It is possible to have fun even when it feels like things are falling apart. In the middle of the projects of Friday morning (imagine 350 middle school students running around outside with shovels, paint brushes, wheelbarrows, etc. and you'll get a pretty good idea of the scene) it felt a little chaotic. Some kids finished their projects really fast and didn't have anything to do. Others didn't want to be outside or just wanted to talk to their friends. Others got covered in oil-based paint that wouldn't wash off. But even in the middle of it, I remember looking up and enjoying the craziness around me. P.S. Everyone was safe and had a good time. No one got sent to the nurse, no one even needed a band-aid. Good day.
4) Fun and productivity CAN coexist and there may even be some correlation between the two (see Figure 2). Hmmmm...
5) It is very interesting to observe oneself deliberately. And a little scary :)
Figure 1: Productivity and Fun had on a scale of 1 -10 by day of the week. Note: Monday I went on a field trip with the 6th grade. It was a lot of fun, but I didn't get anything done...not really relevant to this study here since we already know it is possible to have fun when one is not stressed out.
Figure 2: Correlation between Productivity and Fun Count. The R^2 value refers to the correlation coefficient. If R^2 = 1 that would mean the points all lined up exactly from which we can infer that the more fun had, more productive I was (or vice versa, it is undetermined in this experiment which is the cause and which is the effect). Monday's points was left out of the correlation analysis but is plotted above for your reference.
