How to do MORE with LESS time?
It may sound a bit too cheesy and unrealistic. But stay with me for a second because I wanted to share with you something that has changed the way I approach time management.
I have recently finished a book that I had on my to read list for a long time now. I am talking about Cal Newport’s book called Deep Work.
This post is no book summary, so if you are interested in those, I am sure you will find plenty of them somewhere else. What I wanted to share with you is what I have learned and applied and how that worked out so far for me.
So let me first give a bit my background.
First learnings came from 4HWW
I am a software developer, working the normal 9–5 job and in my free time I try to squeeze in as much personal life and small projects as I can.
In my day-to-day job I have noticed that is becoming increasingly hard to find time to really focus on important stuff, in my particular case that is producing quality code within a reasonable time-frame. I was all the time caught between meetings, emails, instant messaging, reviewing merge requests with very little time to focus on something for longer than 15 or 30 minutes.
At home, I had the feeling that there is no much time between cooking dinner, watching an episode or two from my favorite series and the go-to-sleep evening routine and this often left me frustrated, especially after looking at my todo list which got bigger and bigger.
A few years back when I co-founded a startup, I was in the same mess: constant phone calls and emails during the day, while trying to code the software that was supposed to make us rich :) At that time I was reading the The 4-Hour Workweek (4HWW) by Tim Ferris and from that book I think I implemented the following:
I only checked my emails twice a day (midday at 12 and in the afternoon at 5 pm).
Also, I have answered no phone calls in the morning (airplane mode) and scheduled calls (as much as possible in the afternoon). This was very hard for my partners to accept but eventually, they agreed and I was a happier and more productive person.
Fast forward in 2018, office rooms were replaced by open-plan offices, calls and emails where mostly replaced by instant messaging and the general assumption is that your IM client (Slack, Skype or whatever else) needs to run in the background and constantly ping you with notifications, so that you can instantly react and switch your focus from why a unit test is failing to what should you and your team have for lunch. And trust me, in a company with around 200 employees, there is a lot of messaging.
The only time slots where I could do some decent work were early in the morning, usually, until 9 or 10 am and in the afternoon, after 5 pm.
So I very much knew that this is no good and that it affects my performance, personal life and so on.
Fixing "the issue"
The book itself does not provide any major revelations. I would rather say most of them are common sense. It should be obvious to everybody that distractions and interruptions are not good at all, especially if you are working on a Maker’s Schedule, not a Managers one.
So here is what I have learned from Deep Work and how I tried to change my habits so far.
What really struck me is the time blocking scheduling technique used by Newport. You see, in the past, I have tried the following: long todo lists and/or time blocking for the entire day. Both left me frustrated at the end of the day: the todo list was only half-way checked and time blocking did not work because a task in the morning ruined the entire schedule for the rest of the day.
The “trick” is to be, on one side, realistic and flexible with your schedule and to rewrite the schedule multiple times during the day while constantly asking the question: What makes sense for me to do with the time that remains? It also helps to anticipate which blocks might overflow, so that you can plan an overflow block in between.
This had an immense effect on my day. I not only realised that time is indeed scarce and precious, but it also gave me the choice of what to do with it. Realising this one day in advance and not at the end of the day, it gave me the choice what to do with the 1 or 2 hours left in the afternoon (for example). And most importantly, don’t get frustrated.
When I know one day in advance that tomorrow I only have so many hours of actual deep work (after factoring in meetings or other obligations), it becomes much clearer how that time should be spent.
Because I have noticed that I am more productive in the morning, I have decided to get up as early as I can and take time for my morning routine (which includes drinking a glass of water, yoga, and meditation), reading or working on my YouTube channel.
Once I arrive at work, I quickly check the emails and the instant messenger and refine the plan the day, which is a good preparation for the daily meeting we have in our team. After this, I park my phone somewhere out of sight and I close the instant messaging app and the email.
While doing deep work, I noticed it can be very beneficial to take my MacBook and find a quiet place where I do not have any interactions with my teammates, at least 1–2 a day for 1–2 hours. When I am not with my team, I cannot be interrupted and I know that changing the location and having a fixed timeframe instantly transitions me into a state of calm and focus.
During the day I schedule “shallow work” blocks where I check email, messages, interact with others, discuss project-related things.
What I have also embraced from the book is the evening shutdown routine described by Cal Newport, making the schedule for the next day, getting any tasks off my mind so that I can relax the rest of the evening.
This also includes no work emails, calls or instant messaging, so that the evening is a complete break from work so that my mind and body can recharge themselves with energy for the next day.
In the book, there are some other rules which I have already recognized before reading the book but this made me more present regarding them.
Quit social media
At the beginning of the year, I have noticed that I am addicted to Facebook and my phone and I just uninstalled it. My mind is much more relaxed not having to check Facebook every time I have couple of free minutes.
I have not quit Facebook or so, but the usage has become negligible.
Embrace boredom
This is a skill that I still need to train. I will try to be present to this in the future and not try to check my phone every time I feel bored and to try to overcome the desire for distraction.
So these are my most important take-aways from the book and I am really curious on how this will work on the long run. I will do an update after 3 or 6 months to check how this worked out for me. Like any new habits, it takes a litte to settle down and to become routine.
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