Today will be a bit different : no tech discovery, but we will focus on self-organisation. I am going to expose my working agenda, or at least the agenda I would ideally follow to be more productive.

Work agenda

Why ?

Several times during the week, I feel like decreasing in productivity, when I am switching from apps to apps, task to task and not finishing one for instance. Or getting lost on the web, getting distracted by whatsapp…

According to the BBC, our ability to concentrate is getting fucked by our surrounding environment (ie. mobile, notifs…) :
“Back in 2004 we followed American information workers around with stopwatches and timed every action. They switched their attention every 3min on average.
In 2012, we found that the time spent on one computer screen before switching to another computer screen was 1min15sec.
By 2014 it was an average of 59.5sec.”

The study was released in 2015, before TikTok and all the “Instagram Story” came alive… so you can imagine the impact it has on the us in 2021, and even more on the poor genZ !

After reading this, you should feel depressed but at least not alone. It’s a major issue that every one must tackle. I believe trying to stick to an agenda can help. So here’s mine, let’s own my own time !

Typical schedule

Morning : Focus

The morning will be my efficient 3 hours work block. Efficiency will be encouraged by the Pomodoro technique. 30min session with 5min pause are recommended.

Get one or two objective for your morning block. Begin with a description of the goal, then just do it before noon. These will be the most important things done today.

No email, whastapp, and other social networks in the morning => every notification off (see tips below for help on that)

Afternoon : Interact with people

Afternoons are reserved for tasks that don’t need as much concentration, and interactions.

Pick one aftenoon for recurring similar task.

Finish every day with a 5min personal review : helps to keep the focus on what is truly important ! What was good today? learnings ? improvement possible ? Planning for tomorrow?

Last day of the week :

• create the agenda for the coming week. How : get the 3 most important tasks you need to get done and block them in your calendar, write a few lines on what to do.
• Prepare for meetings with important points in the description of your event in your calendar.
• Optimisation : review some of your previous week tasks, or working tools and search for more efficient way to do things. (ex: keyboard shortcuts…) _remove unnecessary? optimize? automate? delegate?

Night

Avoid working after 19h : this is a safe block in case you have a temporary need for more work hours.

No screen policy after 8pm, to facilitate sleeping

Tips

• NO to-do list : instead, put in your things as events in your calendar. If it’s not a priority, put it next month. If it’s important, put it for this afternoon. It will force you to put a deadline on things, and avoid procrastination. Also reminders are automatic, so you don’t have to worry about forgetting something any longer. Last advantage : things that aren’t really important that you pout for next month, when you arrive on them the following month they are probably going to garbage => you didn’t lose time on it.
• Batch Similar Tasks : read all you emails at once, create all blog post for the week, create all FB Ads at once… You will save time since all the tools are open & your mind is ready for it. Try to find a timeslot in the agenda for it.
• Interruption : First of all, interruption must be fought fiercely. Once it comes, just write a note in your google calendar with it’s interruption to tackle at the end of the day. But don’t let this interrupt your current task ! For iphone users : here is how to control notification at once. I personally only keep phone calls possible: if people are going to talk to me, it’s that it’s important (but never answer unknown numbers to avoid commercial calls)
• Music : if you feel distracted, just cut your music to focus. if people are talking to you, keep your headphones to show the world you are busy (if you are at your workplace)
• Meetings must be short & prepared by a timekeeper person. Decisions must get out of it : if only informative make very very short or send a video.
• if you get distracted by gmail on your computer => pause incoming email with this chrome extension

Work / Life balance

Jean de la Rochebrochard gives a lot of tips about how to handle this in his book Human machine. If I make it very short, here are the tricks to balance this :

• Decide how much of your life you want ot spend with your family, work, yourself, and socially.
  ex : on a typical day, 8-9am = Y | 9-12am = W | 12-1pm = S | 1-7pm = W | 7-8pm = S | 8-10pm = F | 10-11pm = Y
  ex: on a typical year, 12 weeks of holidays
• Know yourself. It comes in two parts
  • You must acknowledge how your brain works : instinct VS thinking. The first one is always on, triggers laziness, makes you brain switch too often. The second one is ideal for logical decisions. Both are important, but must be used at different times.
  • Know your strenght VS weakness : do it with a positive thinking so that you help yourself by creating the best environment to avoid / sollicitate these caracteristcs. Use your weaknesses in areas where they can be an advantage.
• Protect your time. Learn how to say no in a respectful way, to protect yourslef and avoid overbooking.
• Block “free time slot” to give yourself extra hours when late on some task, or dealing with unexpected
• split your work time into three moments : high intensity work (VIP single task, no sollication), social interactions (open to talk, don’t forget 10min break before), inductive (sport, meditation, no-email, no-social)
• take breaks

Reference

BBC study
Pomodoro wiki Medium of Liz Huber Forbes tips
Human Machine by Rochebrochard