I just spend 2 hours responding to all my emails. Started at 9 AM and finished at 11 AM. Did you know that if you want to accomplish anything in life or work it generally breaks down into 2 hours time slots? Don’t believe me — that’s all right. But here’s the insight.
Normal Life (going to work all day)
- Get up, get ready, go to work (2 hours)
- At work, there are four – 2 – productivity hour slots through the day.
- Leave work, get home, have dinner, clean up (2 hours)
- Workout, watch TV, play with kids (various 2 hours)
- Go to bed and crash, repeat.
In essence, you have seven or eight 2-hour productivity timeslots throughout the day. Now that you are working at home you just need to use your time differently. Make a few adjustments.
Here are the rules (adjust as you need too):
Anything you want to accomplish breakdown into 2-hour time slots. Each 2-hour slot has two 1-hour power slots and each 1-hour power slot has a 5 to 10-minute break to allow you to re-focus.
6 am to 8 am: Get up, have coffee and breakfast (instead of getting ready for work), read something, play guitar, workout, play with the kids, or plan your day. Point is, instead of rushing to work, take time for you.
8:00 am to 10:00 am Focus on intense tasks – writing or whatever
10:00 am to 12:00 pm: Focus on intense tasks – writing or whatever
Break for lunch – walk, do something.
- 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm – Attend meetings, respond to phone calls
- 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm – Adm, prepare, etc
- 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm – Get dinner, play with kids, go for a walk
- 7 pm to 9:00 pm – work out, read, play, work
- 9:00 pm to 11:00 pm – get ready for bed, read, watch TV, etc
This does not need to be perfect. A bit of time-setting and structure development will help you work from home. Adjust as you need too.
I will get up at 7 am and start working around 9 am. I don’t have a commute, so I have chilled out a little over time, but I do have a work start time. Lots of times I will work out at 3 pm to 5 pm with a long walk, bike ride, and a workout at home. The trade-off is I use my evening from 7 pm to 9 pm times-slot for work. Generally, I focus on administration tasks that add up to 2 hours to complete. The difference is, you should have control over your time. Really, you won’t miss anything from work, and you can stay connected with your smartphone.
Remember every 2-hours has two 1-hour time slots. Each 1-hours slots has a 5 or 10-minute breather or break to help re-focus. During the power-slot-time focus intentionally at the task at hand. That means shut off distractions. For example, looking at how many likes you got on Facebook. If you need to check out FB, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram, schedule it. Could be part of your break or another timeslot. You 5 to 10 minutes re-focus could simply be a bathroom break, go up and down-stairs, etc. I just had WASA with Peanut Butter snack. Took me 5 to 10 minutes. Done and back to work.
Structure your day accordingly and use your time wisely. It will help you be set for success.
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Watch for edits and changes to this post/article. It was written in a power-slot not a Work-slot. There will be changes.
Most importantly, you make it a great day!
Richard
