If you have read my previous blogs “How to be more productive” and “Pomodoro”, then by this time you must be convinced that why focus is important and how to measure productivity.
No matter, how much you are convinced, but productivity cannot come alone, if you do not have routine in your life and keep wasting your time on unnecessary activities.
Routine?
When we wake up in morning, we brush our teeth, take a shower, and attend office from 9 – 5, watch TV and cook food in evening and go to bed. Our office time between 9 – 5 is also pretty structured i.e. responding emails, attending meeting, delivering code. This is called routine. We are doing this from last so many years without any second thought. Of course, Time to time, we take break from this routine and go for vacations.
To increase opportunities in our career, we need to ensure that we are not wasting time and utilizing our time wisely. Since we have to devote 8 hours to office, 8 hours to sleep and let’s say 3 hours for food and other activities. Still we have 5 hours per day where we can plan to enhance our skills. It means total 35 hours per week, which is approximately same as our full time job.
Stop Wasting Time
You must be surprised that you have 5 hours to use but not sure that where they are.
To find those, first you need to write it down our daily routine from waking up to go to bed. Find out, where is your time going before and after office hours. Most of us are fond of watching TV, cooking food, social media and so on and spend our extra hours there. We need to write down all activities which we are doing during our day.
Once you are ready with your list, you know, which activities are big time eater i.e. if you are watching TV for 3 hours per day, means you are spending 21 hours per week. You spend 40 hours per week in office, so it is just half time of that. Unfortunately you are not gaining anything from TV. If you stop watching TV, you will save 20 hours and invest to enhance your skills.
By this time, you know where is your time going and what you can cut down to utilize that to put your career to next level.
Set Routine
Next most important step is that we need to put structure in our daily life. When we put structure in our life, we know that what we need to do when to achieve our goal, it also helps us to utilize our time wisely. Good news is that most of us goes to office from 9-5 and work there structurally. We just need to set routine for rest of hours by following below steps:
Step 1: You already have list of activities which you do daily. Identify and replace time wasting activities to your skill enhancement activities.
Step 2: Restructure your day in such a way that you are finishing your most important activities before going office. When you will finish your important activities as first tasks of day, you feel good and more energetic. To achieve this, If you need to wake up little early in morning, by all means, please do so. It will ensure that you are moving to you main goal consistently without any interruptions.
Earlier I was used to go Gym after office hours, I realized that most of time, I was tired, having unplanned events or some important work which need to finish before going to bed. Ultimately I was attending Gym only 2-3 days in a week. I changed my routine, I started to go to Gym in morning and I am attending now 6 days in a week.
Step 3: Plan your routine for weekdays because you are already going to office and family and friends have understanding that you will be very less available during those days. I do not plan much over weekend. Here my Pomodoro techniques works. Since I achieve my 40 – 45 pomodoros in weekdays, I just give 4 -8 pomodoros in weekend and spend quality time with my friend and family.
My weekday routine is:
4:30 AM -> Read new technology
7:00 AM -> Workout in Gym
8:00 AM -> Breakfast
9:00 AM -> Office
1:00 -> Lunch
2:00 -> Research on my working technology
2:30 -> Finishing rest of planned office works
5:00 -> Spend time with family
7:00 -> Dinner
7:30 PM -> Read books, blogs and tutorials
9.30 PM -> Go to Bed
My weekend routine is:
4:30 AM -> Read new technology
7:00 AM -> Workout in Gym
This is time where you should stop reading this blog and create your own daily routine list, identify big time wasters, use that time to skills enhancement tasks, restructure your day to finish your mind activity skill enhancement tasks before going office. It will ensure that you are moving to your destination at steady speed.