How do you manage your focus and motivation throughout the day?
How do you manage your focus and motivation throughout the day? Are you using some automated system, software, or just do it manually?
I've spent an obscene amount of time fine-tuning my productivity system and I came up with a hybrid solution of a task tracker and pen-and-paper journaling to keep my day focused and productive. With that, I have the certainty that while nothing is ever lost (out of memory), but also I'm not overwhelmed with the sheer amount of things to remember and do :-)
I'm interested in how you see this topic because being motivated and productive is also part of the coaching I offer for founders and startups — is it a big issue? Is it something you ever spend time thinking about?
Ow man i try to do multiple breaks during the day, especially with the whole covid stuff happening these days
Makes sense! 😁
I often journal throughout the day. For example, whenever some thoughts or questions or ideas pop up during my time working on something, I will write them down. At the end of the day I have a long list of ideas or other to-dos. I use Roam Research for this.
That's a really cool way to handle these sudden thoughts :-) I either put them in my paper journal or (if they are actionable) write them in my task manager :-)
I like to make a daily checklist. When I feel myself getting distracted I pick an item on the checklist and start working on it
That's a lean approach! :-)
This thread helped me a lot back then [offense/defense time; peak hours; big stuff first; reduce context switching] => https://twitter.com/AmandaMGoetz/status/1258393849870913537
The last point is the most important.
I also like the hybridized approach @pawel_cubitoo. It is great to have things mapped out on a digital calendar, but using a pen and paper to keep track of tasks and notes is always great to have by your side.
Hi Paweł, I came at this from the perspective of maintaining momentum.
You have a process that works for you, and that's excellent!
Splitting things up between analogue (pen, paper, and so on) and digital involves keeping some of the structure of things in our heads, and — as we know — this is fallible. But then digitising the structure sometimes makes things too complex, too (folders within folders, tags and so on).
Organisation is a tax to be paid up front, or in the future.
Anyone working on large projects, or doing complex research (like a journalist) knows that folders and tags have their limitations, and these are the problems I'm working on with a product I'm developing.
I too have a pretty extensive note-taking / personal knowledge management system, but in my case based on Emacs and Orgmode. I've written up the whole thing here: https://cpbotha.net/2019/09/21/note-taking-strategy-2019/
However, because I also need a little help sometimes maintaining my focus by blocking distractions (chat apps, websites that are far too interesting like reddit and twitter), I made a small Windows app called Lazar Focus.
Lazar Focus blocks all distractions, both apps and websites of your choosing, so that you can focus on your work. It also keeps track of all of your focus blocks over time, and can optionally automatically log all of your activities for in-depth personal analytics.
4 minute intro video here: https://youtu.be/G8z7ZACPtrc and blog post explaining philosophy here: https://lazarfocused.com/2020/06/06/the-philosophy-behind-lazar-focus/
Definitely, visiting communities like IH and reading through stories, listening to all the hustles, the ones like me not giving up, who are trying to make big things happen with no or little resources.
I always look up to people for inspiration, knowing there are ones like you out there that give me strength during hard times. Despite these, sometimes when there are a bit too many problems, I just take a nap. I am not sure if this helps you, let me know.
A post-it with weekly goals and lots of pomodoro timers.
I also work with some projects, and each one uses different organization systems. So I look at what are my assignments at trello/github and schedule all my tasks with a rough pomodoro cycles estimative and start working :)
I try to keep my systems as simple as possible and start working as fast as I can.
I like GTD for that part of getting things out of my head and how to organise stuff.
But on the other side I think learning to watch myself more is a stronger side to the equation, start noticing when I start to get a little irritable and figure out why, is it hunger, temp, something mentally pinging me, emotional state off track for something small or large... I think this one is bigger and harder due it sounds trivial I think it's too easy not to.
GTD is a great solution when I have enough time to do it in a disciplined way — when my backlog gets too large it gets super hard to manage, still :(