Blokky

When I was first digging into my project work, I learned of a habit building strategy called 30x30.

The concept is simple, but hard. Spend 30 minutes a day on whatever habit you want to build (in this case, building your project 😎), for 30 days. Here's the hard, but important part - you can not spend more than 30 minutes.

Some days, 30 minutes will be easy. You'll flow through a bunch of work. But some days it will be really hard, you'll get distracted or finish very little. By limiting to 30 minutes, you'll be able to sustain the commitment, which is the most important thing for building the habit.

I made an addition to the typical 30x30 strategy -- the micro retro. When I wrapped up the 30 minutes each day, I wrote down three things:

1. What did I accomplish that day?
2. What got in the way?
3. Most importantly - what's next?

The micro retro was super helpful in understanding where I was wasting my time, and refocusing me on the goal. Here's a harsh callout - you should not be fidgeting with tiny design improvements when your core workflow doesn't work! If I found myself adjusting border colors while my core workflow didn't work, the micro retro was a great process to refocus me on what was most important for the next session.

By understanding the most important piece of work that's next for you, the daily 30 minutes become highly productive. If you want to continue improving your focus and productivity, check out timewillow.com.