[Tracking Every Minute]-Day 11 – Wednesday Win

Tracking every minute is about learning where I am spending my time. If I am not making adjustments based on what I am learning, why am I even bothering. Today is a great adjustment. Yesterday, I took 4 hours out of the working day to watch my daughters soccer game.

Worth every minute, but I did not get much work done. Today I made a plan to make up for yesterday and put in a lot of time working. Today the plan worked.

Green = work. Today was a big work day.

6:00 – 6:30. Woke up early to read before everyone else got up. Starting off with a win. I love this time, but it is shocking how hard it is for me to get it in consistently.

6:30 – 8:30. Made breakfast, walked dogs and dropped the kids off at school.

8:30 – 9:30. Had coffee with a friend after drop off and then headed into a co-working space to get some work done.

9:30 – 11:00. This was my first deep work block of the deep. Focused time with no distractions. I was heading out to work with others, so I wanted to make sure that I got some time to move this project forward.

11:00 – 1:30. Worked with partners. As much as I feel like meetings are a waste of time, they can add value. I still don’t think it was the most productive use of my time, but got a good amount out of it.

1:30 – 4:30. Second deep work block of the day. Trying to make this the norm.

4:30 – 6:00. Picked up my daughter and took her home.

6:00 – 7:00. Got another hour of work in at the home office.

7:00 – 8:00. Dinner with the family. Picked up a bit after dinner.

8:00 – 9:30. Finished out the day wrapping up some of the work I had started earlier.

Creating Habits

James Clear writes about avoiding the second mistake. Basically, we are all going to mess up. What separates the top performers from everyone else is that they won’t skip a habit twice in a row.

The habit I am trying to build is being as productive as possible, which I can measure with the amount of deep work I am putting in per day.

Yesterday, I did not get in as much work as I’d like to on a normal day. I wanted to avoid two bad days in a row by any means necessary. I planned on working extra hard today and it worked out.

Last week I made the second mistake. I had a low productivity day on Thursday and followed it up with another low productivity day on Friday. It was completely my fault, I knew about all of the events, I failed to plan around them.

Main Takeaways

• Meetings suck. I think its better to build social cohesion with focused events. Instead of a meeting that runs for 2 or 3 hours, lets have lunch and chat. Then go our own ways and work on what needs to get done.
• Super productive day, but I didn’t get in exercise. Am I sacrificing one habit for another?