Day #7: How to plan your day and stay productive? (without a boss)
This topic came up last weekend, in a conversation with some friends, they are surprised at how to stay disciplined in a daily routine as a Solopreneur.
New life, new routines?
I kept the exact same routine, but now I just have more options
As I told you in my previous articles, I just became a (wannabe) solopreneur one week ago, when I got laid off from my previous employer. So, I drastically change my routine… or, not really? Actually, I didn’t change so much, because I already had a routine based on the method of daily goals, and focus to achieve those goals. For my last 4 years, I was an Engineering Manager, part of my role is actually to identify how my team can be more effective, productive, and organized, with the focus of value delivering (I will write an article about this role in the coming days). Also, I’ve been working remotely since 2015, so, I actually have been working by myself for a while. Sure, working remotely it’s not exactly the same as working on my own, but the basis for routine is the same.
So, actually, when I started as a Solopreneur, I didn’t change my routine, I kept the exact same routine, but now I just have more options.
Let's take a look at my weekday previous routine as an Engineering Manager:
- 7 am wake up, shower, and have breakfast;
- 7:45 am, gym;
- 9:30 am, plan my day based on main and achievable goals
- 9:45 am, first meeting with the team;
- 9:45 am — 5:30, pm daily work;
- 6 pm, start working on my side projects until 10 pm (with dinner break);
Now, my new routine as a Solopreneur:
- 7 am wake up, shower, and have breakfast;
- 7:45 am, plan my day based on main and achievable goals;
- 8 am, start writing an article for David, @journeypreneur blog;
- 9 am, work on projects;
- 10 am, gym;
- 12 am lunch outside and stay work out of home until 7:30 pm (now I don’t work after 7:30 pm)
- (as an Engineering Manager it wasn’t so easy to work outside because I was all day in video calls and it’s a big problem the environment noise and lack of connection);
So, that is my new routine, and as you can see, nothing drastically actually changed in my routine, only the projects that I’m working on on a daily basis and now I have more freedom to organize properly my day (for instance, have a break to go to the gym, instead of going in the rush in the morning to the gym). But, the core routines I kept the same, I wake up at the same time, plan my day at the beginning of the morning, keep the focus on the projects and deliveries, and I still go to the gym to spend some physical energy. It’s important that when you are on your own (working remotely or working as a solopreneur), you keep the same routines and focus on what you have planned for the day, this will help you on avoiding procrastination (that is the worst that can happen when you have freedom of choice).
How do I plan my day?
Planning your day is something critical to make you productive and effective in what you expect to deliver until the end of the working day.
Since the beginning of my career, I followed a method of planning the goals of the day, rather than the tasks to be done during the day.
I focus on what I expect to deliver until the end of the day, what kind of value I’m expecting to deliver? Only after defining the goal/expected results of the day, I will identify what kind of tasks I have to do to reach that goal? I usually do this while I’m taking my breakfast or taking the coffee before I start working, here the goals for today:
But, be realistic, and define achievable goals, rather than too much ambitious. The idea of defining goals is really to try to achieve them, it’s not supposed that you will miss any goal. This is an important part of defining goals, define realistic goals in a way that it will not be acceptable to fail those goals. Then, if you can do a bit more than that, is up to you, you just can’t overpass the time you set for the workday (in my case is until 7:30 pm, I will not work after that time).
How to get deep focus and disciplined during the day?
Small goals to achieve in short timelines (not more than 30 minutes)
To achieve the focus, start by defining the daily (achievable) goals you already did is one of the most important actions to keep you focus during the day because you know to achieve those goals, you must be focused as much as possible.
But being focused doesn’t mean that you will work 8 hours straight, that is not being productive, that is just being a robot doing stuff. Being focused is defining a small period of what you expect to deliver some value, usually the small tasks that you defined to achieve the daily goals. To keep the focus there is one simple rule: just focus on what you are doing. Define a timeline for the task you will execute (not more than 30 minutes), turn off your phone notifications, and try to disable any other notification tool, to guarantee that you will keep the focus on what you are doing.
You need to reach a deep focus level to be productive, but to get this level of focus you really need to keep the focus for a period of time. That’s why also, we should define a short timeline, if we define a short period of time, your brain knows that after that period it will be able to rest, so it will do the best it can to achieve the goal to then get the reward, rest and see the final results.
My plan for today
For today, and to give you my example, this is my plan (also you can try to read my picture above):
- Write this article (of course), about how to plan a day as a solopreneur;
- Keep working on https://Remote-Work.app to integrate the new data source of remote jobs
- As explained in this article: https://medium.com/@journeypreneur/day-6-how-i-will-build-multiple-niche-products-with-a-single-source-of-data-acb7f1977b43 I’m building many products focusing on Remote Jobs but for particular niche markets, right now I’m already ingesting job offers from some remote companies, now I have to ingest and catalog the data, and start presenting this data on the current existing product: https://Remote-Work.app (to list the whole job offers)
So, this is my plan for today, it’s a bit ambitious but I believe it’s achievable.
What about you? Do you work on your own? What are your routines? What kind of method do you use to keep the focus on delivering value?
I hope this article could help you on getting more productive, feel free to give me your feedback.
Have a nice week,
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