Basic workday schedule
😴 Sleep plenty. can do with 7 ours of sleep if well rested, at least 9 hours when tired.
🎁 Prep the day if possible. Having things like clothes and bag ready (and so minimising decisions to make in the morning) gives a head start.
🚲 Go to work. If desired, can start at some other place for inspiration.
☕ Warm up. Start the work day with a nice cup of coffee and minimal 15 minutes of writing on a blank A4 paper. Jot join what’s in the head concerning work. Ask questions like “What is important right now?”, “What are my priorities?”, and “What have I, in professional context, learned recently that I want to practice today?”. End this process with planning the day.
🏗️ Work on the company. Do a good chunk of deep work on one of the priorities. Aim for 3 hours, but if it is possible to do more, why not? Try to protect this time. Don’t plan meetings.
🥪/💪 Rest. Take a break.
⚙️ Work for the company. Fill the rest of the day with tasks. This will probably not be the most exciting things, but it keeps the organisation running. I operate my tasks from the Do dashboard.
🌂 Go home whenever feels right. If the energy is up, a task can take 5x more time and effort to do then when going home. Go home and rest when feeling done for 90-95%, save that extra bit of energy for important/deadline days!
✨ Enjoy life. Work comes tomorrow. The rest of the day is for the other pillars of human life.
🌀 Stressed? Don’t solve it by thinking about work. Solve it by writing about my thoughts, feelings, and the process.
🏭 How to organise an organisation
“aim for your North Stars,
plan for the foreseeable future,
operate in the moment.”
Clearly define the foundational target:
- your North Star
Any type of work that is progress towards the North Star is categorizable in either:
- Initiatives – Work on the organisation
- Practices – Work for the organisation
The complete organisation can be planned using these two types of work.
Even so, to help categorize all work and be able to oversee all, fundamental pillars are introduced that can be stickered onto each initiative or practice to categorize it.
Daily operations can be managed through a dashboard with tasks, and a weekly or daily notepad – whichever one you prefer.
Knowledge that has to be stored is put in the Notion.
Communication that can be lost over time, but that is important that everyone reads right now, should be put in dedicated communication channels. Channels that are organised such that the right people have access to the right channels at the right time.
⚙️ operating principles I follow
- Log decisions. Log them in a place visible from the place where that decision is constantly made.
- To touch is to finish
- Whenever possible, wrap up the work before switching to something else. This gives value to the work, even if its not in its desired state yet, and it keeps the mind tidy.
- It’s okay to remove/archive things, this means you’ve learned something
- Be kind to yourself in setting to do’s. Be strict to yourself in executing to do’s.
- If possible, wrap a little tie around it when finishing something up. This give more standalone value to the created piece, and it both cleans the mind and provides satisfaction.
- I remember that it is I who distracts myself the most
- I am explicit to myself (SMART)
- Approach work as sport: 1. warmup → 2. work → 3. cool down
- I organize my thoughts. I write down, such that I don’t have to remember.
- I pay attention to what I do. This rules out multitasking. Multitasking is terrible → to touch is to finish.
- I am aware of the type of energy the task requires, and I am aware of my current energy. Aligning those two is critical for stress-free work
- I track my time. Time can feel very different depending on the task and the success of execution. Tracking time calibrates my time intuition, and so enables me to learn how to pace my work.
- I practice day one thinking. Each day again, consider it as the first day at the job: what would you do?
- I can sense what my body and mind need to function well. I create an environment where I can easily act to those needs. (couch; food; go for a walk; stretch; sleep)
- When a new process has to be set up:
- Start with core values
- From these, define design principles for the new process
- Then fill in the process based on the design principles
- Brakes
- Take brakes, they are effective 🙂
- Before starting a break, make clear to yourself for how long you will take a break. Time bounding the brake will create clarity such that you can actually rest. I personally like 15-30min breaks. Shorter is often not feasible for me.
- Minimise input during breaks. No music, no phone, no writing. A break is to pause input and output.
- Breaks are great for checking in with the holy trinity. How is the body doing? Need some rest? → take a 10-20min nap. Need some nutrition? → eat or drink moderately. Need some movement? → stretch or exercise.
“Do Things That Don’t Scale”
First We start with simple, manual processes to understand them thoroughly
Once we understand a process, we can make informed decisions about how to scale it
This approach ensures we build systems based on real needs rather than theoretical requirements
Making decisions is hard… and important.
These frameworks help me.
If a binary choice has to be made between many options:
- Longlist: how many are you okay with trying?
- Shortlist: 1/3 see without choosing
- Then: Choose the best next option you find
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