First - timing was (is) not good. At begin of May my wife had to leave for a week, and this meant I had much more things on my todo list, and less time to work. Working on the evening was a must. When she came back work has gone crazy and schedules for projects I was running get crammed, some old projects which were waiting for outcome from other people suddenly have resurrected… So, I have no choice, but work hard ;)

Second - definitely I’m not a early riser… I mean - I can get up at 6 AM with not much hassle, but even I went to bed early, my mind does not work before 9 AM - nothing helps - coffee, water, exercise…

Taking this all in account - I have to give up with this for now. I plan to try again with this goal, but I had to choose better timing…

Yesterday I was talking with my wife and we got to conclusion that I still spend too much time working with computer. One of my basic goals when I have started freelancing and working from home, was to get more quality time with my family. I did some checks with my time logs and I think it could be possible to change my daily schedule to get more done during the day.

Welcome new 30 days trial:

No more working on computer in the evenings

No more work in the evenings (c) apbeatty

What changes in my schedule this will cause? I guess I have to wake up a bit more earlier to get some work done before my children are awake. Usually I do wake up at 7am. In my I set alarm in my cell phone to 6am. Other changes probably won’t be needed, I just have to max my productivity between 10am and 3pm.

I wonder if this will be enough :)

I expect to make two exceptions. First - I do work for customers in United States, and there are sometimes urgent fixes to be made. With time zone difference I have to make sometimes changes in the evening of my time. Well, these are business needs and I have to serve my customers and I don’t have problem with that. Besides this does not happen very often - I think 2 or 3 times in the month, so it should not be a problem.

Second exception is related to my latest hobby and business. I have decided to give a try with programing microcontrollers. This was few months ago and and I have discovered Arduino. I want to make some designs with Arduino and I will do this in the evening. Some computer work required :)

And effort needed to keep it clean is very low. When I have started this trial, I was concerned it will take much more time. I guess the main point is to do it every day. That way mess is not accumulating and multiplying in some magical ways.

This will be probably takeaway from this trial - do it every day and You will get far. Not only keeping mess under control, but with other goals too.

I took a step back, grab camera and... believe me it is not so messy as usual...

No more!

At least I’ll try. This is topic for my next 30 day trial. To keep desk tidy and clean. At end of each day (just before planing for a next day) I will go through all items on my desk and try to put them back to place they belongs.

This is how my desk looked like on morning two days later:

Now I feel much better

And I want to keep that way. Having desk neat and clean really helps to stay focused on my goals. Less clutter around me gives me less cluttered mind.

My original idea was to create Flickr set with everyday photo of my desk, however I’m not using Flickr and don’t have an account. And trying to get one gave me a lot ideas why Yahoo! fails so badly competing with Google… But this is topic for another posting.

Anyway - I will post updates here with pictures of my desk on mornings. Not each morning, but from time to time. I guess especially when I fail with cleaning day before :)

So quick status update:

• I think my live with a plan trial is a success - I use my own system on daily basis
• I have dropped one hundred push-ups workout plan at begin of 5th week - progress was set to steep for me - but I do push-ups on regular basis, however not one hundred :)

In next few days I will write here how my personal GTD system does look. After few weeks I have made some changes, and now it servers me very well.

2009 is in progress

So, we have year 2009 in progess. Have You set Your own goals for 2009? I recommend You to do so, if You have not yet set them. If not my advice, maybe Seth’s will do!

I will share my goals for 2009 on this blog - my experience with setting goals for 2007 and 2008 was positive (I mean that having goal was motivating me to push for those goals).

First, I start with good news - hundred push-ups challenge goes according plan. I have finished fourth week, and have to say I’m amazed by effects. When I have started, on initial test I could do 11 pushups. On test two weeks ago I did 28. This week have managed to make over 40. Good progress.

This training schema is good (at least for me), each set is challenging. Last series in set is hard to achieve, I struggle a bit to finish. After that I feel tired, my muscles know I was exercising, however it is not painful experience - just how it should be ;)

That was good news. With my real 30 day trial for this time, is not so good. First two weeks were disaster with planning. I was traveling to my relatives for few days, so this have sent my normal schedule to the orbit.

Last 10 days are better, but I still need some improvement. One thing I may say for sure, that ToStop list is working. I really avoid activities I put on it.

I guess I have discovered key thing to make my planning success. It is evening planning. If I rememebr to sit down after I turned computer off with my notebook (like You know, paper thing) and think about what I need to do, next day it is much easier start focused on my tasks. It is something deeper than just having a list to do, since even if I start a day making such list it does not have such impact. Planing before going to sleep enables some part of my brain to work overnight, apparently.

I do prefer to use paper notebook to make some planing.
Image (c) Amy Loves Yah

Ok, it is time to turn this damn thing off and make some planning with pencil and paper. BTW - I’m now using paper much more often than earlier. I think that it is something with making plans on paper. I use it mostly to write down ideas into some more structured forms. It serves very well, mostly because of it’s simplicity and with removed distractions (any electronic device or software is full of them).

And I gave paper a chance after I have read Todoodlist - I recommend this reading. I haven’t adopted this system (however I tried) but it is great call for simplicity and gives some ideas how You can effectively use plain, old notebook and pencil to manage Your time.

On my being more healthy front I have started new challenge. It is not exactly good topic for 30 day trial, but I will tell You what I’m talking about. On Andrew’s site I have noticed this banner:

One hundred pushups - Do You dare?

What is this about? As You can read on this site:

If you’re serious about increasing your strength, follow this six week training program and you’ll soon be on your way to completing 100 consecutive push ups!

So, I decided to give it a try. I have finished week 1 and I’m thrilled to start week 2 :) This is good program - it sets goal, gives You training instructions and after first week I think it is perfectly doable to finish it.

My new 30 day trial

As I wrote in last post this time I want to address my lack of being organized. Maybe it is not so bad, but I would feel better if I could organize my work a bit more. I was trying GTD and other productivity schema, but I have not found (yet) my perfect match.

Now I will try to use daily/weekly TODO list to keep myself more on track. Now few more details how I plan to do.

First - no computer to mange those lists - I’m using simple notebook and pencil. On the week beginning I will prepare list of goals for incoming week. On each evening I will prepare list for next day. All tasks should be doable in given time - so this is not infinite ToDo list with all ideas which I may consider in future. For such ideas I have separate file :)

What is important? Goals should be precise and not too generic - implement one well defined feature for customer, write post on blog, etc. This is method for splitting larger projects into smaller chunks of work and keeping me focused on what is really important to get things done. I will keep this list for my freelance gigs, maybe I will expand it to other areas of my life if this system will work for me.

I think this is simple and quite popular system. But I add one more thing to it ToStop list. For each week I will analyze what was my biggest time sink last week and prepare list things I should avoid. Like addictive casual game or reading blogs…

Metrics
I need some good metrics whether I go with my system for my 30 day trial. I will count day a successful one when:

• I manage to work on daily goals - it is OK not to finish them if there was good reason - feature turned out not so simple, task was depend on third person work, etc
• I avoid ToStop pitfalls
• I find time at the end of day to prepare list for next day

I was trying and tweaking this system last two weeks and I think it has some potential for me. The key point is it keep me focused on what I need to do and keep me alter on those little things which can eat time in front of computer.

Being successful and reaching for Your goal is empowering :) (c) rikones

Yes, I do feel great - those full 30 days with running everyday made a change in my habits. Even when busy it has become natural to go out and run. Idea of 30 day trial has worked for me! During 30 days from counter reset I have run over 120 km - quite a result taking in account I was sitting before computer last few years. Last time I was exercising it was 2005? Or 2004?

It seems that 4 km daily are some kind of boundary for me, since I’ve tried few times longer distance (5.5 km) but I got pain in calves around 4 km on second or third day and need to stop. For now I have settled on 4 km.

What next with running everyday?

I know I will be running almost everyday in next months. Almost - since I know I will have to give up on weekends. On those I have time to run only in late evening, and I guess in next months weather won’t be encouraging. On work days I can run around noon - this is definitely good aspect of being freelancer ;)

Next 30 days?

What habit should I address next? I’m not quite sure yet, but this time I will try to address my lack of being organized. Stay tuned for details.

Third day after making route longer is for me some kind of crisis. I have observed that also earlier - today (third day on this 5.5 km route) it was just hard and awful. I had to slowdown few times, my legs were sooo heavy, after 4 km I had to stop and make stretch exercises. Today’s time was no reason to be proud (41 minutes) but I was happy I did it at all ;)) Two other times on this route were 35′ 40″ and 33′ 55″. And not only better times, but experience was much better. I hope tomorrow it will much better than today…

But I hope it is over - cough almost vanished completely and weather is much nicer - sunny, 15 degrees - ideal conditions to run. Today I will try to run to Bielanski Forrest, on a bit longer route (I think I will try something about 5 - 5.5 km). OK I jump into shoes, put headphones into ears and go!