Hey friends,
Do you feel stuck too? Not as productive as you used to be?
Today I'm going to share:
- Why I suck at time management.
- Why working from home affects my productivity.
- How I’m trying to fix it with a daily routine.
It’s a very short and practical piece. Let’s start.
What is my problem?
I have been working almost 10-11 hours a day. It’s a lot, BUT… I’m not happy with the results or with my progress. I feel that I am not maximizing my time. The results are much slower than what they could be. Also, since my new company is almost a one-man band, multitasking is affecting my focus for doing the main work.
Let’s break down my current tasks:
Editing some short videos for clients. (To build my media company, I need cash flow. I talked about it here).
Working on my first online course (My first product/ one of my main tasks).
Teaching an online workshop (to validate my courses' ideas).
Feeding NXT ANIMAL social media (a very time consuming task, but it is vital for building an audience).
Writing a weekly newsletter (to form a deeper relationship with my audience).
Household tasks (running to Petco to buy crickets for Daniel’s leopard gecko is one of them).
And… I’m behind in almost everything. This newsletter is supposed to be in your inbox on Sunday afternoon! I am one day behind.
What do I need?
After reflecting on my daily schedule, I figured that these are my problems:
I miss a strict daily and weekly routine.
After the pandemic, I lost my job. I started to build my own company and also started working from home. All of this resulted in slowly losing my routine. In the beginning, I was happy to have an unplanned lunch with a friend or to play with my son at any time of the day. But then I realized that my focus is not there anymore. The more I lose my routine, the harder it seems to get back into the zone. So I need a routine again.
Little and short tasks are killing me.
Dealing with regular stuff is boring— sending money to copywriters, calling to see why the internet is not working, making different versions of finished videos for clients, etc. Although I don’t have enough money to hire someone for these tasks now, I might be able to organize them a bit better.
Here is the rescue plan
I don’t want to reinvent the wheel again. I simply want to try and see if I can borrow successful people's routines and implement them in my own life. That’s how I started analyzing other artists and personalities' daily plans.
But who might be a good fit? Leonardo da Vinci? Pablo Picasso? Barack Obama? Finally, I decided to go with Casey Neistat’s plan.
Why him?
He is a crazy creator from New York who has a small family. This makes him feel like one of us. Maybe that’s why I found his routine kind of similar to my old pre-pandemic one.
Here, I’m breaking down Casey's daily routine, which is from the time when he was doing daily Vlogging. (He described it to Tim Ferris differently, but let’s stick to his own words in this YouTube video).
5 am to 7 am
Waking up, uploading Vlog, and checking emails.
7-10 am
Breakfast, running, taking shower, and heading out.
10 am to 6:30 pm,
Work, work, work
7 pm to 10 pm
Family time
10 pm to 1 am
Editing his daily Vlog
1 am
Going to bed
This amounts to almost 14 hrs a day. And Casey says it was a plan for 7 days a week! Do the math!
It's no wonder he has a tattoo on his hand that reads: Work harder.
What I am borrowing from Casey
Working harder has never been a smart solution. Aside from his unique influence, Casey has a 25 million dollar failed experiment called Beme! So even getting only 4 hours of sleep a day is not a guaranteed way to complete all of your projects successfully.
However, what I need is to commit to a structure that has worked for other passionate and serious creatives. I also need to do it for a long time.
Here is how I am adjusting Casey's plan:
I know my body: I need 6 hours of sleep. I am doing Casey’s plan, but I’m going to bed from 1 am to 7 am.
I have never done this before, but I want to allocate all short and small tasks into the beginning of the day so I know that for the rest of the day I can only focus on my creations.
I want one day off. I am going to do this 6 days a week, but not for the whole week.
I am going to stick to this routine for about one month. After that, I will make a report and share it with you.
Million-dollar company… Here I come!
Talk soon,
-Reza
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