[powerpress]
:32 – The Problem: No Solid Blocks of Time

As people who work from home and raise children, it’s rare that we have significant solid chunks of time to devote to large projects. Looking at my own schedule, I do have a few good chunks of working time, but it doesn’t always feel like I am making a lot of progress when I try to squeeze a large project into small windows in my schedule. How can I make the most of these increments?

1:30 – Condensed, smaller blocks of time might actually allow you to achieve more.
1:50 – Many creative pursuits seem to lend themselves to needing larger sections of time. We often tend to feel as if we need these large chunks of time in order to make meaningful progress
Examples:
-Large Art Projects
-Websites
-Book Writing

03:06 – It’s like reading a book
Rachel – “I take a book to the grocery store and read it while I’m standing in line. I can’t often sit down and consume a whole book. I have to take it in increments. If you read 15 minutes here and 15 minutes there, eventually you will have read the whole book. It’s just going to take a little longer than you might have wanted.” Don’t feel like you HAVE to read a whole chapter. Sometimes when we let our work sit, we can come back with a fresh mind and finish it even faster.

4:43 – The case for why this is a better way to work

What’s really happening when we work an 8 hour day? What’s really happening when we try to approach our smaller chunks of time this way?
-We tend to get distracted more easily because we naturally seek out rest.
-We tend to pace our work based not on the volume of work that we have, but on the amount of time we’ve been given to complete it. If you’re given 30 minutes to run a mile, you’ll run it more slowly than you would if you had been given 10 minutes.

6:36 – Brain fatigue
When we are working intensely over larger sections of time we tend to get tired. Your brain needs breaks. Parceling it out in smaller time segments makes us more effective.

7:22 – The importance of intentional, healthy types of rest

You will naturally seek out rest, but when you’re not doing it intentionally you will not experience a healthy kind of rest. If I looked back at my schedule and how I spent my time, I’d probably find that I spent the same amount of time on distractions that I would want to spend on intentional rest, without the benefits of intentional rest.
Rachel – “The small little breaks we take on social media, reading the latest article that pops up in our feed, are not as healthy of a way of resting as actually taking intentional blocks of time reading something inspiring or instructive for 30 minutes or so.”
Ben – “I would say that even if you were going to read articles or watch videos on social media sites, doing so intentionally in a set aside block of time is healthier than allowing yourself to do it when you should be focused on work. Make a habit of setting aside intentional resting time, then answer the question of whether or not it is the healthiest activity. Don’t let rest ‘happen’ to you in the form of distraction, but intentionally choose rest as an activity.”

10:23 – Everyone should work this way

Maybe you have 10-12 hours per day that you can work. Even if this is the case, you should section out your work this way; blocks of intensely focused working time, separated by intentional periods of rest.

10:52 – People in strained circumstances are at an advantage
We who are in difficult circumstances may have more practice with working this way because we HAVE to. We are the lucky ones… maybe.

11:55 – What do we need to make this work to reach a state of flow?

– 12:02 – We need enough time to reach a state of flow
Rachel – “Maybe at first it takes a while to reach a state of flow, but the more you practice it, the less time it takes, eventually getting to where you can sit down and flow right away.”
Ben – “All you have to do it press a button and off you go?”
Rachel – “It’s just focused practice. You have to condition yourself to do it.”

– 13:33 – We need an interruption free environment
We don’t just need no interruptions, but no chance of interruption. In order to fully focus on our work we need the assurance that interruptions will not happen. It’s worth it to be clear about what you need. There is a real cost per interruption, especially if it takes you a while to get back into flow. Interruptions can come in the form of notifications, chat rooms, social media feed, etc. Turn them OFF!

– 14:47 – We need intentional rest
There doesn’t have to be a formula or fixed amount of time, but the rest does have to be intentional.

16:13 – Working this way is like a muscle we build

Our bodies work this way. The more we eat a certain way, or exercise a certain way, or sleep at a specific time, the more our bodies respond and come to expect these patterns. It’s the same principal athletes use with conditioning. Not only does it increase your threshold for focused work, but your mind and body will come to expect exertion under certain circumstances or within specific constraints, and will rise to the challenge.

“I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.”
― W. Somerset Maugham

It’s good to capture inspiration throughout your day, but it’s the consistent, daily showing up and doing the work that allows you to do your best work.

19:08 – Building this as a muscle is a great way to think about it.
You may not be able to focus intensely for very long at first, but the practice of doing this regularly will over time allow you to focus for longer and longer periods of time.

19:44 – Sometimes it’s not the actual work, but things external to work that help you achieve greater focus

– 19:58 – Eating the right kind of diet.
– 20:12 – Getting enough sleep
This one probably belongs on the top of the list.
– 20:26 – Meditating
Meditation can drastically increase your ability to focus because it is in itself the practice of focusing on one thing.
– 21:42 – Schedule and limit screen time
Our modern access to social media and television is re-wiring our brains for limited focus. Studies show that children, in order to thrive in the school environment and experience healthy emotional growth, should be limited to 20 minutes of screen time per day. Maybe you need to have a significant amount of screen time for your design work, but we can limit and intentionally schedule our time for social media and television so that it doesn’t rob us of our focus.
– 23:31 – Journaling
Keeping a journal is a great way to clear your mind and de-stress.
Rachel – “I have a writers journal where I write down how things went with my day, or what is stressing me out in my work, or things I need to get done the next day, and I also have a mom journal where I complain about all of the craziness we go through on a day to day basis. I’ve found that when you write those things down it not only clarifies your struggles, but also helps you to find resolution. It’s kind of like telling a story.”
– 25:13 – Exercise
Studies show that exercise actually increases productivity.
Rachel – “Employers should let their employees cut out 30-45 minutes/day to go to the gym.”

Think about these things as vital to the success of your work. These things are as important and as vital to your work as the work itself IF it help your work to be more effective. Don’t look at it like “work is work” and “rest is rest.” All of those things are working together to help you do your best work.

– 26:45 – Maintain healthy relationships
You can’t always avoid relationship strain and the resulting affects on our work-flow. There may be days that are a wash, but we should treat maintaining healthy relationships and spending time with the ones we love as a vital aspect of our work.

28:52 – The “90 Minute” workday theory

A study was done a couple of years ago on CEOs of major companies. They found that of the 8-10 hours they spent in the office, they were actually only getting about 90 minutes worth of actual work done. They found that the more time they spent in the office the less actual work they completed. The theory is that if you want to stay on par with the CEOs of these companies, all you have to do is work hard for 90 minutes per day. According to this theory, if you have 2 90 minute blocks per day, you’re actually getting two days worth of work done per day.

30:08 – Rachel – “What do CEOs do?”

30:35 – Rachel – “We’ve seen in our own lives that it plays out this way.
The days I go into an office, I pretty much don’t get anything done.”
It’s not just the interruption, but the chance that you could be interrupted at any moment that keeps you from doing good work.
Rachel – “The times that I work from home and have those concentrated times, I can produce as much as another writer could in a few days.

31:46 – I’ve got 8 Blocks!
Looking at my schedule, after accounting for all of the other things that I do weekly (newsletter, blog, etc.) I still had 8 90 minute blocks open.

It’s worth trying out and testing your output. You only know if you actually try it.

33:02 – It doesn’t have to be 90 minutes.
There can be variations. It doesn’t have to be 90 minutes. You don’t necessarily have to just work on 1 thing. Find out what works best for you.

34:08 – Change Your Unit of Measurement

What if you’re saying “I see how this can be helpful, BUT it still doesn’t feel like a lot of progress on a large project?”

Change your unit of measurement. A foot (twelve inches) doesn’t feel like a long distance to us, but it is for the inchworm. Zoom in on your work and base your idea of progress on what you accomplish when zoomed in. You do need to zoom out from time to time, but if you’re only zoomed out, you will feel discouraged at the amount of progress you see on a day to day basis.

35:32 – Rachel – “People have asked me, ‘how do you get so much writing done with so little time?’
I write in increments. When you can get into the practice of that, your mind can more readily jump into it when you do have time, allowing you to take advantage of those increments. All of those little increments add up over time to a completed project.

37:00 – Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder.

There’s something about taking rest and being away from your work that activates the “absence makes the heart grow fonder” rule where you’re actually eager to get back to your work and approach it with the right kind of enthusiasm or energy.

Bottom line. I believe this is the best way to work. High impact working times, separated by intentional rest. I encourage you to test this out and see how it influences your output. My hope is that as you do, you will find your way to being even more effective with your limited time than you ever thought possible!

 

Your hosts:

Ben Toalson
www.bentoalson.com
twitter.com/bentoalson

Rachel Toalson
www.racheltoalson.com
twitter.com/racheltoalson