I have been struggling with scattered focus during my work hours, constantly changing contexts, checking emails, and feeling overwhelmed. And I know it’s because there’s a lot going on right now. I find it difficult to decide what to do next when I look at my to-do lists.

I’ve used the Pomodoro technique with great success in the past. It’s basically a way to train attention, where you set up a timer for 25 minutes of focused work. It needs to be total focus, for the full 25 minutes: no checking email, no answering the phone, no talking to anybody. And then you take 5 minutes of rest. You do 4 cycles, then you rest for 15 minutes (long rest). I love this technique! It works really well for my brain.

However, now I'm having trouble DECIDING what to do and STARTING!

So, I'm trying out Time Blocking, using the suggestions from Cal Newport's book “Deep Work.” At some point during the pandemic, I even purchased his Time Block Planner: a paper planner customized with the way he recommends doing time blocking. At the time I used it for a week, but I thought it was too bulky to use.

But now, I’m really into doing some things using pen and paper. I feel like I can focus better, specially if I’m planning something or brainstorming ideas. So I got my Time Block Planner from the shelf and started using it again this week.

The Weekly and Daily Plans

This Time Block Planner is organized in weeks, so at the start of the week you have 2 blank pages to do some weekly planning. It’s a way to look at your commitments for the week, evaluate the amount of meetings, and do some high level planning of which projects or activities to focus on every day. It is not supposed to be detailed, it’s more like a direction for the week.

Then at the start of the work day, you make a daily plan, giving every minute of the day a job. You use the weekly plan as a guide. But you also review your calendar and look at your next actions list to decide what to focus on.

The interesting thing about Cal Newport’s planner is that you have space to renegotiate your plan in case of changes. Things will blow up, meetings will be rescheduled, and you are encouraged to rethink your daily plan and adjust it.

How it’s been so far

I started yesterday, a Monday after a long weekend. Mondays are the worst for me. I always feel overwhelmed and tired. I can never achieve anything I thought I would achieve.

The first hurdle I encountered was the decision paralysis. I couldn’t decide what to do in the morning. I scheduled half an hour first thing to make my plan. It wasn’t enough time. It didn’t help that I had 2 back to back meetings after that, and two more in the afternoon. I didn’t finish my plan, I basically updated it as I went, so it was not really planning in advance. It wasn’t a great day for deep work anyway, but I managed to complete 2 shorter tasks with the time I had in between meetings.

Today, I’m half a day in, and I planned the morning, which already changed 3 times. Then by noon I planned the afternoon. It was scary to write it down, like I wasn’t sure I could make it.

I’m discovering that I have difficulty planning ahead. For me, the future seems a homogeneous haze. I know it’s there, but I can’t really put a date to it. I am discovering that I have difficulty planning ahead in the immediate timeframe. Long-term, high-level planning is easier for me.

I will continue practicing with the Time Block Planner. It is giving me a better sense of time, and I am realizing that tasks take longer to complete than I initially thought. Sometimes I will mark 10 actions as my focus for the day, but realistically, I can only complete 1 or 2. Time blocking is helping me slow down, and slowing down is key for processing information and planning.

#productivity #timeblocking #planning #work #journal

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

Tomorrow I’ll be back to working at the office full time. I’ve been working from home since April 5th, 2021 now. And before that, it was 30 days at home in January/February. So it was a total of 86 days working from home in 2021 or almost 60% of the total days.

I don’t hate working from home, on the contrary, I think it’s refreshing. Maybe if I lived someplace bigger with a dedicated office to work on, I would say I could never go back to a corporate office environment again. But the industry I work in doesn’t really appreciate remote work. On the contrary, my company believes that remote work can’t and will never build “the corporate culture”. They’ve given the employees the means to work from home during the worst of the pandemic when we were in lockdown. But deep down, most managers deeply hated it.

After the first lockdown period, where everybody was working from home, the senior managers of my company decided that they can’t do it, so they came back to the office. So for a long time they were the “skeleton crew” at the office while the rest of the team was at home, trying to deal with all the challenges that this new arrangement brought. I mention this because, for some period of time when schools and daycares were closed, it was painful to watch my co-workers trying to be in a meeting with their kids wanting their attention. Everybody was stressed, nobody could keep the same productivity levels, and still, the senior managers were demanding the same level of compromise. For them, the world was normal. They were quietly working in their individual offices, not having to face the working-from-home challenge.

And now I’m getting back to the office. I got the first dose of the COVID vaccine already, and the company is keeping all the restrictions to avoid the spread of the virus (rapid testing 3x/week, mandatory use of masks, virtual meetings). That’s not the issue. I just wasn’t expecting it to happen tomorrow, and I felt extremely anxious about it. It’s like I’m being forced out of my cocoon. Maybe I thought this process would be more gradual, like working a few days at home then a few days at the office, until all came back to “normal”.

There is something about this situation that bothers me: the fact that there will be no openness to “occasional” remote work after we get back to working “normally” at the office. I think in some industries there have been discussions over having flexible working arrangements from now on. And I think that is a cool option to have. I don’t think that is going to happen within my company.

I’ve developed some habits that help me cope with stress, like meditating early in the afternoon or whenever I feel something triggered me, taking 15 minutes breaks to read a book, or just stopping and breathing some fresh air on my balcony.

I’m wondering how am I going to keep these habits at the office. It seems harder over there. Meditating? Pfff… I’ll probably have to use the lady’s room. We’ll see!

#noisymusings #work #anxiety

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

For the past month, I've been having overloaded days at work. It has disrupted my routine, my downtime and my sleep. Handling many projects at a time with deadlines within a couple of weeks is not easy! And although I have a productivity system in place, I organize my day, I have routines and I take notes... things started to fall through the cracks. And I caught myself having to work after-hours to finish things. And sometimes I do work a little bit more, let's say once a month before an important deadline. But what happened last week was insane. I was working extra 4-5 hours for 3 days in a row! And that took a toll on my health. By Friday I was lightheaded, sleepy, anxious, brain fogged, exhausted and with a headache... My right shoulder started hurting again (it usually happens if I spend too much time doing intensive mouse work on the computer). I thought I got rid of this pain... but it's back.

I couldn't prioritize anything, I couldn't organize my notes, I couldn't even take a break. Whenever I stopped to try and breathe I started worrying about the things I was not doing. That's anxiety, right?

Anyway, I've been focusing on some habits to get back on track. It takes time, I can't recover in a couple of days. It takes time for me to get back to my baseline. My self-care focus is:

1. Sleep. Get as much sleep as possible. But still keeping the same wake-up time. I noticed that when I sleep in I wake up feeling like crap and then all my morning routine is easily put aside.
2. Meditation. 10 minutes in the morning doesn't look like much but it makes a difference. I feel better when I meditate for 15 or 20 minutes. On the days I worked too much, meditating before bed for 10 minutes helped me have a better sleep.
3. Stretching/Yoga/Moving. I need to move in the morning. It doesn't have to be anything intense, but I need something. I got into a trap: I woke up tired, I barely stretched in the morning, and that made me feel worse throughout the day, and then I didn't sleep well and the whole cycle repeated itself. So, I NEED at least 20 minutes of exercise in the morning. It's vital to manage my chronic pain.
4. Waking up early even on weekends. This one I've been neglecting for a while. But every time I sleep in, I regret it. Especially when I skip my meditation/exercise routine first thing in the morning.
5. Journaling/Writing things down. I've been feeling too tired to write at all. I want to get back to writing for longer periods of time. To reflect, focus on feelings, scrutinize thoughts, let them go and wander.
6. Reading. I've been too foggy-minded and tired to get any amount of quality reading done. This weekend I finally could get back to my normal reading habit.

For my work routines, I will focus on the following:

1. Check e-mail less frequently I check email too often. In fact, I leave the email tab open at ALL TIMES! I recognized that it is extremely anxiety-inducing. It's one of those old habits that are hard to get rid of. So, this will be a mini-goal for next week: Check e-mail in the morning, at noon and by 3 pm.
2. Protect my time. I want to be less reactive to other people's demands. I believe avoiding checking my Inbox might help with this. Unless it's something high priority my manager is asking, I'll take my time to get back to people.
3. Time block my Calendar. I'll plan my day in the morning, blocking off deep work sessions to focus. No cheking email, social media, news, messages, whatever during deep work.
4. Stop working at 5 pm. As recommended by Cal Newport, I will start a shutdown routine at 4:45 pm so that I'm off at 5 pm. It might help to do a brain dump session at the end of the day to externalize all my worries and transition to my evening rest.

Phew, I feel better writing this down.

#journal #noisymusings #work #anxiety

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

One more lockdown started today. There were a bunch of restrictions since Christmas but now it’s a “stay at home order” for at least 28 days. So I worked from home today and I always feel like I get more things done at home because there are less chances of people dropping into my office asking for things or just asking questions. It’s more relaxed at home and I am more in control of my time. But still there were a couple last minute requests that I had to handle so that quickly depleted my energy. Context switching is exhausting! Add 2 Zoom meetings on top of that and I’m done!

I stopped working almost an hour later than I’m used to when I go to the office. Gotta fix that!

#Journal #lockdown #work

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.