Your Weekly Routine
The power of routine is undeniable. Routine creates space for value creation.
“I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it's a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind.” - Haruki Murakami
“Routine, in an intelligent person, is a sign of ambition.” - W.H. Auden
The value of routine
Elite remote workers utilize consistent and stable work routines to drive business results. Their routines are time-tested tools which are intentionally designed, experimented with, and refined for maximum efficiency.
The software industry is evolving, literally, at light speed. This creates profound opportunities for those of us fortunate enough to be in this field. But it also means we have to practice our craft with discipline.
Having good routines means you don't have to constantly make decisions about what to do next. In essence, routine is where value is built.
Remote myth busting
A common misperception is that remote workers’ schedules are never the same from week to week. However, we’ll show you how to leverage the power of a highly-functional work routine. Elite athletes and top performers in any field knows utilize routine to fuel their discipline, consistency, and dedication. David Perrel illustrates a similar point well in ‘Learn Like an Athlete.”
Routine pays dividends
Dedicating time and attention to build a powerful weekly routine will pay dividends in your professional career, and in your personal life. Instead of being restrictive, a strong routine frees you up to make a powerful impact. It fosters work-life balance, and pushes you to accomplish all of your goals in life. In fact, efficient remote workers may have as much as three times the flexibility in their schedule as an office worker.
Facilitating deep work
How then, can a remote worker be so productive? The answer is deep work. Focused work is three times more effective than work performed in an open work environment with office distractions and interactions taking up a large part of our productive hours.
Like a consistent routine, deep work is a paradox. Consistency and dedication free you to shift priorities, as needed, to maximize efficiency, effectiveness, and value. Deep work is the activity performed by team members in a state of distraction-free concentration which allows them to push their cognitive capabilities to create new value for the customer.
By its very nature, deep work is value-added. However, in a traditional office setting, much of the day’s busyness is non-value added. That is, activity the customer is not willing to pay for. To maximize the value of our enterprise, we must maximize the value we create for the customer. Deep work is the key to unlocking this value.
Read this article from American Psychological Association. Some highlights:
Although switch costs may be relatively small, sometimes just a few tenths of a second per switch, they can add up to large amounts when people switch repeatedly back and forth between tasks. Thus, multitasking may seem efficient on the surface but may actually take more time in the end and involve more error. Meyer has said that even brief mental blocks created by shifting between tasks can cost as much as 40 percent of someone's productive time.
According to Meyer, Evans and Rubinstein, converging evidence suggests that the human "executive control" processes have two distinct, complementary stages. They call one stage "goal shifting" ("I want to do this now instead of that") and the other stage "rule activation" ("I'm turning off the rules for that and turning on the rules for this"). Both of these stages help people to, without awareness, switch between tasks. That's helpful. Problems arise only when switching costs conflict with environmental demands for productivity and safety.
Another article on multitasking from Standford Uni:
People who frequently use many types of media at once, or heavy media multitaskers, performed significantly worse on simple memory tasks.
...multitasking isn’t efficient. We know there are costs of task switching. So that might be an argument to do less media multitasking – at least when working on a project that matters academically or professionally. If you’re multitasking while doing something significant, like an academic paper or work project, you’ll be slower to complete it and you might be less successful.
Another article, also mentioning the challenge of using social media
'It's easy to fall into the trap of multitasking. In that case, it seems like there is little real progress and this leads to a feeling of inadequacy. Concentration decreases, which causes stress. Prolonged stress hinders thinking and memory,'
Social media is really nothing but multitasking, with several parallel plots and issues. You might end up reading the news or playing a game recommended by a friend. From the brain's perspective, social media only increases the load.
Deep Breaks
What does deep break mean? It is a break that gives your brain a brief resting time to stave off mental fatigue but yet keeps your focus. According to this article, "regardless of the industry or job type, repeating cycles of intense, highly focused work followed by short breaks seem to produce the best performance."
Cal Newport, a computer science professor who writes about the intersection of digital technology and culture, mentions that "Anyone who regularly succeeds in long deep work sessions is almost certainly someone skilled at deploying deep breaks to keep the session going without burning out or losing focus."
He gives the following advice about deep breaks:
There’s no single description of what constitutes a deep break, but here are some useful heuristics from my own experience:
Deep breaks should not turn your attention to a target that might generate a professional or social obligation that you cannot completely fulfill during the break (e.g., glancing at an email inbox or social media feed).
Deep breaks should not turn your attention to a target that your mind associates with time-consuming distraction rituals (e.g., many people have a set “cycle” of distracting web sites they visit when they surf that has become so ingrained that looking at one site sends their mind the message it’s time to look at them all).
Deep breaks should not turn your attention to a related, but not quite the same, professional task (e.g., if you’re trying to write a report, and you turn your attention to quickly editing an unrelated report).
Deep breaks should not turn your attention to a topic that is complicated, stressful and/or something that will sometime soon need a lot of your attention.
Deep breaks should not usually last more than 10 – 15 minutes, with some exceptions, such as for meals.
Read more here.
Brainstorming your world-class work routine
To create your remote work routine, contemplate the following questions. Include your best ideas in a paragraph describing your work routine at depth.
What time do I start?
Do I start at the same time each day? (Hint: yes is better)
Where is my ideal location for work? (Review (Be an Expert) Office)
Do I always (or mostly) work in the same place? (Hint: yes is better)
Is this location consistently available? How so?
What potential distractions exist in my work environment?
Do I have a backup location in case of emergency? Where is it?
How does my timezone affect communication and productivity? What is the ideal time for me to make calls?
Do I take breaks during the day? How many and for what duration?
More brainstorming
Here are some additional considerations which may be important while contemplating and formulating your highly-advantaged work routine:
If I have kids, what are their schedules
Do I have family or other roommates with whom I’m sharing space
Do I have a workout routine? If so, what is it?
Am I making good food choices and living a healthy lifestyle?
Do I have pets I need to consider?
How do I make family time and work-life balance a priority?
Conclusion
The power of routine is undeniable. Developing a daily work routine which fosters deep work is one of the most powerful contributions to a successful career you can make. Routine creates space to allow for value creation.
Value creation - by way of deep work - is the most important component for success in our program, and in a successful remote career. Create and commit to a routine which empowers you to perform your best work. By doing so, you’ve already placed yourself among world-class performers.
Last updated