Refining business hours: Tips creator Ruby on Rails
Work And Study Productivity / / December 23, 2019
David Hansson Heynemeyer
The creator of the framework Ruby on Rails, founder and CTO of Basecamp, author of the bestselling REWORK and REMOTE.
"How do you manage to keep up so much?" - are often ask me. Typically, in a low voice, as though I'll tell a secret. Are you sleeping only 5 hours a day? Or do you have a 12-hour day? How are you doing this ?!
It was felt that highly productive people work longer. Often - inhumanly more. They focus on the challenges from 8 am to 11 pm. The media like to talk about such feats of endurance and determination.
But I do not fit that image. Usually I am well 8.5-9 hours of sleep every night. I am proud to be a traditional 40 hours a week, and I do not try to do more, more and more.
If I have a secret, it's focus on the quality of each individual hour. I do not mean time management of the nineties, according to the canons which each hour was cut until the last minute, and every second of the squeezed peak productivity. I'm talking about the realization that not all of the same clock.
The hour when you are upset, distracted, want to sleep, exhausted - is 60 minutes of low quality. It is foolish to expect that this time you will turn to high achievement. Garbage in - garbage out.
40 working hours per week - the royal choice. I would argue that almost everything you can manage, having such a nice time to spare. Of course, if you do not squander it on the meeting, multitasking, and ill-defined tasks. For in this way you can spend an infinite amount of time.
Of course, there are physical limits. And this is where many people find an excuse: "I did everything I could! You can not blame me, and I myself can not, because I have done as much as not pull every second. I squeezed myself to the last drop, so say thank you! "
Covering your ass so in their own eyes and the eyes of others, you will gain a temporary peace of mind, but these excuses will not hide your ambitions deficit in the long term. Waiver of ambition - a method of psychological protection for those who are exhausted.
You need a set of mechanisms for refining your working hours - need to enhance their purity and quality. So what techniques I use for this.
You really need to take part in everything?
Like the sweet song of the sirens, voracious curiosity calls us to participate in the discussion of decisions, activities and other things. Even there, where you do not need.
It is difficult to accept, but, while your knowledge and experience can be useful to other people, they can be so useless at the time of a meeting that you do not even pay back drunk on it a cup coffee.
Do not grasp the meaning of unimportant letter, please decline the invitation to the meeting, refrain from being able to insert their 5 kopecks discussion chatik diligently avoid chatter - it will relieve a lot of time to perform a few important tasks.
Can it wait?
Some problems should be resolved on the same day to the next they do not become more. With these better settle accounts immediately. But they are a minority.
Most of the challenges and opportunities will not lose its essence and values, and a day later, and after a week and a month.
Or maybe delayed problem will be resolved by the time you pay attention to it again. Fine! So, it was a job that does not need to be done. Or, this problem seemed to be much more important than when you first encounter it than it actually is.
The longer you put off a solution, the more you recognize about it. A lot of questions are solved by themselves, if you give them a little "stand."
Can I leave work on this task?
The road to the unfortunate working day paved the heroic attempts to work productively after several hours lost in vain. Typical operating error - not realize the true depth of the problem.
You commit a crime, continuing to dig, when he realized that we needed to dig a hole three times as deep, but acknowledge that it takes three times as much effort.
The ability to abandon an immediate solution to the problem - a critical skill that will save you working time. Sunk costs - the rate that will destroy you.
Am I ready for this?
Sometimes a problem takes time to mature, and sometimes you need time to mature to solve this problem. We are not always ready to take on any task.
If this week I caught the writer's attitude, then it is necessary to fill out the texts of the new site, but most likely, it's a bad week to organize the work for the next quarter.
If my fingers are itching to write the code, then it is necessary to finally fix a bug that hangs a month, but do not try to redirect the desktop mood for an interview.
Our motivation has its flow changes direction. And, of course, much easier to go with the flow rather than against it. As I said above, the solution of many problems can be delayed, so wait for the right flow, which picks the next task, and will bring you.
If you own techniques to make every working hour meaningful, but fail, maybe all the tasks scheduled for this week, do not fall into the stream of motivation? As a result, you do not do anything and will feel disgusting.
And that's what will bring you peace of mind - knowing that all the cases described above, with each. And more often than most ready to admit.
Despite the clear understanding of the importance of high quality work hours, I often happen useless hours, during which I do far less than hoped. So it goes.
It is important to increase the total number of productive hours and do not worry if you can not reach the ideal.
Once you understand what quality work hours, you will not want to work more, and more and more. The difference between the four hours of quality work and a few days of poor performance will be a revelation for you.
And if a little "squeeze" your working hours may be added another 20-50% productive time? In fact, adding 200-500% - yes, 10 times more.
To keep pace with all, stop trying to catch everything.