My working day & my blogging day

I like to think about how I can make the most of my time. This means that I regularly question why I do things in the order I do them to try and get more out of the time I have.

When I am working from home (which is most of the time at the moment) I find it’s vital to have something approaching a routine. The routine enables me to be focused, but I’m not so embedded in my routine that I can’t be flexible with it.

I thought others might be interested in my routine, so here it is:

• Breakfast
• Walk – I find that a walk in the morning wakes me up. It’s good for my brain and also good for my posture which isn’t great after 20 years sat in front of a computer.
• Quiet time – I listen to quiet music, read and relax. There is a sofa in my study which I use. I read from books during this time because the great thing about a reading a book is that you can’t flick to some other application while you are doing it. If I have thoughts about things I need to do during the day I will write them down so I don’t forget them, but I won’t do anything about them now.
• Blog reading – The tablet sits within reach of the sofa. While still sitting on the sofa I start FeedDemon and go through the blogs that have been written overnight. Because I live in the UK there are a load of blogs to catch up on. I sort of follow a GTD method for blog reading. I will scan read all of the blogs. Those that I think I might read later get flagged within FeedDemon, those that I think I will reference at some point in the future get posted to del.icio.us. Everything gets marked as read. I will make a note of things I am going to blog about if anything.
• Diary check – I check today and a few days further forward so I know what I need to get done.
• Check email – My role means that I get email all through the day and night. I don’t read email outside my working day so there are always ones to catch up on in the morning. Again, I follow a GTD type approach with anything being scan read. Everything that needs an action gets flagged and everything gets marked as read.
• Write task list – I write my task list out on a piece of paper. Physically writing each one makes me think about each one and how I am going to tackle it. The ones that I am going to do today get a star.
• Tasks and meetings – Having planned my day I will then on with tasks and meetings.
• 50 minute sit, 10 minute move – The day is split into chunks of work which involve sitting at a desk and others that involve moving around. This means that I don’t stiffen up too much, but it’s also good for my brain and makes me more alert when I am moving and also when a return from movement.

I’m not declaring any times because that’s my business and not yours , you can be sure that everyone gets what they are paying for.

 tags: GTD, FeedDemon, del.icio.us, blog