This tweet has forced me to think about the way I work in my most productive way.



My hacks to trick myself

Kicking off my work session listening to a song that gets me in the mood. For me it’s still Machinehead by Bush. The hack is: this is going to be fun.

Lights — this one is huge and relatively new for me. With the winter, natural lighting is often depressing. Having bought a Bi-Color led panel, it helps me to get into the right mood during the day and evenings. See the video below if you are curious. The hack is: I’ll feel great working there.

Vlog. I film myself “As if”stakeholders were watching me landing a rover on the moon. At the moment I don’t publish those videos but I do archive them. The hack is: act as if.

I maintain and update a public roadmap. Again this hack is emulating the fact that “investors” are looking over my shoulders at what I am doing. In this case, potential clients might be curious to see what I do as well. The hack is: act as if.

Sometimes I play with a Pomodoro technic when I really need to push myself not to procrastinate. Like I make a deal with myself to only do two Pomodoro cycles. I usually end up working more than this. On my iPhone, I use Focus Keeper. The hack is: it's not a lot of work.

On my paper ToDo list, I identify clearly three items that must be done at the end of my day. The hack is: it's only three little things.

Turn notifications off! So...

  • No Twitter alerts
  • No Linkedin alerts
  • No Instragram alerts
  • No YouTube alerts
  • No email alerts

These are focus killers and kill the precious flow I can be in. The is valid for my phone and my computer. No little number on top of my email saying there are 14 message to look at. Nothing! I'll check on my time.

One last thing

Let me end with this. When I'm off, I'm off. The hack works only if I give myself real time off. Without this part, I can't hack myself.

Office tour

Sorry for the blur! As I wanted to show you the vlog set up, I filmed it with my phone. I never vlog with my phone for this very reason. It NEVER focuses on me accurately.

P.S. I now have a commenting system on my blog since the past few days. Try it out if you are on Github :-p.