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Taking The Week Off To Work Smarter

Anything related to matters of the mind

SparksCW

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As a Fastlaner in training we're all bombarded with content, videos and posts about working hard from various people we no doubt follow on YouTube & Facebook etc. Doing what others won't so we can live like others don't etc.

We work all day, and all evening, sometimes into the early hours. We work on various days and times over Christmas.

So this week, I'm leaving my laptop at the office each night. I'm not going to sit until Midnight doing things. Saturday just gone I pretty much burnt myself out and am still recovering today. I lost my Sunday (family day) because I was exhausted.

And at 1am I was sat there, with constant back and neck pain, wondering what I was actually achieving. I just thought, the things on my mind are all things that can be done individually in a day or two. Why are these things still in my mind and not a reality?

Which got me thinking, how effective are we when we work lots of hours? Especially if those hours are all sat at a computer. Could the same be achieved with a laser focus and clear targets during the day? Does working evenings and weekends make you run at 60% during the day?

Instead.

I'm going to strictly use my Trello board daily to do list. Each evening I am going to set my days tasks and targets on my iPad, then I'm going to try and work harder and more focused in the office during the day. I've had this list set up for months now and it works extremely well provided you pre-plan it and stick to it. However I've not really been sticking to it!

Today though I set my day out before starting and I've achieved 90% of it (A proper daily to do list should never be 100% achievable in one day!) including something I'd been putting off for months (but should lead to increased sales and engagement). It doesn't feel like I've worked that hard either.

Here's the thread.

GOLD - Achieve Laser FOCUS + PRODUCTIVITY With The System Legendary Fastlaners Use...

Why?

The aim is to see if working evenings, weekends and holidays truly gets results, or if working on very specific pre-planned targets can achieve the same result.

Does working too much lead to procrastination, lack of vision and a scatter gun approach to getting things done slowly over more time, with more effort exerted?

Can those gained hours of potential relaxation or less intense things like reading, learning, preparing and earlier nights lead to more laser focus and a higher level of achievement during the day?

Or can switching up what you do make you overall more effective? For example - Work on the computer all day, make content and videos in the evening?

How can your time be more effective?

This only really applies to full-time fastlaners (in training). I fully support working evenings and weekends, especially if you work a slowlane job. But we're human and can only handle so much computer time. If you work slowlane then keep working hard and smart in those evenings and weekends!!

This isn't about working less.

It's about the importance of effectiveness. No one cares how many hours you work, all they'll see is how effective those hours have been.
 
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Dan_Fastlane

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great post, i have been on a event for business students and there was a famous german billionaire, someone asked him can u help me out with work-life-balance his answer: what's that?

I think you need to adopt a effective lifestyle, you need to live that shit and be commited! the outcome will show!
 
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Argue

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This reminds me of the chapter of choices. It's all about choices and making 100 choices towards your goal. Avoid treasonous choices, and frivioulos ones. Be organized and execute. Good stuff here, thank you!
 

Mac

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One of my favorite quotes by Gary Halbert is, "Properly Exploited, One Good Idea While Walking on the Beach is Worth a Lifetime of Hard Work.."
 

SparksCW

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It's been a week, any updates?

The week went relatively well but now I have accidentally reversed the plan by driving 20 miles to work and left my laptop at home!

I will post my thoughts on the experiment when I've got my laptop back, can't do anything without it [emoji23]
 

SparksCW

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OK so here's my thoughts...

- The Trello list (or any form of equivalent, paper, computer, written in the mud in your garden, whatever!) is key. Break down the big goals into daily tasks, you'll find yourself wanting to clear that list down. It definitely makes you more focused and more effective. I added an extra column to mine, which was a "In Progress By Others" so that way I can easily delegate and keep track of things.

- I found I started delegating the stuff others should be doing and focusing on the key things that are making a difference.

- Sometimes you need to take a few evenings off, definitely felt better all round.

- It's extremely difficult not to do something you're used to. I didn't like not having my laptop at home, I do like doing bits in the evening. As someone else said earlier in the thread, the key to this is "BALANCE".

I have got a lot done this week, it's been a great month all round for the business too and a great start to the year.

Can I stay off the computer every evening?

No, again, it's balance. I like to get some bits done in the evenings. I am however going to adjust what I do in the daytime/evenings and try to plan it so evenings could be doing lighter duties like SEO improvements, product videos etc. etc.

Conclusion

Create the Trello lists, stick to it and work effectively at all times. If that's evenings then work effectively. If you're just procrastinating then do something else or take the evening off and write those lists instead. Every day you wake up you reset, it's a new day you can do it the same or you can do something different. Bad day? No problem, plan for tomorrow to be better.

I was doing some product photography this afternoon and I noticed a bit of a take-away from photography into life/business.

A very small change of the aperture or exposure settings can make a massive difference, good or bad, to the picture result. Make too many big changes at once and you'll either get a great picture, or a white screen.... The trick is to make small adjustments and keep adjusting until you get the perfect picture. Once you go through that process you'll get the perfect picture quicker the next time, and the time after that...
 

Jonathan Polley

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Quite a lot of what I read here.. and I know I am guilty of it myself at times. Is doing too much.

If you work every hour available with no down time. You will burn out or just not produce your best work. If you burn out you end up having more down time than you would have if you had just taken an hour or two to relax. And if you produce substandard work because you are burning the candle at both ends, well, you end up spending even more time redoing things.
 
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