October- Research week

Big takeaways: 

1. No, No, NO!: I need to default to “No”.  Don’t answer calls, Don’t check e-mail, don’t take meeting, don’t help.  Protect the dates at all costs, including the evening.  After everything I said no to, I need to do it more.

2. Chunk:  On the one hand I have to chunk things out, at times that can mean force myself stay on task (pomodoro timer).  In those more challenging times of focus,  getting up and going for walk is helpful as a break.  DO NOT, take a break and do something “entertaining” it simply encourages bad behavior.

3. Music:  Although this can be called entertaining, adding music right at the end of walk created energy to do what’s next.  (Listening to music during modeling can be ok but not any other time.)

4. Flexible:  As much as possible stay flexible, there are times when I can go for long stretches and don’t want to stop so having the flexibility to continue (well into the evening)  is helpful.;

5. Embrace the "Suck" (Force focus):  

   1. Use pomodoro timer more, when having hard time focus.  

   2. Chunking and pomodoro timer good for this.

   3. Get uncomfortable...do hard things...practice doing hard/unappealing things

6. Shut everything down: except the one thing working on

7. Fridays’: Practicing my craft – dedicating as much time as I need on Friday’s to doing something oriented around getting better at what I do.  I can do it other days/times as well but Friday is dedicated to this one thing.  On an ongoing basis we’ll protect Friday’s.

8. Schedule research Days - pick topic/Industry to explore more deeply.  Could be weekend project.

9. YouTube: a research tool only!

10. Next Research week will be M-W Thanksgiving week.  Christmas Week and New years week are 2 more planned research weeks.

11. I’ve got couple research days scheduled btw now and year end.

Potential experiments:

Research Day: go to a new location/Fun (there’s really nice location 494/France) I’d like to try for research day, start early and go late.  If I can swing it for cheap. 

Who should you spend more time with?  Who should you spend less time with?