Being productive alone

One of the key success factors when you create a start-up is definetely to stay focus and work as much as you can. This is very complicated, specially when you’re alone and when you do not have team members to challenge you, to help you and to motivate! I have always had some “focusing problems” and I really had to find a way to keep my productivity at the highest, despite the fact that I do not have a boss, that I could spend some time wandering on the web, arrive “late” at my offices… And then I remembered high-school!

In France, but I guess it’s the same everywhere in the world, classes last between 1h30 and 2h. There is a good reason why : it’s not sustainable for teenagers to focus any longer. Well, I do the same by cuting my day in 1h30 - 2h sessions where I am only doing one task. It’s not every day the same task at the same time, but its no longer than 2h and most of the time, no shorter than 1h30. And between 2 sessions, I usually take a break! I also try to work in many different places : at home, at the office, in cafés… The idea is to reset the “focus” counter every time I can by changing the subject I’m working one, the place where I’m working, the people I am working with, and even the kind of music I’m listening to!

In the good days, I can have up to 8 sessions (3 in the morning, 3 in the afternoon and 2 after dinner!), which adds up to roughly to 12-15hours of work per day, every day! In the weekend days I try to do at least 4 sessions.

And you, how do you stay focus?

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Le Tribulateur 4 months ago 1 point
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How do I stay focus?
I don't stay focus :)

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Moving Costs 4 months ago 1 point
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I stay focus by having a plan and then doing it daily.

Keeping my mind with only what am I going at that time.

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http://www.movingestimates.com

Simon 4 months ago 1 point
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When I really need to get things done I wake up at 5am and execute 80% of a productive day in 20% of it's length. Down to noon approximatly I prepare or shape ideas & concepts. Then I eat, sleep like a shit till 1pmish, and spend the rest of my day executing like a bot what was designed during the morning time.

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http://www.virtualgoodz.com/

Thomas 4 months ago 1 point
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I think that having a project planning is a good way to stay focused because you have a concrete goal in mind. It's also better to divide big tasks into small ones and go incremental than trying to touch everything in the same time, cause after each finished task, you have the feeling that the project actually progresses with a good pace. This feeling helps me a lot on a daily basis to stay focused (motivation and focus are very linked in my opinion).

Tip : when you don't need Internet, turn off it. I know that today programmers like to copy/past snippets from different sources, ask questions on forums, etc. And more generally, people like during working days to write comments on other entrepreneur's blogs, write posts on their own blog. So, my advice would be to stop writing post like this one during your working day.

PS : stop reading this useless comment, close Firefox and Go back to work

PS2 : What the hell are you doing here ??? Go back to work i said!

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http://parissfo.com

julien 4 months ago 1 point
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Thomas, you're right, I should not do it if I can work... But in the bus, it's ok, and I m in the 47 right now! Another great advantage of not having a car!

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http://www.ouvre-boite.com

Damien 4 months ago 1 point
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Just for the story, the founder of Ikea was famous for cutting his work day into 10 min time tranches, or at least that's what he pretended.
OK, that was HIS style and a particular industry at particular period, but I've tried that a couple of times...didn't really work. 10% of the time is used just to...track your time.

Actually, since the day I realized the freakin' poem I had to learn for mid-school was way easier to remember in the morning (!), I have kept the most intellectually challenging things to do for the morning. It has worked great. + it's scientifically proven.
I leave the "easier" things for the afternoon, when my brain slows down. I however manage to focus back in the late afternoon. Well, I guess this phenomenon is just called lunch food coma...

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Nicolas 4 months ago 1 point
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Hi Julien,

First of all : all the best again!

Concerning the being-focus thing, i have my personal recipe, just sharing :

* break down the day into 45/15 mins sessions : 45 mins highly focused, 15 minutes of cooling down, getting up and walk around ( important for ur body, you tall man ), have some fresh air, talk ... do somehting else.
* drink 1.5 liters of water a day at least
* have a confortable and ergonomic position
* loose as little time as possible on organisation and transition between focusing times. Organisation can actually be the topic of one of these 45mins sessions.
* some people like to have visual representations of the organisation : timeline on a sheet of paper, with tasks, TODO lists. I personnaly use mind maps ( http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/... ) .
* max 8h of effective focused work a day, after this my head is burnt up. This means 11 45/15 sessions. After that, more relaxed tasks can be tackled : reading things for instance, harvesting info on the web, preparing the following day's organisation.

The 45/15 pace is used in Norwegian universities ( in other places too i guess, but i've only been studying in Norway apart from France ), and there is no longer break at all during the day. I experimented this on the trainings i gave about eZ Publish, which requires quite some attention i'd say, and this pace turned out to be the most efficient.

Have some sport activity now and then helps too.

Be strong Dude,
--
Nico

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clemence 4 months ago 1 point
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Hello Ju,

Moi mon truc pour rester Focus c'est les todo lists, ca donne des objectifs et donc toujours la motivation de continuer, next step next step!!!
Bon a part ca je t'envoie plein de motivation pour ton nouveau challenge!!!! Et toute mon admiration, oh! julien g!!! Est ce que le kite surf progresse entre deux sessions d'une heure et demi?

bise depuis Innsbruck

clemence

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julien 4 months ago 1 point
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Thanks all for your great tips!

@Le Tribulateur : I knew it ;-)

@Simon : I am most productive at night, I guess everybody is different, but I'll definitely try the early morning newt time I'm jetlaged!

@MovingCosts & @Thomas : planning is one of the key points, but planning is not always possible... specially when you're an entrepreneur, you receive mails, phone calls or sollicitations that cannot wait most of the time : priorities are changing a lot within the same day. As an example, if I had planned my day yesterday, I would have probably not done 50% of what I wanted to do, because of "external" stimuli (lawyer phone call, ...)

@Damien : Ikea : interesting! But, as you said, it's kind of stupid to spend too much time on "counting time"! Also, I'm definetely going to try to do the hard work in the morning and put meetings/interviews in the afternoon!

@Nico : Thanks! Maybe I can try to reduce the sessions down to 45minutes with the break! You're very right about drinking and doing some sports : Yoga in the evening is good!
I'll give a chance to Mind Maps as well ;-)

@Clem' : j'ai pété mon second kite en deux semaine le weekend dernier... on peut dire que ça fait chier, mais oui, j'avais pas mal progresser; je sais remonter au vent!! Bises à toi!

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http://www.ouvre-boite.com

/Olivier 4 months ago 1 point
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Aller au Modern Art Café ?
;-)

Have fun

/Olivier
"le 25 sept, on t'attend à Paris, c'est jeudi"

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http://www.oliviermarx.net

julien 4 months ago 1 point
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@Olivier, tu y bosses souvent au ModernArtCafé?

J'adooooore la déco des toilettes ;-)

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http://www.ouvre-boite.com

International Movers 4 months ago 1 point
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I am focused on what I do. And working alone than with a team is what i prefer.

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http://www.123movingcompanies.com

Rhonda T. 2 months ago 1 point
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I am in Texas, USA. I found the first notation (the originator of the story above) about time intervals extremely helpful for my problem.. but most people may not consider my problem a problem... but it is for me. I am not currently working..self employeed bookkeeper when jobs come my way..and I haven't been looking for work (cause we are in limbo with the whole IVF thing... gosh I hope we get lucky this time).. anyway.. being alone is not motivating for me.. i waste time hoping for the day to go by quickly, not getting anything done, so I can see my husband at night.. pretty pathetic.. but i work better when i have goals.. i will try the interval thing to break my day down into sections. thank you

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yves bienenfeld 2 months ago 1 point
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Bonjour Julien,

I am starting by September 1st 2008 (Lundi prochan :-) a Farewell time (année sabatique) for developping my start up Libraltitude Sarl...

You are the first Blog I reach on this topic "Productive alone" and I will follow all your advice as I am alone :-).

I deal with Rc models community and I am developping the Web2.0 of www.modelisme.com the largest French speaked Rc models fan.

Au plaisir de lire tes autres posts.

Thanks.

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http://www.modelisme.com

julien 2 months ago 1 point
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Bonne chance Yves avec Libraltitude! Ou plutot, amuse toi bien, car c'est déjà une chance que de pouvoir prendre le temps de faire ce qu'on aime!

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http://www.ouvre-boite.com

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Being productive alone