Exciting times. I am now on the sixth report for grinding. May has been a heck of a lot of work, a big challenge for me – but seems that there is a lot of interesting developments from this month of grind. Let’s jump into it.
May’s Results
Here are the results.
Much higher than April. This was predicted – because a lot of April was preparing for, executing, and recovering from the first annual Cross Border Summit.
May, still the distractions of crossing back and forth to Hong Kong on a regular basis – at least one time per week – if I could eliminate reduce that more I could get these numbers even higher.
What Is Working
I’m doing most of these work sets (30 minute sessions) in the morning. I start them at 8:30am after I did my morning routine, Chinese studies, and breakfast with the family.
Two sets of writing from 8:30am to 9:30am, getting at least 2,000 words written.
The optimization here is that I don’t take a break between writing and the “work”. I used to take a 20 minute break from 9:40am to 10am, and start working again at 10am – but now I just let the next set turn on automatically (my Gymboss timer repeats the next set with a beep and a buzz).
So I really don’t even check a single email or status update the whole morning. I try to check Slack messages to see if the team has any urgent questions for me – but I push so hard to get at least 5 sets in before lunch time. Sometimes I can even get 6 sets.
830am
905am
940am
1015am
1050am
1125am
12pm (lunch or push for 1 more set)
1230pm – lunch or a brief break after lunch.
I still have trouble getting into focused work sets after lunch. Sure, I still work – its email, its chats, it is phone calls. But I have only had a few times in the month where I could get the timer back on and do a 30 minute set of work after lunch time.
Next Month – A lot of Traveling
As much as I want to improve each month, I also like to set the expectations. June I am doing a TON of traveling. Told my family don’t expect to see me much at all. I’ll be on the road:
June 7 – 11. Cebu, Philippines
June 11 – 13 back in Shenzhen / Hong Kong
June 13 night – 16 – Phuket Thailand for Doug’s Wedding
June 16 night – 22 – Barcelona for DC Barcelona event
June 22 night – July 4 – Prague for another DC meetup.
July 4- back to Shenzhen.
So this has been in the works for months. A time to reflect on business. Get some networking in. And come back a bigger and better person inside and out.