So welcome to my second “Grind Report”. I feel the pressure as I write this – and to be open with ya – I haven’t run the results yet. Wanted to write this before I do the numbers.
But I have a feeling I fell short at the end of January. I hate to have excuses, but it is real – I just had my 2nd baby on Jan 24th. All this family matters of course comes before my grind report.
Milestones
What are some of the key milestones of January?
1. Started out strong – I think all of us have a huge push to work hard in the new year. Had inbox zero (yay!) and was on top of everything.
2. Counted video blog editing as pomodoros – At the beginning of Jan I was trying to do a video blog every day (talk about exhausting!) and while I didn’t count the video recording time as a work set, I did count the FOCUSED attention time on video editing. That would be 3 – 4 sets in the evening, normally from about 8:30pm to 10:30pm. That really boosted the numbers on that first and second week of Jan. But I realized that while people really enjoy the video blog, every day is not sustainable for me. At least with the other responsibilities I have to clients and companies I am working with. Maybe later if I can get operations smooth in the agency business and other work I do, I can jump back to trying to do a video blog every day.
3. Birth of Maggie, my daughter. Such a happy father. Our second child was born, Maggie Michelini, on Sunday Jan 24, 2016. While of course the mother does all the work, it is a huge challenge for daddy to do focused 30 minute work sessions! Definitely took a dent out of my monthly grind report.
4. Able to do afternoon work sets – While I am most effective in the morning, I have been able to focus on afternoon work too. I still try to stick to the morning as the “maker” mindset, and the afternoon as the “manager” mindset. But even in the manager worksets, I time the email management. It almost gamifies it a bit and makes me see how many emails I can reply to.
Jan 2016 Grind Report Numbers
So the numbers are in.
Grind for Feb 2016
So what’s in store for February? Well the big event here in Asia is the Chinese New Year holiday. Basically Mainland China is shut down for the first couple weeks of Feb.
That means I’ll be focusing on grinding even more! Though with a new baby at home I hope I can stay effective. I am working on the balcony now, put a table out there.
Another potential “excuse” for not being so effective in Feb is that it has been so COLD in Jan! I am typing with gloves on, we are at record cold temperatures. Working on a balcony in the cold rain may make me pretty sick.
Though I will probably travel less with the holiday so that should save time. Can invest that reduced travel time with more work sets. I may work at friend’s homes to get some peace and quiet – probably at Dave Ho’s.
After Chinese New Year holiday, everyone is motivated just like Jan 1 in the Western world. Will be lots of business activity as people have been reflecting on what they are working on and plan for the new year ahead. So that should make a boost of productivity – yet at the same time may get in my way with more meetings and less productive time.
I love typing this all out – not sure if this is unnecessary jargon for those reading it. By predicting opportunities and roadblocks for your productivity a month out, I already noticed in the first grind report it helped me mentally prepare a lot.
Keep Positive – Prepare For The Unexpected
Even though we plan, we need to stay on top of the unexpected. For me, that is a new baby at home. That is the Chinese New Year holiday. And that is this unusual cold weather.
How about you? Will you take a more proactive stance on your productivity? I’d love to see some other grind reports!
Putting it out there online makes me have even more pressure to keep pushing forward. Even if no one is reading it! 🙂