| I was about to write my own reply, but you literally hit every point I was about to make. There is one thing that I would like to add. 4. Task making/Goal setting- The domain of this MUST encompass your entire life.
(Personal/Professional/Health/Hobbies/Relationships). Try not to put an emphasis on professional/business things.
Generally those have the highest priorities, and don't need as much active attention in this context. Goals should start at 5 years out and work backwards to next week. Every morning/ start of each week/start of each month- review your goals and allocate "hard time" to them. Want to learn guitar? Good. Tomorrow at 3 o'clock go to the store and buy one. Don't research the best guitar manufacturer for weeks and eventually buy it, just ask the guy behind the counter his recommendation and buy it on the spot. Next week, Tuesday 6pm- Sign up for music lessons for every Wednesday at 6pm for the next 6 months. No exceptions. Do not let anyone or anything take that time slot away from you. But you may say, I'm the only one that can do "X" task and I'm needed at that time slot every week. Then build fault-tolerance in that task. Either with multiple people knowing how to do what you do, through documentation or automation. Engineer a solution to your time problem. Or if you're the founder of your startup, and you can't justify taking a 3 hour break once a week. You're lying to yourself. I highly doubt you are completing work at 100% duty cycle if you are working 60-80 hours a week. Getting a few hours a week of "you" time each week is a small time investment, for huge returns in more effective decision making for the rest of the week. This may vaguely fall under meditation, but knowing that you are tangibly and actively working towards things that you value, will prevent you from getting "time depression". Yes, I just made up that term. "Time Depression" as I call it, is doing the "same" thing day-in and day-out. As a result, you get depressed since you "feel" like you didn't accomplish anything.On paper, you closed 90 issue tickets last month and committed more code than anyone else on your team.If you did all that, and don't have a feeling of accomplishment. Then you need "you" time. Now go buy that guitar. |