Going Solo

Imran (thanks again!) pointed me to 16 Ways to Keep A Razor- Sharp Focus at Work, a post by Glen Stansberry on how to remain focused while working on your computer all day.

Though I personally don’t agree with everything in the article (it has a tad too much bias towards neatness and control for my taste), it’s well worth a read, and here are some of the tips I found most useful for myself:

• 2. Take more breaks. More breaks = More productivity. It may sound wrong, but it’s true. Breaks allow us to re-group our thoughts and focus for the task at hand. They also keep us fresh so that we don’t end up burning out after only a few hours work.
• 5. Keep a daily “purpose” card. It’s pretty easy to get lost staring at the computer all day long. We’ll find rabbit holes to wonder down (ie. Youtube, Myspace, etc.) if we’re not careful. Having your daily purpose card gives you clarity and a reminder as to what you’re doing today.
• 8. Notice your lazy routines. Everyone has recurring lazy spots throughout the day. Plan to have your breaks for those times. You’re going to be lazy then anyway, right?
• 12. Keep a journal of what you did throughout the day. I like to use a moleskine notebook for my lists just so I can go back and review it every now and again, to see what I’ve done. Knowing how far you’ve come can keep you sharp and motivated to finish.
• 13. Use programs to track where you spend your time. This is a real eye-opener. Knowing just how much time you spend every day/week/month on a certain site or with a certain program can quickly show you where your priorities lie. I recommend Rescue Time, but there are many others.
• 15. Start the day right. Starting the day with a good breakfast, some quiet time and/or exercise is a great way to set your day up for success. Sounds like a cliche, but it really works.
• 16. Clean yourself up. It’s why my track coach in high school made us dress up for big races: you perform the way you feel. And if you feel polished, groomed and ready, you’ll be more likely to be productive. For me this is just taking a shower, brushing my teeth and putting on casual clothing. I used to work all day without taking a shower in my PJ’s, but I never got much stuff done. Let’s be honest here… if you’re dressed really casually, odds are you’ll be working really casually. Just taking the time to clean up a bit before you buckle down for the day is never a bad idea.

I often use FTDB to remember what I want to accomplish in the day. I’ve downloaded Rescue Time and love it already. I still need to take more breaks, and I understood many years ago that keeping track of the things you’ve done during the day helps prevent this feeling that you “spent a whole day doing nothing”. As for getting a good start in the morning, here’s what I was writing a few months ago:

Let me tell you, there is something to be said for taking a shower first thing in the morning to wake up. And using that woozy wake-up time in the bathroom rather than in front of the computer.

Having been freed of the “wake up, shower, get dressed, breakfast, brush teeth” morning ritual since I became self-employed over 18 months ago, I think I’m on the verge of reclaiming that ritual for myself. I’d already noticed a few months back that it made a real difference, and then I slipped out of it again.

What are the tips you find most helpful to stay focused and productive when you’re working home at the computer, day after day?

And if you come upon an article that would be worth mentioning in the Going Solo blog, feel free to send me a tweet or an e-mail about it.

When I chose Friday as the day to do Going Solo, it was with a sneaky ulterior motive: make it possible to hold a BarCamp in Lausanne right behind it. Now, for some reason, BarCamps in this part of the world tend to be one-day events (I still haven’t really figured out why — what’s wrong with the whole “camp” aspect of running off somewhere for the week-end?) — so that would bring us to Saturday, May 17th.

I’ve mentioned this idea to a few people already, and the response has been pretty good. Particularly if you’re coming from abroad, you get to maximize your geek-feed for the trip. (Not that Going Solo is particularly geeky, but you see what I mean.)

Now, here’s the issue. Much as I would like to be the driving force behind this BarCamp (it’s “my” idea, after all), I’m already spreading myself really thin simply organising Going Solo. There’s no way I can be the person who “makes sure” the BarCamp happens.

So, the questions:

• what do you think of having a BarCamp-day right after Going Solo?
• do you think you would participate in this BarCamp (speak, or simply attend)?
• would you be ready to help organise it?

(Please leave a comment, it will help evaluate how much interest there is for this — and make it visible! Whatever you say in the comments is non-binding, so fear not…)

Obviously, we need some local people amongst the organisers, if only to deal with issues like the venue. I don’t know how available EPFL would be (with Balelec the night before), but I have another idea or two up my sleeve if that doesn’t work out.

So: is there interest for this? how shall we make it happen?

For those of you who do not know what a BarCamp is, it’s an unconference. That means that it’s a rather informal gathering of people in one place with wifi and conference/session rooms. At the beginning of the day, the people who want to present something, hold a session, make a demo take a spot for it in the programme grid (first come, first served). So there is no predetermined programme — it’s very much a peer-to-peer atmosphere.

The organisation happens in a similar way: obviously, a venue needs to be found, the date has to be set (done), and somebody has to keep an eye on the wiki page that people use to sign up and announce sessions. All the rest is optional: a Barcamp can be very bare-bones, or it can include a party, sponsors, T-shirts, whatever.

Oh. Sorry to disappoint you — not that kind of date. Yeah, just a calendar one. Before Christmas and end-of-year festivities interrupted my blogging about Going Solo, I wrote about the headache involved in picking a date for an event.

Over the last few days quite a few people have been asking me if the date I announced (May 9th) was “final”. My answer was: as final as it gets at this stage.

I met yesterday with my sales partner, and amongst other things, we double-checked the date. Two problems popped up: the first — and not the least — was that she would be in Africa on a business trip at that date. Oops. The second is that there are quite a few bank holidays around the 9th. The French are off on the 8th (victory WWII I think), and Monday is a bank holiday in Switzerland as well as France. Not mentioning that the previous week-end is a four-day week-end.

So, we looked at other dates. 16th May was good (there is even a possibly exciting collision with a music festival here in Lausanne in the evening — I’ll tell you more when I can) except for the fact that the Next08 conference is the day before in Hamburg. Well, the public isn’t exactly the same… so it’s not such a huge deal. My apologies, however, to the conference geeks out there who would like to make both of the events and who will end up having to squeeze travel in between.

So, please pull out your calendars, and scratch out 9th May (you’d written it down, hadn’t you?) and replace it with May 16th, the next Friday.

More news? Coming. I’ve been wanting to blog about the content I’m planning for Going Solo for quite some time now (always “tomorrow” — bad, I know) but “other stuff” seems to have developed a habit of getting in the way. No more of that, I promise. You can expect regular “Going Solo” news from now on — shortly on a dedicated blog which will be ready for public consumption as soon as I’ve imported all these posts and added a little content.

Aside from that, I met with a designer this afternoon to talk about visuals (a huge scary and opaque domain for me, I want to blog more about that) and we’re narrowing down on a venue.

Should I also give you some Going Solo updates via Seesmic, I’m wondering?

This was originally posted on Climb to the Stars. View comments on the original post.