Day 18: Detailed Planning

Today, I traveled to Paris, and as always, outings with children require careful planning. Not only because it can be inherently chaotic, but also because you're leaving your familiar work environment, and daily life is completely different. A new environment can often impact productivity, but there are effective strategies to counter this: detailed planning.

It's crucial to create clear task lists and formulate them as precisely as possible, for example:

1. Write 10 sentences for the introduction of the business report.
2. Program a function to verify postal codes based on location input.
3. Draft a proposal for website creation.

To avoid pseudo-work, it's important to work as distraction-free and focused as possible within limited time frames. When traveling, especially with children, this can be challenging. Rarely do we have the opportunity to isolate ourselves for 2 or 3 hours in a separate room.

To compensate for this, we should utilize the limited time as distraction-free and focused as possible. Increasing efficiency requires immersing ourselves in the task as deeply as possible within seconds.

In addition to detailed planning that provides clear instructions, it's helpful to pre-visualize the upcoming task as vividly as possible. The better we mentally prepare, the easier the task becomes. We need to visualize it as vividly as possible in our mind's eye.

I emphasized the importance of dividing tasks into thinking and execution phases back on Day 3 of my challenge. Thorough preparation significantly facilitates access to the solution.

A closing tip:

When you finish a task, whether it's because it's completed or because time is running out, note down the next immediate step to be taken. Ideally, use a notepad or a central location to record as concretely as possible what needs to be done next. Write down precisely what you would do if you were to continue working right away.

The next time you want to continue working, refer to your note and read what you've written. This will help you seamlessly re-immerse yourself in your thoughts. You'll be amazed at how effortless re-entry can be.