Can going back to dial up speed things up?
Can you remember what using dial up was like?
I was visiting my in-laws in France with my 4 year old son and his 6 year old nephew and 2 year old niece.
They live in an amazing house right on the Dordogne river, near Bergerac. (rear of the house below)
View from Master bedroom (that’s the Dordogne river)
It’s a great place to come and visit, the only downside is that they still have dial up and not upgraded to broadband.
It’s amazing how much I’ve been able to do in a lot less time.
I know Tim Ferriss talks about stopping the interruptions, I’ve just had a really hard time disciplining myself to do it.
I usually get about 40-50 mails a day about a third of those I
delete without opening anyway. The 30 or so that I would usually open
and read. Because it takes so long to load each e-mail I’m
finding that I am being a lot more picky about which ones I open.
This has got me thinking about how I normally work at home…
I’ve tried being ‘disciplined’
and closing my internet browser, however I’ve got a habit or
pattern of when I get stuck or finish a good section of work I think
I’ll just look at my e-mails and then get back to work. Or if I’m
being ‘good’ I might resist the temptation of the e-mail but
instead head to the kitchen for a cuppa or a handful of walnuts.
I’m only away for a week and I figure if it’s really important then the person will send me a follow up message or one of my team will send me an sms message or a direct
e-mail.
Usually when I’m working from home I
have from 9.15 am until 12.45 am each day as my core working hours
and then in the evenings I spend another 2 hours usually from 11Pm to
1.00 AM. I’ve got all the pieces for the 4HWW in place just not the income yet!!
I’m going to try a different approach back in Oxford.
When I first wake up I’m going to check my e-mail and respond to anything urgent, my 4 year old son is usually pottering around at that time before he gets ready for nursery. I cant really do anything ‘proper’ at that time.
I’m then going to pack my laptop in my rucksack, we cycle to nursery leaving the house at 9.00am, he starts at he starts at 9.10 am. I’m then going to cycle to a local
library 10 minutes away which happens to be next to the gym that I have access to.
Advantage is that I get 10 minutes of hard
cycling, I do bursts at maximum intensity (10-30 seconds followed by a
rest of 10-20 secs), 10 minutes of that is a real good fat burning
work out. I also get 10 minutes on the way back from the library too
so that’s 20 mins quality fat burning exercise.
I’m choosing the library, there are
plenty of coffee shops around but I don’t want to put too much
opportunity for potential interruption in my way.
At the coffee shop there is obviously the coffee, yummy cakes and pastries that I want to avoid and lots of other ‘interesting’ people coming and going. None of that is present at the library, so I’m playing hardball with myself and heading for the library.
I’ll have my laptop powered up and ready to go by 9.30 am.
Let’s see how my new morning routine works out.
What tricks have you played on yourself to increase your productivity that actually work for you?
Tags: 4hww, four hour work week, productivity, france,
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