My New Year’s revolution
Yup, you’ve read it right! I’ve intentionally misspelled ‘New Year’s resolution’ for two reasons. Firstly, it’s February already. So we are a bit too far in to properly come up with New Year’s resolutions. And secondly, I’ve truly experienced a personal revolution.
Do you recognize that moment when you’ve just woken up and you feel you’re already behind on schedule? Even though I haven’t actually been behind on schedule I felt like it the last couple of weeks of 2015. Every day I woke up and went over my agenda just to realize it had turned into my life’s prescript. I wasn’t able to do what I wanted to any more. Instead I was ruled by other people’s demands. Although I love playing my role at Holland Startup, I need my time for exercising, reading up and blogging too. I had to change my daily rhythm. So I used the holidays to do a little research. I was going to seize control again!
During the Christmas break I took my time to read up on the daily routines, time schedules and behaviors of effective leaders, sportsmen and other public figures. I discovered the manners in which Barack Obama, Richard Branson, Marissa Mayer and many other great tech CEO’s divide their time to stay on top of things.
Did you know that the average of them get up in the morning between five and five-thirty? From these reads I learned an important lesson. Get up early and schedule your time based on your personal energy levels! Your energy fluctuates during the day in blocks of 90 minutes followed by a 20 to 30 minute recoupment.
So this is what I did. I bought a fitbit tracker with a sleep measuring function. It made me aware of my sleeping patterns and my natural time of awakening. I redrew my schedule from this point of awakening. As I had read, all leaders get out of bed the moment the alarm rings. So that’s what I did too. My day is now scheduled in blocks of two hours. These contain the aforementioned 90 minutes of concentration and 30 minutes of recuperation. I start early in the morning with the first block, followed by four blocks during the day and a final one in the evening. I make sure to use the time in the morning for my personal goals. I exercise, read up on the news, blogs and social media and I take my time to write blogs and develop new ideas. And I make sure I plan my meetings in the afternoon.
This is how an ordinary day looks like for me in 2016:
Although it’s a little early to make a fair judgment the results have been promising! I feel like I’m on top of things now. I’m productive but at the same time I can relax a little as I use my recoupment time wisely. When I’ve truly mastered this new lifestyle, I will be taking it to the next level. The Jack Dorsey level. If you don’t know him, he is the co-founder of Twitter as well as the CEO of Square. He leads both companies at the same time. He gives each day of the week a theme, keeping his productive momentum, regardless of what he is doing. For example, since Dorsey started working on both companies concurrently, he’d spend his Mondays working on management at both companies, his Tuesdays he would spend working on products and so on. This allows him to see each company in a broader light instead of getting caught up in day-to-day distractions.
As we’re heading towards running multiple companies at once, this will be a great way of focusing my energy and keeping all Holland Startups on track. I’ll keep you posted on the way these things turn out. And if you have any questions or remarks regarding my New Year’s revolution, feel free to contact me!