One Hour Per Day on my own Business

How I’m spending one hour per day of productive, focused work, to resume my side-business and consistently “move the needle”. This post also serves as a site update.

Why, hello there!

It’s been a while since the last post. Indeed, this year I only posted my 2019 Goal Review and, for St.Patrick’s Day, a list of 17 Ways How To Be More Sustainable. But I haven’t been idle, so I thought it time for an update.

As I said before, the business took a back burner while I studied a Masters in Consulting in Paris. I experienced lockdown there, and it actually wasn’t so bad at all for me, thankfully. I was busy enough with university never to get bored, with a few friends remaining around the residence, and a view of the Eiffel Tower within my 1km permitted walking radius. Not too shabby! And when lockdown lifted and exams were over, I had the once-in-history opportunity to explore Paris without it being full of traffic or tourists. Silver linings!

Anyway, throughout the year I did only a small amount of contract work for this company, and ignored the blog. It’s important to prioritize the most important parts of a business and not try to do everything!! Blogging is a ‘nice-to-have’, especially if doing it prevents you from pursuing actual cash.

Since exams finished in May, I’ve resumed writing my eBook on Productivity. I’ve also started a day job with which to pay the bills and finish my Masters program (in lieu of a thesis, you do a work semester and a report on it).

An hour per day of focused work

So, what I now do is dedicate the first hour of my day to my own business, and then start the day job afterwards, with evenings being my own for relaxing or meeting friends. This way I work on my own stuff while I’m most fresh, and before distractions start to arrive (I don’t even turn on my phone before I’ve finished this hour).

One hour per day may not sound like a lot, but it’s 7 hours per week of focused work on the Most Important Things in the business. If you work a 40 hour week you still get at best 5 hours per day of productive work, for 25 hours per week maximum, and it’s frankly never even that much. Spending 7 hours per week minimum, of focused work, makes this about a 1/3rd-time job, focused on the activities that will move the needle.

Since I’ve started I’ve written several thousand words for the eBook, taught two workshops, arranged for more upcoming ones, and build a couple of websites for clients.

Consistency

The trick is consistency! And it’s easiest to be consistent when you build a habit around what you’re trying to do, and schedule it in that part of the day where it’s least likely to ever get disrupted.

Working from home is of course a great help! Any time that would have been lost commuting has been regained, and what time remains is often a bit more flexbible. I’ve long been an advocate of remote work, despite its challenges. I’m even giving free talks on the topic to workplace groups at the moment. Please get in touch if you’d like to discuss this.

What’s Next?

From my work on the eBook I’m actually producing a smaller, far more condensed free guide to becoming SUPER-Productive that will be coming soon!

Given that I’m only working about 7hrs per week (but consistently and sustainably), I’m focusing now on coaching only one topic – Productivity! I’m the most passionate about it, and in the time of COVID and work-from-home, it seems like it will provide huge benefit to people.

So please keep an eye on the site for what comes next. Join the newsletter (coming soon), follow me on Twitter, or just email me if you’d like to know more about anything discussed above.

Until next time…