When you are a freelancer, an entrepreneur, a visionary or just a guy who aspires to stuff, chances are, you are consequently working on weekends. Bill Watterson, comic artist of “Calvin and Hobbes” back in the 80’s said:
Weekends do not count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless
Relaxing happens when you do things without expecting a certain outcome. Relaxing will get your creative juices flowing. You will rarely have world changing ideas while sitting on your desk. You might have them while drinking with your friends, traveling, running or smoking a cigarette. I’m talking about moments in which you can shut down the noise in your head. Moments that enable you to stop thoughts from running through your brain like trains through a railway station. We often underestimate the importance of these moments.
Gertrude Stein once said:
It takes a lot of time to be a genius. You have to sit around so much, doing nothing, really doing nothing.
When is the last time you were at a bus stop and didn’t check your mail or poke some people on facebook? When is the last time you just did nothing?
If you’re like me and can’t answer this question with ease, you’re definitely not taking enough breaks.
The “great it’s Sunday” Fallacy
Let’s see if the following situation sounds familiar. You wake up and think, “ohhh great! I will just answer some mails and finish this website`s footer before I take the dog for a walk“. You wake up your computer, write some mails, open your browser…
…
Suddenly two hours have passed. It feels like you leapt through time. Instead of focusing on the important stuff like writing those emails and finishing the footer of the website as you initially intended, you ended up browsing facebook, twitter and other channels instead.
What happened? You lost focus.
Keep focus: The 1 charge cycle
Try this: charge your battery to 100%. Your job is to survive the weekend with this fully charged battery. If you have an old laptop, bargain yourself some extra time and get a new one.
What’s the result? By limiting your time, you’ll be more focused and you will have to work much more efficiently. This approach forces you to focus on the essence. You will automatically prioritize your tasks and you won’t become a victim of the “I’m coming honey! Be there in 1 minute”-Phenomena.
Unfortunately I don’t have a solution for Desktop owners yet. Feel free to share your ideas and let me know if it works for you.