Patrick's Programming Blog

Give Yourself Space

  1. Blogging for Hippo
  2. Schedule Sales with WooCommerce
  3. The Problem with Focus
  4. Give Thanks
  5. Be Thankful for the People Who Inspire You
  6. Give Yourself Space
  7. Build Resources From Support
  8. How Hard Can Membership Be?
  9. Adding Social Media Icons to WooCommerce Product Pages
  10. How to Export WooCommerce Subscriptions
  11. Upgrade Your Contact Form With Ninja Forms
  12. Why I Write
  13. Blog Comments Policy
  14. Content Marketing Works – Even with Furnace Filters
  15. Making Email from Your Website More Reliable with Email Delivery Tools
  16. A Happiness Podcast?
  17. Podcast Compensation
  18. Wishlists Done Right
  19. Enable Free Shipping on a Per Product Basis
  20. Improve Your Writing with the Hemingway Editor
  21. Tell Users What You're Doing
  22. 2014 Business Review
  23. Mind Your Own Business
  24. Think Different to 10x Your Business
  25. Let Projects Die
  26. Maximize Your Creative Energy
  27. Use Git Bisect to Find Bugs in Your Codebase
  28. My Personal Value of Remote Work
  29. Don't Spam Email Receipts
  30. Make Your Own Luck
  31. Cold Showers and the Power of Challenges

One of the points that I keep coming back to over and over again is to give yourself space. You need space to think and process new information. If you're so busy with day to day work for 8 hours a day you're going to miss opportunities. Being a remote worker have given me a lot of freedom to create the schedule that works for me and today I thought I'd share it with you.

My Typical Workday

7:00 – Wakeup.

7:10 – Go through my email on my phone while in bed. In a team of 40 people there's a lot of notification updates that I get that I like to read through in the morning before getting to my real work.

7:40 – Take the dog for a walk

8:00 – My inbox should already be clear of notifications. If there's nothing that's on fire I work on my most important task of the day. A few months ago that would have been coding up a plugin. Now a days I'm talking to customers, running surveys, and writing up specifications for new projects.

If I get stuck on any particular point in this process I take a shower and then come back to it.

12:00 – Lunch! Followed by a shower if I didn't take one already. Followed by taking the dog out.

1:00 – Walk to a coffee shop

1:20 – Do something for myself. Writing a blog post (like I'm doing right now), write part of my book, code up a little plugin, anything for myself.

2:00 – Get back to work. This part of my day is usually a bunch of small tasks. Auditing plugins, going through my ticket queue in case any of my coworkers have questions about the things I've been working on.

6:00 – Head home

Spaces

The thing I just love about my schedule are the number of spaces I've put in. I usually listen to podcasts or an audiobook while I walk the dog and that always puts me in a good mood. And they take my mind off of what I'm doing so that when I go back to the keyboard my mind is fresh. If you have any flexibility in your job make sure you can make some spaces in your schedule. Come in early if necessary so that you can take breaks.

Also, take time for yourself. If I take time for myself right after lunch it happens every day. If I said to myself, “I'll write a blog post at night”, I know that's never going to happen. Put it in your schedule so you can't ignore it.

Happy spaces!

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