Ivan
About Ivan
Posts by Ivan Sabo:
We Fear Of Any Changes
We fear of any changes the most. Nothing gives us more comfort than a false feeling of stability.
We want to experience new things in life but we don’t want to get exposed to the changes itself.
Who wouldn’t want to have a new and more exciting job?
Who wouldn’t want to be working on more interesting projects?
We all do.
But, we all wish it happens from one day to another so we don’t have to plan for it, think about it and even’t do anything.
Unchanging status quo feels so much safer than anything else.
Every change comes with some risk. Nothing good comes for free.
Inability to deal with fear is the worst enemy of our progress.
I’ve heard so many times how dreadful this or that job is, how boring and mind killing tasks are often part of someone’s daily routine.
No matter how desperate the person sounded it almost always ended up with “that is how it is” or “if I could I would”.
Like the situations were imposed on us and we had no power to do anything.
Like if our lives were in advance defined routes with no exciting crossroads at all.
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Don’t Change Your Life On Monday, Do It Now
It always sounds as a good idea planning the beginning of your workouts to Monday. New week, new start.
More often something happens over the weekend though and your launch is compromised. Maybe, it is your body fighting against planned discomfort, maybe it is just a coincidence.
In the last 5 years it happened to me several times.
I planned a start of a new regiment for Monday, enjoying the weekend and bang. Next day I woke up with a fever, pain in the chest, sore throat or something similar. My body and mind did not want me to start something so terrible as working out.
When planning a new routine, start the next day. Don’t wait for the weekend or next bank holiday. Even though you want it and look forward to heal your body, you incautiously worry about the outcome. As you do when presented a new project or a plan for some adventure.
Our bodies are programmed for self-protection. Without that we would not survive in the past nor even now.
Once you decide to change your life, do it right away. Don’t wait for a better time. There’s never been a better time even though your body and mind want you to believe something else.
Creativity Is Another Level Of Productivity
Working remotely bursts your creativity.
It won’t not happen automatically though. It’ll happen, because you’ll feel an urge to do more meaningful things.
In first few moments of unplugging from the system, you want to keep your productivity on a similar or a bit higher level as before. That is natural.
You want to prove yourself that the major life change was a good one.
Once this feeling dissolves you want to get even better.
Things settle and there must be another level in your personal development. Not because somebody forces you but because you want to go a step further. Or maybe two.
Working longer or pushing productivity by working more and longer is not satisfying after some time.
You want to feel more useful.
You want to work on more meaningful things.
You want to do things that really matters.
You want to be more creative.
It is inevitable.
Creativity does not come easy to everyone though. It even does not appeal the same to all. No matter of which group you are from, one day it happens.
Creativity Rarely Happens In The Office
Why does not creativity struck you in the office? Why do you need to work remotely?
For creativity you need space that gives you a feeling of freedom.
How often have you felt relaxed in the office?
How often have you leaned back and started to think for 15 minutes? I know exactly.
Unless you have your own office or one hidden from eyes of others, probably never.
It is just against all conventions.
You are supposed to work in the office not to think and be creative.
Creativity can’t be forced. It has to come to you, open the door and allow you to accept that feeling.
You may even want to fight it at first. Or, think it is not for you. Creative people are those others, right?
Creativity is natural for everyone.
Being creative means being happy. Don’t you believe me?
What makes you more satisfied? Filling another offer form? Creating another template document? Coding a small feature to a huge project? Or, making a new simple web app that you always wanted?
I bet the latest one is an answer for you.
Creativity is another level of productivity.
It keeps you busy not because you have to do something but because you want to. And you love it.
Why Continous Learning Is The Best Investment You Ever Make
Learning is essential for you. Even more, if working for yourself.
The easiest mistake that anyone can make is ignoring constant and continuous learning.
Remote work starts your independence and if processed and led properly, it will become your nature.
You may stay and work on one thing for months or even years but you’ll be restless after some time, anyway. If you accept your calling, you won’t be able to accept routine and monotonous work anymore.
How can you avoid that?
By learning and expanding your knowledge and skills.
The challenge is when to learn.
You want to be independent, work only sociable hours and enjoy the rest of your private life?
Choose priorities
First of all, choose your priorities.
Work on a project you are being paid for as a high priority. Even the highest. Learning has to be the second and a very close one to it though. What does it mean?
If you schedule your work time, include the learning time too. Learn in the prime time not when tired and unable to comprehend anything anymore.
Sure, the world is full of stories about people working nights and days and making it at the end. A few. The rest got burned out before achieving anything. Nobody writes about those, right?
What should you learn?
Anything that challenges you, interests you and can work for you.
If you need a few examples, look at it from the natural path perspective.
Are you a developer? You should become a salesman. Or a marketing guy. It would allow you to understand differences between developing and selling stuff. It is what I call a natural path.
Or, if you work in marketing. What do you know about human psychology? How do you apply the marketing rules to be more precise and not too generic?
Do you work as a VP? You don’t read this article most likely as you feel you know it all. I suggest you learn more core stuff about the product. Is it a code? An electronic device? Some medical equipment? Learn about the core. Try to understand the coding principles, electronic rules or chemical reactions responsible for the existence of your device. Is it necessary? Probably not. But, you keep learning and getting better at what you are doing, anyway.
## Conclusion
Lack of learning new things is one of the top reasons people get sucked into an “I am already too old for this” way of thinking.
If learning is not a continuous process, it will become even harder later on. As a remote worker, you don’t want to get there. The whole of your existence is based on your ability to be as flexible as possible.
Learn in small chunks, often, all your free time. That is the best investment you can ever make.
Building A Habit Is Not About Quality But Continuity And Repetition
When building a habit, the most important thing is continuity and repetition.
It is not about the quality. Not even about the time. It is all about the continuity and repetition.
When you go to the gym, more important than working out for an hour and a half each time, as all fitness magazines suggest, is to work out continuously. In scheduled days again. And again.
It is not important whether you practise 20 or 40 minutes for the first few weeks. The only important thing is doing it regularly and return again. And again.
It is better to start with 20 minutes and expand it to 60 minutes later than burning out in the first few weeks.
The same applies to any activities you want to add to your life. Even cleaning teeth every evening should go over the same ritual.
Everyone knows cleaning your teeth for two minutes is the optimal time. At least dentists say so.
However, more important than starting with 2 minutes every day, is far more important to start and do it regularly for at least 6-8 weeks. Every day. Again and again.
Research show people build a habit in 7 weeks.
After 7 weeks of continuous activity, once the routine is engraved into your soul, you can start with adjustments.
In a gym, you can do more sets or more repetitions, spend more time relaxing and so forth.
When cleaning the teeth you can do it more thoroughly and even start to floss.
You built a habit.
Now you can step up the game and get better at it.
I always wanted to be a remotee
I always wanted to work remotely.
When I moved to Oxford, I used to run at 6am to my work. Each day, mostly in dark, I ran along a house where a light was on.
I could not see inside but I saw a room full of bookshelves, a desk, a lamp and a man behind the desk. The man was always writing something.
Every morning, unless I rode my bike, the same view. I wanted to be at his place very much.
I did not know what he was doing and whether he liked it. It did not matter.
It looked as a home office to me. The man was doing what he wanted and when he wanted it.
And I wanted the same really badly. So I decided that one day I’ll be a guy in the window too.
For many, remote work sounds like something dark. Something that compromises or even damage their private life.
Instead of going to the office and coming back from work, they feel at work all the time.
It can be true.
Remote work is not an answer to everything and certainly does not work for everyone.
Remote work is not a private life destroyed either though.
Most people I’ve talked to in recent years could not grasp a concept of remote work.
For some it is unimaginable to work from a place with so many familiar distractions, for others it “can’t work” for the nature of their work.
We have been living in a dogma setting all our life.
Our parents went to work 40 hours a week every week. The same place, the same hours.
Considering work as something we can do wherever we are anytime we want is often too much.
I always wanted more from my life. I always wanted to be a remotee.
Build A Habit, Live Better Life
When building a habit, the most important thing is its continuity and repetition.
It is not the quality, nor the allocated time. Continuity and repetition.
When you go to gym, more important than working out for an hour and half each time, (as all fitness magazines suggest), is to work out continuously. In scheduled days again and again.
It is not important whether you practise 20 or 40 minutes for the first few weeks. The only important thing is doing it regularly and return again. And again.
It is better to start with 20 minutes and gradually expand it to 60 minutes when the habit is built. Doing long stretches of an activity from the start leads to an inevitable quick end.
The same applies for any activity you want to add into your life. Even cleaning teeth every evening should go over the same ritual.
Everyone knows cleaning your teeth for two minutes is the optimal time. At least dentists say so.
However, more important than starting with 2 minutes every day, it is far more important to start and do it regularly for at least 6-8 weeks.
Research show people build a habit in 7 weeks.
After 7 weeks of continuous activity, once the routine is engraved in you, you can start with adjustments.
In a gym you can do more sets or more repetitions, spend more time relaxing and so forth.
When cleaning the teeth you can do it more thoroughly and even start to floss.
The habit is created.
You can step up the game and get better in it.
Everyone Is Talking About Productivity Hacks These Days
Everyone is talking about productivity hacks these days.
“Split tasks into small chunks”,
“Focus”,
“Eliminate distraction”,
“Prioritise”,
And so on.
It is all nice and sort of helpful. Similar to “swim when you fell in the water”.
The most important outcome is always missing though. Hands on process how to achieve that.
It is easy to recommend daily journaling, meditations or breathing exercises. How to do it properly though?
I have prepared a series of hands on articles with the most helpful daily hacks I’ve learnt and helped me. No fluff, no bluff. Only the stuff.
Let’s start with the loss of focus.
23 Minutes For The Return
One of the most often given advice to achieve something is to avoid distractions.
Switch off your phone, disconnect from the network, close into the cellar, plug your ears with whatever you wish.
Have you ever tried that? No chance you can avoid distractions.
Do you really want to switch off your phone when your kids are at school? When your wife is pregnant and doing groceries? Or, do you want to disconnect from the Internet when you need to research important stuff there?
Rather than avoiding many distractions, it is better to have techniques that get you back on track once the distraction is over.
Several research studies showed that it takes 23 minutes in average to get back to the point we were at before interrupted.
Why is that? Once the distraction is over, we think about what just happened. Then we try to remember what we had been working on. Then what was the last thing we actually did and so on.
The best approach to eliminate such a long rebound process is simple. Write a NOW log.
NOW log
What is a NOW log?
It is exactly what it sounds like. Each time you start a new task or an activity, log it down. Either write a note, circle the current task on the list you have at hand or start an activity timer you use e.g. tackle.com
Each 25 minutes (are you using Pomodoro yet?) write the status in a sentence or two to record the status.
Each time somebody wants to talk to you, make sure you noted the task in hand and highlihtrd the last activity.
Once you finish with the interruption, close your eyes for 10-15 seconds, open and read the circled item. Then, read the status notes, close the eyes once again and put the puzzle together.
In less than a minute you’ll be able to carry on where you had finished.
Some people believe the same works with a to-do list – the items not crossed are the ones they worked on. The most important one is the one they have to focus on.
Not so fast.
We may create an order list with priorities but change it on the fly without a need to record it in the list. Why would we?
For instance, you label a report handout with a priority two. Your boss wants it asap. It gets re-prioritised and you most likely don’t log such a change anywhere. That is how things work, right?
Instead of jumping from one item to another once the interruption ended, you focus on the circled one and last logs related to it. Read it, relax and compose your focus for another bout.
Keep it simple. The status record does not have to be complicated.
When writing a blog post, it can be something like “Finished the first reading” or “Exported v3 of the PDF” so you know what was the latest bit of your work.
If you hate paper notes, do the same in a to-do app, Evernote or a GDoc file. The point is to have a note of the most recent status of your mind. In a to-do app you can create a P0 category so you know exactly what was happening before the call or a meeting started.
Remember, our brain can jump between tasks all the time.
We may even believe we can multi-task. The truth is, we can’t. We are starting more activities while waiting for results of the others, often forgetting the ones we had started before.
Keeping a simple log makes us more resilient to forgetting.
Simple as that.
Conclusion
We suffer with distractions all the time. Phone calls, emails, social networks, colleagues stopping by.
Rather than trying to eliminate all potential issues we need to learn how to stay on top of the things.
If we get back to the previous activity in the matter of minutes, no harm is done.
It may even be a pleasant interruption in the busy schedule after all.
Every Job Can Be Done Remotely
People are often convinced that everything but their particular job can be done remotely. Either because ever needed connection with the team, the phone line, or in-person meeting with clients. Sometimes even a complete conviction of their absolutely needed presence is in the play.
When analysing it, almost any job role can be performed anywhere. It is just a rigid thinking staying in the way and making it impossible.
The most common positions considered being strictly office based are sales, accounting, support, finance or marketing.
It is obvious that one has to be in the office if dealing with customers, internal documents, reports and marketing planning right?
What makes those roles so different to developers?
Developers work with computers and lines of codes that can be written anywhere. Right. Wait a minute. Sales representatives prepare offers, fill the charts, send emails and call the clients. Account admins process and organise all requests from partners. Support people email or phone with customers, do remote sessions from their computers or research the issues that need to be addressed. Finance people spend most of the time making charts, processing data, submiting payments, evaluating purchases and orders. Marketing people prepare documents, presentations or write copies. I know, it is a very simplified view of all those roles. Nonetheless, as a ballpark guess it is what it is. And what it is? None of these jobs are bound to one place, one office, one meeting room. All of them can be done remotely and as efficiently as from the office. Perhaps even a bit better.
Dogmatic thinking is the only real barrier on the road. We remove that and see everything is possible. We may even see marketing or finance people smiling and live a balanced life for once.