Every successful person will tell you that what you do on a daily basis will determine your future. This is more so if you are an entrepreneur. I left work last year, February 2017, and I couldn't be happier with my decision. I now work from home and do full cryptocurrency full time. As awesome as this might sound it doesn't come without challenges, some of which I want to to talk about in this post.
You see it is all good and well to say yes I am working from home and hustling etc, but I am learning daily, with mistakes and improvements. The thing is, if you don't have a fixed routine it is very easy to be distracted. A phone call here a "quick" browse on YouTube there. All these things can be time consuming, and then when you look at the time you find you've wasted the entire morning doing non-income producing activities. And then before you know it it's lunch and then obviously you won't rob yourself of that. Now you get up and make lunch with a thought that you'll CRUSH it after lunch right? Now you've heard your lunch but you also feel a bit tired, especially because it's you've been sitting in front of the laptop for the better part of the day. So now you decide to take a little nap, and what, before you know it it's 14:00 and you are now very amped and yet silently upset at the same time because you realise that you haven't done anything really productive for that day.
Only now that you are trying to focus and do some work. Of course after 2 hours straight of serious work you want to take a break and have your afternoon snack. That takes another 30 minutes at least. By this time it's already about 16:30. And in my case, then I'm already thinking ok 17:30 I must go pick up my daughter from creche therefore I can't do something binding right now. Then you just linger, moving from one site to the next: check Coinmarketcap, I mean you have to do that right? If you don't check your coin investments or Bitcoin price the whole universe will collapse right?
Now you want to check all your coins, or at least most of them. Now it's already about 16:50. You definitely can't do anything serious now, I mean 17:30 is at hand and you don't want to interrupt what you are busy with. Now you check out the cryptocurrency news sites, I mean there's gotta be something interesting there right? There's so much to keep track of, I mean John McAfee predicted $15000 bitcoin price by the end of June, and South Korea's relaxation of policies when it comes to ICOs, and NYSE opening a new crypto exchange, and this and that. WOW!! So many news to keep up with. And all of this will produce income for you?
And then of course it's not 17:30, in my case, and now I have to head out to pick up my daughter from creche. Now I'm definitely out of it for a few more hours at least. Soon enough my wife comes home and it's family time. We spend some time for a few hours, and then some more. The baby goes to bed and then maybe we catch an episode or two, or three on Netflix. And now it's like 22:30 and man, I was supposed to do this and I was supposed to do that. I grab my laptop, before I start working though, let me check out my other investment on Hashflare. Wonder how that is doing, and then OH! What about that other investment. And also replying to a few messages on WhatsApp coz it's so critical, and then check the Telegram channel for a few notifications.
Before you know it it's now 23:30 and come on, it's late but maybe you can push for an hour or 2 still right. And then you finally get some work done if you manage to focus without falling asleep or feeling tired. Now it's about 1 am and you are tired and you go to bed. When you reflect on your day you find that actually, you've only just put serious work for about 4 hours in total. That my friends, is a path to self destruction. Being busy instead of being productive gets you no where, you look busy, you are doing stuff but it's not income generating activities.
Before I embarked on a fixed and effective routine this was how I did things, more or less. Until I decided that enough is enough. I came up with a daily routine schedule that I make sure to stick to every single day, there will be one or two things that slip sometimes due to life emergencies etc. But as far as possible I try to stick to this schedule and then later on when I look back at my day I can go to bed happy, with a smile, knowing that I was productive that day and it didn't go to waste.
In my next post I will share with you how my daily routine changed from what it used to be to what it is now and then maybe I can take some few suggestions as well from the community. The aim here and always is to be effective/productive and not just busy. Being productive in my books means engaging in income producing activities. I am currently reading "High Performance Habits" By Brendon Burchard and am loving all the useful tips i'm getting there. I would highly suggest you get yourself a copy as well.
On my next post I will detail my daily routine and list a few books that helped me, and continue to help me, move forward on the path of effectiveness and productivity. Stay tuned.
Great post! I left my job years ago and currently work from home too. Distractions are aplenty! My best work happens when I set aside a chunk of time (2-4 hours) and I close my e-mail and silence my phone. Without e-mail alerts, texts, and calls to distract me, I feel like I get a full day's work in 4 hours.
Cheers.
I know @shockmeee. Those can be pretty distracting. Just like News notifications enabled on Chrome or whatever supported browser. When you try to do something and you see an interesting notification, about crypto of course, coming through. Then you want to check it and read. Or receiving a text (Telegram, WhatsApp) or wanting to check your email "real quick". I'm telling you. Those things will set you so far off track, 5 minute turns into 30 minutes. So you are definitely prudent by putting everything off and getting down to business. It gets your head focussed and in the right place. Then you can crush it.
Brilliant post thanks. I have a addictive personality and have found that I have to pace myself when it comes to Crypto. Because of my blog, I'm forced to look at Bitcoin daily, but I only look at my Blockfolio twice a week. I know this sounds crazy, but I'm not that heavily invested in cryptos and I've seen that patience is the friend of the investor. What's more, I've found the constant subconscious awareness of your portfolio, kills your creativity. When I'm relaxed and balanced, is when I'm the most creative. Thanks man. See your in CPT, hope all is well in the city. We had some good rain the past few days. Cheers
For sure @btc-hunter. You are not so bad bro. I used to check mine like once a day at least lol. That's one of the bad time killers. Like you said, it kills your creativity and you are constantly checking on how your portfolio is doing. And of course, if crypto is not performing well that day it causes constant worry. So that's one of the things I had to cut out.
Give me a shout when you are around man. Would be awesome to connect. Yeah I'm also grateful we've been getting a few showers of late. We need more
there has been progress .., hopefully more glorious friends
Indeed @muftii. Progress is everything. It's either you are progressing or regressing. You cannot stay in the same place.
I'm reminded of a teaching job that required very stringent time constraints, down to the minute.
Working from home really does have to be set up as a 9-5, with two 15 minute breaks, morning & afternoon; and, an hour for lunch.
Now, as an entrepreneur your 9-5 might well be 1400 to 2200 hours. That's part of the beauty of it.
Failing to follow a plan could be disastrous to the economy of things. Just as on a 9-5 you'd check you emails at break, it's a good discipline to practice as a work-from-home 'employee'.
Best regards.
Peace.
interesting i am off to reading the second part off your blog. ( ButIts nice to meet you, prof), after getting the kids right now. sticked to my schedule sofar today