When you can't be good all of the time, be great some of the time

The biggest challenge with being a planning/strategy type is that everyone things they can do your job. 

But like many things, it's easy until you actually have to do it.

Let's be honest actually, it's not that hard to be an okay planner these days.

Since many places prefer a process being ticked, rather than brilliantly simple, informed ideas that change things.  

Being a great planner though, that takes great writing, sharp thinking and ideas. 

That is not easy, yet most of our workplace makes it harder.

 

Because doing your best work required you to be at your best.

Yet the actual work is often squeezed in between all the other stuff. 

Status meetings, check in meetings, lots of meetings, meetings about meetings. 

It's often the case you finally do deep work when you're tired out.

Come on.

How can you do your best work when you're brain dead from overlong status call? 

 

The very structure of the working day gets in the way.

Most people are far better in mornings than afternoons.

To the point where the difference in mental performance is as stark as being drunk or sober. 

Yet who gets to escape the Monday morning start the week meetings?

 

To be more precise, hard concentration is much better done in mornings.

But flashes of insight and out of the box ideas are better in the afternoon.

Because the rational brain is too tired to fight the absurd.

 

So in organisations that are supposed to deliver great thinking and fresh ideas.

Isn't it absurd how the working day is shaped to get in the way of the very thing that makes us money?

 

But then there is you.

The brain is a muscle.

When you require other muscles to work, you warm them up.

You leave the usual environments for places like gyms.

You pay over the odds for bits of polyester and plastic called 'kit'.

Cycling men even shave their legs to feel ready for battle.

 

Yet we sit in the same desks to deep work as we do for timesheets.

We click off emails and get straight into it.

The best work takes all we've got.

Yet we tie our own hands behind our backs.

 

We need to change WHEN we work.

We need to change HOW we work. 

But let's be honest, even though they should, most places will not abandon the current situation.

Here's what I do. I hack the system, I hack myself. 

I have to, I'm not naturally very good at this job, I have to work harder at it.

But even if you're naturally brilliant, imagine how much better you could be if you have yourself the chance? 

1. Have a morning routine. I get outside for at least 10 minutes (at least), HiiT exercise for at least 7 minutes, 10 minutes meditation (or just Wim How breathing techniques). All before I start work -and yes, I have children, I just get up earlier. All this gets me warmed up and energised to work well. If you commute, make sure you power walk for some of it, medicate on the train, don't doom scroll. 
2. Consider fasting in mornings, it clears brain fog (coffee reduces appetite).
3. Start work at least an hour before everyone else, in many cases, even earlier. Do the hard jobs that matter first.
4. Do everything you can to avoid morning meetings, put one and two hour blocks in my diary for proper hard work.
5. Work 25 minutes on, 5 minutes off. Little breaks, maximum effort.
6. Block social media, internet and most phone stuff in mornings so my brain is doing one things and getting into flow state.
7. Power nap around lunchtime just 20 minutes, then espresso and 5 minutes exercise -which mitigates a lot of afternoon crapness (naps in an office are tough culturally, a walk is not)
8. But I will have left most admin and low level tasks for afternoons, most meetings will be happening now if I have anything to do with it.
9. If I'm remote working, which I get to do a lot, I'll do an hour's hard exercise - mostly cycling. I have the time because I haven't wasted time. 
10. Then I'll try and re-look at projects when I've done lots of hard work already, but it's just not there yet -  the subconscious will have done lots of work for me, now I let it come out while I'm too tired to fight it. Get it all out, leave the tough work to turn it into gold for later.
11. I'll get a second wind late afternoon, early evening. I have kids, I have a life, but I often have another run at things.
12. I have thinking place and a doing place - just like the act of putting on Nike's to run, I'll sit in a thinking chair - and in an open plan office, switch seats to think rather than do. It's obvious, but it works, just as Bruce Wayne puts on the Batsuit yet doesn't gain any actual superpowers.

Much of this works for me because I'm me, other things will work better for you, but most is based on real science on what works for most people.

It doesn't require more time, just smarter use of it.

It's easy because it's building habits, and habits are what gets us through most days, we just need good ones.

Two final thoughts:

We all use QWERTY keypads. They were designed for old style typewriters to slow people DOWN so the mechanical action wouldn't jam. But we still use it simply because we always have. The 9-5 routine, a rough splodge of activity is like that. But you can hack the system and hack youself. 

It's amazing how much time you have, and how good you are,  when you put your phone away.