This week I had an experience that despite being frustrating beyond belief, came to teach me a lesson on productivity that Tim Ferris himself would be proud of.
Here’s what happened…
I just moved apartments this week… and cities as it would happen, from Montreal, to Toronto – the joys of remote work and internet lifestyle.
Unfortunately for us, the internet company failed to connect us up on time, so we arrived at the apartment, to no internet connection.
I don’t know about you, but without internet, I start to do weird things. I hallucinate, I display excessive aggression, I’ve been known to roll up into the fetal position and rock back and forth, muttering to myself incoherently. It’s not pretty.
In desperation, I was forced to head out each day to a little coffee shop across the street and use their free wireless internet.
This was wrought with problems…
1. My laptop battery lasts not more than an hour so all my sessions were maximum 1 hour long.
2. There’s a limit to how many times you can go in and sit for an hour while drinking a bottle of water or a cookie.
3. They close at 9pm, which is closer to the time that I start working rather than end.
So basically I had to make sure everything was in order in my business, in maximum of 2 hours per day.
What would you do if you could only work two hours per day?
Long story short, I got through the 4 days and my internet finally got set back up.
That night, I sat on the internet for about 6 hours – more like a normal work night 
When I finished, I thought to myself…
“That’s about the total amount I’ve worked in the past 4 days…”
“Did I get more done just now than the past 4 days?”
And you know what… I don’t think I did!
As soon as the internet became unlimited, my work patterns changed.
I chatted to people on Skype, cruised around on Twitter, took my time with tasks… Rather than the efficient, “focus on most important tasks” productivity master I was in that 4 days – I’d become a big unproductive LOSER!
When I reflected on the experience I was reminded of a quote from The 4 Hour Work Week that goes
“Work expands to fill the time allotted to it”
Isn’t that amazing?
In other words, if you put aside 8 hours a day to work, you’re going to fill up that 8 hours, whether you have important things to do or not.
Has this opened my eyes? You betcha!
Now I’m going to limit myself to working 6 hours per day and no more (previously it was more like 16) and what I can’t finish in that time, isn’t important enough. I’ll make sure to fill out the rest of the day with things that are easy to put off… exercising, reading, playing guitar (whatever it is for you) etc
How much time are you working each day? Are you productive the whole time?
What would you do if you only had an hour per day to work?
These are important questions. And since this is a blog… I’d love to hear your answers to them!
Shoot…
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Andrew, I think you should stick with that 1 hour battery life, free internet whilst drinking the cookie routine
At least for all your important tasks. Then allocate less important tasks for the time you’re working from home.
Maybe set up a 2nd networked computer or laptop that isn’t connected to the net by disabling the gateway ip. Find out what jobs can be done on such a machine that don’t require an internet connection and use it to get those done. Article writing perhaps? Graphics, or blog posts such as this you can save as text files and post later.
My video editing/music computer has no internet connection so there’s a lot less I can do on that machine that would waste my time. I generally get a lot more done on that machine.
Productivity is a big issue for me right now, too. At work, I feel like there’s so much to do that I’ll never get it all done, no matter how hard I work. That’s a real productivity killer
That said, it’s true that the work expands to fill up the time, just like the stuff you have expands to fill up your space, ha ha.
David Allen of “Getting Things Done” suggests you work every day as if you were leaving for vacation the next morning. Talk about prioritizing and cutting to the chase!
A big round of applause on your decision to cut from a 16 hour work day to a 6 hour work day. You are going to need some new hobbies.
I am always amazed how much can be done in a short period of time.
One thing I tell perspective business partners when they are trying to decide if they have enough time to join me is 1 focused hour a day beats 8 hours of screw-of time.
The problem with working online is that you may end up spending way too much time chatting with people on messenger or skype, browsing randomly the internet, watching funny videos, send out some tweets or facebook updates and so on and so forth.
I usually try to organise my day so I can get the most of it. I use a white board to put down the tasks ahead of me so I can organise them on a daly basis. I use ToDo iPhone app to divide my day into little tasks and I give myself 1h when I get up, to do all the unproductive online activities while having my cup of coffee.
I’m retired from 9-5 and from being a type-A personality. I had to learn in my retirement what you have learned at a young age. Good for you!
I “work” on my IM business 3 hours in the daytime and 3 hours in the late night. I take a break each hour. That’s it! Focused on important tasks. I have a “to do” list that I attack each day. It keeps me on track.
On weekends I spend time with my wife and, when possible, with our grandkids. The only IM activity is clearing emails.
I’m not getting rich but I’m a happy camper. I think it’s called “get rich slow”.
Jim DeSantis
Andrew – I know exactly what you mean!
When I got started in this game I was full time in Uni and gave myself just 1-2 hours a night to “work” on my IM business. If something needed doing, I made sure to get it done in that short space of time.
Now I’m full time and working 6-8 hours a day … but there are days (probably way too many of them!) that I still haven’t done more than an hour or two worth of real work!
Richard
TOTALLY man, you know what I’m talkin about
BTW what the hell? I’m here hangin out with this dude who I find out is your biz partner AND you’re mega into SEO all this time?
We might be seein ya next week!
Andrew,
I know exactly what you mean about the distractions AND how it feels to be like a fish out of water when you don’t have computer and/or (especially) internet access. You quickly adjust to the “special” connection when you get it…just like with friends and family – that time is valuable.
I profess to simplify as my name implies and am working towards a 3 hour work day. Hey, to aim for $300 an hour for a 3 hour day is a pretty good haul!
At Christmas time my laptop screen finally went (after 10000 hours of use) and I had to go to the library to use the computer and get my postings done. I also got caught of on some serious old fashioned research.
I think you have taught a good lesson here…time is valuable and if it is limited, we tend to use it wisely. Perhaps we should all have shorter work weeks.
P.S. I’m in Toronto too and have followed you for a while through Josh Spaulding. Perhaps you should hold a meet up for your Toronto followers. If you want to know where the “awesome” coffee shops are I’ll let you know. If you are downtown, try the Linux Cafe on Harbord – you can plug in your laptop and work all day. I know dozens of other places like that and would be happy to let you know.
Good luck with the move and welcome to Toronto.
It is amazing how effective we can be if we need to be and it is also amazing how we can seem to accomplish nothing with a bunch of time on our hands.
Rick
Interesting that you all work full time on your business, whereas I spend 37-39 hours per week and then come home and manage my blog and current project. I have very little time away from the laptop but I blame myself for that.
Being online means that I get distracted easily, and I need to think of a way to priortise tasks each week and aim to complete those tasks rather than going from one thing to another and achieving nothing.
I took some tips from Jimmy D. Brown. He works three hours a day but his days are very planned out. Even planning his days is part of his plan. He breaks it down. Now I am making this part up, but this is the idea. On Mondays he might work on listbuilding, on Tuesdays it’s advertising, Wednesdays on blog posting.
He also breaks those days up into 45 minute chucks to maximize his productivity. So He plans for example on Wednesdays 12-12:45 write article, 12:45-1:30 write blog post, etc.
And he strictly adheres to that plan. I’m working on it, but that’s a lot of self discipline that I am trying to develope.
– Jeffery
Jeffery,
That’s awesome, if you can do it, more power to you!
I think it depends alot on your personality as well – some people looooove this kind of structure and feel the most “free” and productive when things are all planned out like this. On the other hand of course, others are stifled by this kind of strictness and find it easier to get certain chunks done, of their choosing, at different times each day.
It’s all good stuff! Whatever works for you.
Thanks for sharing mate.
Andrew