Abstraction

As I’ve mentioned a couple of times in previous posts, I’ve recently joined a new company and now have a totally different work schedule. My company is based in Ireland, and I’m working primarily from my office at home in San Francisco, supplemented with monthly trips to Dublin.

It’s my first experience working from home. I entered into it with great optimism about how taking control of the lion’s share of my time would create opportunities that I otherwise would not have. I could, for example, opt to take my son to a swimming lesson on Tuesdays at 11am without disrupting my work schedule at all. As long as I got the job done, there was no one looking over my shoulder telling me that I needed to work within a specific window of time. I can move the window (or break it up) any way that I wished).

On paper it sounds great, and I’m still optimistic that it will be great. But it’s been much harder than I thought it would be. Look at this blog, for example — I provided an update near daily for months before starting the new gig, and have made perhaps three pathetic updates since.

Routine is really important for productivity. At least is is for *my* productivity. Unless I structure my day into specific blocks of time, each allocated to one specific goal or the other, I find that I get almost nothing done. I like to tell myself that this is indicative of an extremely curious mind (e.g. there’s always something interesting to think about, read, or work on). That’s mostly crap. It’s really indicative of my tendency toward disorganization and procrastination, against which I fight a constant battle.

So I’m developing a routine, and am finally getting the details of my home office worked out. The results will speak for themselves in the coming weeks. If I begin the next post with “man, it’s been awhile,” you can be assured that I was less successful that I had hoped.