I’d love to read what you did every day for a week’s (or even just two days) to get a better feel for how your philosophy in wandering about looking for inspiration and then pouncing on opportunity works in practice :)
Typical day:
  • I wake up around 7am, when my kids wake up.
  • I check my phone notifications for anything urgent that might have happened overnight. Almost never happens, but this gives me peace of mind that I didn't miss anything. Also, I like checking what business activity happened overnight, just out of curiosity.
  • I spend until 9am with my kids.
  • Then I go to my desk and try to deal with all the important things for the day, such as responding to emails, support, handling refunds, answering online comments/questions, etc. This typically takes 1-2 hours, and almost never more than that.
  • Then the rest of the day after around 11am is completely random, where there's practically no pattern. It really depends on what I feel like doing. Common activities include, scrolling through social media, reading, taking a walk, going out with the family, home improvement DIYs, playing with my kids, etc. I tend to leave phone notifications on (but without sound) for a few important things while doing these activities, so if something important happens I'll have the option to react to it.
  • Kids go to sleep at around 8:30pm, and then it's often some watching tv or reading in bed.
  • Sleep around 11pm.

As you can see, there isn't a lot that's typically considered productive time. I'm not building consistently, doing a small thing every day for 365 days, and so on. I don't try to keep a streak of things — 100 consecutive days of this or that. I just don't work that way, and never did (although I tried various times). Almost all my productivity comes in spikes, maybe 3 or 4 times a year, where all the above gets replaced with whatever I'm focused on for a week or two. I don't artificially limit myself to how often this happens, but it's mostly a matter of inspiration meeting opportunity. Many times I get inspired, but then I mull over the idea for a bit and realize that the opportunity is not worth pursuing. But when I think it's worth it, I don't put it on the ideas lists or make it my New Year's resolution. I pounce on it immediately. I do this for things outside of work too, such as home improvement stuff.
See less