Test #11: Evening/Night Review and Planning for effective day

Background

Continuation from this Test #10: Evening/Night Review and Planning for effective

Obadaa: observe, analyze (Energy: is it working, what increase  energy, what decrease ebgery, right time/cycle), adjust (create rules, routine), automate (manual, eliminate)

Learning on the failure of the previous test, I created a modified routine and this time with a detailed to do items and timed for each item with total 45 minutes, and this include a recovery routine because I always felt tired when going to do the night review which lead to

TEST CARD

Title
Evening/Night Review and Planning for effective day

Due Date / Duration
July 15, 2017  / 1 week

Step 1 – Hypothesis – Critical: 3
I believe that Evening/Night Review and Planning with recovery routine and timed routine is effective in analysing today activities, create adjustment for future activities, and increase productivity for the next day by reducing the start of day task of need to plan.

Step 2 – Test – Cost: 1 – Reliability: 3
To verify, I will

1. For 1 week: put the notes in this post (including sleep)
2. Still using the blog though, cause book will also require me to bring the book everywhere
3. Using a Interval Timer apps in iphone
4. 45mins: The routine
   1. 10mins: Routine for restoring energy
      1. 5mins: Shower
      2. 2mins: Food/drink intake : Tea, VCO and Honey
      3. 3mins: Breathing (recovery routine?)
   2. 15mins: Review Today
      1. 5mins: Write down goal and sub goal
      2. 5mins: Write down activities from google calendar and memory
      3. 5mins: Evaluate & Adjust  (Obadaa – Observe, analyse, adjust, automate)
   3. 20mins: Plan fo next day:
      1. 5mins: big & small
      2. 10mins: task breakdown
      3. 5mins: Put in google calendar

Step 3 – Metric – Time Required: 2
And measure

1. Energy Level after recovery routine
2. Feeling of fulfilled: low 1 – 5 high
3. Productivity (more things gets done): low 1 – 5 high
4. Usefulness of Adjust and Automation decisions / actions
5. Number of Adjust and Automation decisions / actions

Step 4 – Criteria
I am right if at the end of the test

1. Energy Level >=4
2. Feeling of effectiveness >=4
3. Productivity >= 4
4. Usefulness of Adjust and Automation decisions/actions >=4

LEARNING CARD

Step 1 – Hypothesis 

I believe that ==Same with above==

Step 2 – Observation – Reliability: 1

I observed

Factor	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Energy Level	4	4	4	4	4	4	4
Feeling Fulfilled	4	4	4	4	4	4	4
Productivity	3	2	2	2	2	3	3
Useful Adjust/Automate	4	4	4	4	4	4	4
# of Adjust/Automate	1	3	3	2	2	2	2

Time Journal

Activity	Time	Energy Level (Working, +, -, Feel)	Cycle (Peak/Rest)	Adjust & Automate
Sat, Jul 8
Update Blog	12-15, 3h	working, 1 routine & 1 draft, 1 report, when thinking and writing (i feel result)	lunch (gado-gado)	thinking and writing goes hand in hand, always have the media to write (evernote, wordpress, paper, wiki)
Sun, Jul 9
church	10-12, 2h	sleepy, due to low on fuel and new sleeping pattern (wake @4am)		food+sleep really matters, action: more focus on food
dosing around	12-19, 7h	foggy and tired, bad lunch, bad sleep?, even after taking a nap		action: midday recovery routine (nap, vco, tea, honey, coffee…)
browsing	19-21, 2h	feel useless day,  finding alternatives loosen up routine, lead to nightmare on oversleeping		action: loosen up routine (physical play? swim, with date’s friends)
Mon, Jul 10
Meeting	11-15, 4h	focused for 2 hour, then hungry and getting distracted		action: bring emergency tea when on the road
create report	18-19, 1h	not quite the best condition, but completed the report and draft for new feature		bad energy level due to skipping meal is bad, see the above adjustment
sleep	1-8, 7h	alarm not working, messed up routine,		action: even on bad wake day, minimum routine can still be done: food and grateful / breath
Tue, Jul 11
SDP	13-19, 6h	solved but less value		stick to pareto factor
Discuss online accounting & training	19-21, 2h	ok priority reset, elearning		informal meeting is more effective
Wed, Jul 12
Prospect hunting	10-12, 2h	this is important! know your market & not your		allocate enough time for knowing market and customer
Review with Annam	1h	not effective, no documentation for task & progress		Brief, notes and MOM in PM and tasks in PM
Thu, Jul 13
assessment bphn	7-11, 4h	Frans not well prepared (sick)		ask when noticing downs
lunch meeting ND	11-13, 2h	well, idea came through, in road
meeting sdp	14-19, 5h	communication feel normal		documentation and clear to do
dinner with TOmy	19-22, 3h			limit time beforehand
Fri, Jul 14

Notes:

1. Day 1
   1. if think then write = Result
2. Day 2
   1. new routine list
3. Day 3
4. Day 4
5. Day 5
   1. adjustment is gem by itself. Evaluate and adjust
6. Day 6
7. Day 7

Step 3 – Learnings and Insights – Action Required: 1

From that I learned that

1. The review routine can be used not just at night, but also morning or other time
2. The routine of taking warm tea, bath and breathing restore energy level, with the earliest provide more stronger effect
3. The routine of reviewing goals, previous activities give boost the feeling of effectiveness due to constant self reminder and refocus to the goals and ensure all steps are aligned to goal
4. Adjustment findings are most precious by itself, because Im forced to think and write down something that I need to do especially for non effective activities, just common sense adjustment but writing them down, made me to be more aware or deliberate in thinking proactively, rather than just feeling ineffective and doesn’t think nor decide to stop or change the behaviour to effect the outcome
5. Productivity are not affected, I am measuring from the amount of tasks gets done, but in term of importance I find that I succeed in completing most of the prioritised tasks. So is it efficient in term of the numbers of tasks or effective in completing the right tasks (doing right things VS doing things right).
6. The routine to list task, prioritise and then break down tasks are effective with timer to avoid time creep following the Parkinson’s Law.
7. The timed routine are effective, I don’t find problem in completing them even though the routine is more than 30 minutes long, once it started, I am chased down by the time to focus on completing them. Sometimes several routine are missed and I can just jump in to the required routine (skipping bath or breathing time). So timed detail tasks are effective to ensure focus and completion.
8. I still had problem to start the task though, and there are several days when I don’t start the timer, hence the finding that the routine can be done on morning or other time.

Step 4 – Decision and Actions

Therefore, I will

1. Rename this to be Daily Review Routine: Energy Recovery, Goals, Evaluate previous and adjust, plan next and breakdown
2. Use the timed routine for other routine
3. Possibility to break down the routine to smaller routines.