Fridays and the weekends are hard

Being productive over the weekends can be difficult at times. Sometimes I feel very energised and ready to do work, sometimes I just feel meh. Last weekend I felt very energised, this weekend not as much. I wonder what is causing that variation and if it can be affected somehow. I do know that sleep is crucial, and getting started with work as well (more on this later). I honestly really don’t feel like writing this blog, but I’m still doing it.

Beating procrastination

One thing I found very effective is having some sort of a plan and transition. For example, it’s much easier when I break down the task I need to do. Breaking the task down also serves as this transition period. Some tips say you should make it as easy as possible to get started, such as having the tools you need to do work already open and things like that, but for me all it means is that all there’s left to do is to get started, which can cause some resistance.

This transition period where I’m working on planning the tasks and breaking them down really helps, as it’s easy to do plus it makes me sit down and get started, which is already 90% of the effort required.

Pushing my focus and productivity

I found myself restricting the time I spend working. Often I feel like I can continue going, but I still take a break. I am wondering it that’s a way of doing self-care, so I don’t push myself too much and burn out over time, or if I’m just scared of going outside of my comofrt zone. Almost as if I’m afraid to prove to myself just how much more productive I can be. I feel like it’s the latter. Kind of like fear of success, which I’ve been struggling with for a while now. I’d like to work on this by noticing whenever I can keep going but still want to take a break, and pushing myself an extra 10-15 minutes.

Getting back to note taking

I used to use Obsidian for note taking, I followed the PARA note taking technique. However, after reading ReWork I realised I stopped taking notes. I don’t even take notes while listening to podcasts. So that’s something I want to incorporate again. This week during my work breaks I’d like to start reading the book again and taking notes.

ReWork

The book is great, you won’t ready anything super amazing in it, but I’d say it’s a worthwile read. It’s also quote short, as most chapters are only 1.5 pages long, and each chapter has it’s own visual, so every second or third page doesn’t have any readable content. At first I thought be book was a bit “lazy” for being short, but I ended up respecting it more afterwards. Most other books of this type could probably be the same length, but they’re full of fillers and information you don’t need. ReWork, however, gets straight to the point and moves on to the next point.

I really like their way of approaching things, it’s quite similar to how I’d approach running a business as well, which honestly made me feel quite good. These are already successful men in business who wrote the book, and my way of thinking is quite similar. Saying that, I’d still like to go through the book again and take notes in Obisidan.

Golden Son

To be honest, I read ReWork whenever I could just so I could move onto Golden Son as soon as possible. So far I’m only 50-ish pages in and I’m really enjoying it. Not much I can say apart from that. The story is slowly starting to pick up though.

Fitness

I started doing barbell squats, this is so far the only exercise that properly tires me, apart from running. Leg days are usually the most difficult, but they feel the best as well. That feeling of physical tiredness is great.

I also upped my bench from 20kg to 25kg, it is a bit more difficult but not as bad as I thought. My goal is to reach 30kg by the end of Q1. I want to be able to do at least 2x 10 of 30kg, same with squats.

A few things I’d like to try

Brainstorming with AI

I’d like to experiment using AI (ChatGPT and Claude) for brainstorming different ideas, mostly regarding the projects I’m working on. Sometimes figuring out what you want is difficult, and having something to bounce your ideas off of can be quite helpful. I need to experiment with this though.

Macros intake tracking and counting

I want to become more lean while not losing muscle. So, I need to be in a calorie deficit while eating enough protein. So far I’m not tracking anything, I just eat. The two change I made is eating eggs for breakfast and dinner, and reducing the amount of bread I’m eating. But I don’t have any specific numbers yet.