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Twice before I have done “One Day In My Life” style blog posts – here and here. They have been (surprisingly) popular with readers. I guess the curious streak in us all is keen to see how others live!
Anyway, I thought of doing one for 2009 – and this is how one of my days went in the last week of December…
06:45 a.m. – I wake up. One thing I’ve changed over the past few years is the decision to get more sleep. From managing (quite comfortably, really) on four hours a night, I’ve consciously decided to increase that to six – after seeing some friends burn-out from overly stressed lives!
07:30 a.m. – I fire up my iMac, download email, and quickly scan through Twitter and TIMIC (The Internet Marketing Inner Circle) forum, one of very few online communities I’m actively engaged in.
08:00 a.m. – I start working on my first major task of the day, designed to improve productivity in 2010… Setting up dashboards. I’ve blogged about this earlier. In a nutshell, my ‘Dashboard’ is a simple webpage that lists the websites I access often. It saves me HOURS in re-typing URLs of these pages into web browsers, and makes it quick and easy to open up sites in different tabs on Firefox.
The first task was to re-structure the dashboards I had been using for 2 years, as I found some areas of wasted activity, and needed others to be included. In short, I ended up modifying the main Dashboard from having 27 links – to just ELEVEN!
The next part was to create ‘Routines’, which are short lists of repetitive activities to be carried out daily (or weekly). I have routines for business-related work to be done every morning and evening, and these were fine-tuned to fit my current plans.
09:30 a.m. – Short breakfast break, when I also read my current book – a novel by Chetan Bhagat called “The 3 Mistakes of My Life”. I average a book every week, often more. Reading is a passion, and has contributed incredible value to every aspect of my life. I’m a speed reader, and consider that skill one of the most desirable for anyone to develop because it opens up new worlds of mystery and awe… right from wherever you are!
10:00 a.m. – A passage in the novel I’m reading gave me the idea for a blog post. So I drafted out this message about the technique of fiction writing – and titled it provocatively, “If You Think Chetan Bhagat Is NOT A Good Writer…”
10:45 a.m. – Posted a link to the blog post on Twitter. Tagged Chetan (who is active on Twitter) too. He happened to be online, and re-tweeted it… and almost immediately, comments started piling up in queue for me to moderate.
11:00 a.m. – Set out to hospital for morning rounds. Little Abdul, who had a complex heart defect (Tetralogy of Fallot) repaired last week, was recovering well and will soon be back home with his brothers. A bright smile lit up the six-year old’s face when I told him the good news… a smile (like 54 more) made possible by thousands of generous supporters and donors, people just like you!
11:50 a.m. – On the drive to the railway station to pick up my twin nieces who are visiting us for their half-year holiday, I got a phone call from my cousin saying that an uncle is seriously ill. Apparently, he had a cardiac arrest, had been resuscitated, but his condition was critical.
1:15 p.m. – In the I.C.U., reviewing uncle’s situation, then consoling the family, providing them with the strand of hope that no one likes to abandon, but instead will cling to desperately – even against all odds. I’ve learned, over years, about the power of that delicate strand, and have seen miracles happen because of it.
2:30 p.m. – Back in the office, after a quick lunch, checking on my blog stats… and astounded to see over 900 people have read today’s post about Chetan Bhagat! (It went up to 1,415 reads before the day was out!)
Predictably, many comments were from fans simply raving about their favorite writer, or critics tearing down what they see as superficial writing. All those got trashed. While I use a bestselling author to make a point, the blog post itself is about the technique of writing great fiction – and few comments were relevant to that!
3:15 p.m. – The twins drop by, chattering away nineteen to the dozen, bringing me up to date with what’s been happening in their busy lives over the 4 months since we last met. I got to show them some of the nice photos we shot including the sparrow-hawk and tailorbird. Turns out the girls had seen a tailorbird’s nest – but not the resident!
4:30 p.m. – The kids set off to play, leaving me to catch up on some reading. I quickly skimmed a business e-report by Willie Crawford (a free gift for TIMIC members), a review copy of my V.A.’s book on making New Year’s resolutions, and some medical literature.
5:30 p.m. – With an hour of potentially uninterrupted time to focus on work, I create content for my membership site, “Build Your Online Business” – which members of my Info-Circle Private Group get access to for free.
6:30 p.m. – Quick phone call to hospital confirms uncle’s condition is stable, even a little improved. Remember what I said about hope and miracles?
6:40 p.m. – Short blitz of online marketing, where I did a ‘tag and ping‘ on my recent blog posts. Done regularly, this will always bring in a burst of traffic and even boost search rankings.
7:00 p.m. – Phone call to a representative of our local Rotary Club to arrange an appointment to meet and discuss the logistics of their plan to fund some heart operations through our program. If all goes well, this will help the Dr.Mani Children Heart Foundation carry out an additional 30 operations in 2010.
7:20 p.m. – A question popped into my mind: Why do I blog? So I thought of addressing it in a little blog post – which I published right away!
7:40 p.m. – Sent out a brief email to my list, in which I mentioned the best selling products in my portfolio in 2009 – and indicating the one which I believed would be the most popular in the coming year.
8:00 p.m. – After a nice family dinner, we all sat down to watch a movie (an oldie Tamil flick which I first saw nearly 20 years ago, and still had us all rolling on the ground in laughter!)
11:00 p.m. – Last check. A rapid scan through email, Twitter, TIMIC, forums, online networks and a few other news resources.
00:00 – Plan tomorrow. It’s something I try to do, but sometimes fail to finish. And whenever I fail, the following day is less productive! Think there’s a connection?! Leo Babauta’s ebook, ZEN TO DONE, has been of great value in driving home the importance of listing THREE important tasks to complete the next day. After making my list, I prepare to sleep.
In a broad sense, a typical day in my life would be similar. A mix of surgery and Foundation activities, writing and marketing my Web business, reading, learning and spending time with family.
Some days are different. When I’m operating, six hours or so will be devoted to that, leaving less time to get other things done. But with focus and a structured plan to follow, this won’t impact productivity much.
And while efficiency is a worthy habit to strive for, you can’t move towards your major goals without being EFFECTIVE. And this means not merely doing things well… it means doing the things that MATTER!
Make that your focus for 2010 and you’ll discover how magically your productivity and impact will multiply in the year ahead.
{ 1 comment }
Lifestyle posts are really interesting to read for some reason; especially those written by someone “in the same line”
I write a nightly review every night almost without fail, and a weekly review once a week, but your post just gave me the idea to write the review based on approximate time intervals.
Seems like a great way for you to find out if time is just zooming by without you knowing.
Thanks for the idea; if it works out this is probably another piece of advice that will increase my productivity for 2010.
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