Daily Hackathon

According to Parkinson’s law, developing a sense of urgency is key to remain productive. I like to think of my workdays as hackathons: I try to remain ambitious with my objectives, I add time constraints, and I focus on delivering tangible results.

Boredom is the surest way to waste a day of work. I remind myself of the reason for my presence. Looking at the bigger picture is always more exciting. I also like impossible tasks that are too big to be achieved perfectly. Better done than perfect. Breaking down each task into smaller ones is also a way to rationalize it and to make it look easier. Having a progress bar is a great tool to gamify difficult tasks.

If your workday is not time-bounded, you’ll eventually get distracted. I aim at completing all my most important tasks within the first four hours. I then take care of my basic needs: exercising, meditation, taking the sun, eating properly, showering, etc. I consider anything after that as extra work, where added value is created. This limit is important to ensure that I do not overwork myself and that I don’t feel guilty about not doing enough. Both are traps I used to fall into.

Last but not least, I focus on results: if I can’t explain or show what I did, I’ve been playing around. It can be something as simple as a bug fix or a small feature. My daily blog post is part of those results too.

I am competing every day. Not with others, but with myself. There is only one person to surpass, and it’s yesterday me.