Let's get practical #2: Deep Work & Organization

[Raphael]

25 May 2020

• Wake Up Time: 06:14 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 09:25 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Deep Work Sessions:

• 09:35 AM - 10:40 AM: I created another filter and almost completed it. I had a huge amount of negative thoughts. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 5 minutes
• 11:00 AM - 12:47 AM: I finished the search functionality. I had again a lot of parasite thoughts. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 47 minutes
• 01:55 PM - 03:14 PM: I started to work on a scrolling issue. I still had parasite thoughts. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 19 minutes
• 03:21 PM - 04:47 PM: I continued the work on the scrolling functionality. I had a lot of parasite thoughts and distracted myself a little in the middle. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 26 minutes

I'm continuing to wake up too late for the time where I want to stop my days. The ideal time would be 05:30 AM.

• Total Work Duration: 5 hours 37 minutes, including 5 hours 37 minutes of Deep Work (objective at least 6 hours)
• Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes, I'm not reading anything currently)

[Raphael]

26 May 2020

• Wake Up Time: 06:20 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 09:30 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Work Sessions:

• 09:05 AM - 10:03 AM: I wanted to create a dropdown with HTML in the options, but it's not possible so I searched for a library. I also got a call from a client in the middle. Work Duration: 58 minutes

Deep Work Sessions:

• 08:36 AM - 09:00 AM: I added another scrollback functionality. Deep Work Duration: 24 minutes
• 10:22 AM - 11:24 AM: I did some corrections on the client's website. I distracted myself a little by looking at my emails in the middle. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 2 minutes
• 11:32 AM - 12:31 AM: I started to work on a custom dropdown. Deep Work Duration: 59 minutes
• 01:39 PM - 03:44 PM: I worked on the select bar of the statistics dashboard. I'm happy with the result, it looks very good. I got a little distracted at some moments by email and LinkedIn notifications. I had some parasite thoughts. Deep Work Duration: 2 hours 5 minutes
• 03:53 PM - 04:37 PM: I did some tweaks to the previous work. Deep Work Duration: 44 minutes

 

• Total Work Duration: 6 hours 12 minutes, including 5 hours 14 minutes of Deep Work (objective at least 6 hours)
• Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes, I'm not reading anything currently)

[Raphael]

No Screens Before Bed

I notice that I sleep way better when I completely avoid screens before going to bed and instead just relax and do nothing. I'm sometimes very tempted to go on the computer because I'm an internet/information addict. I need to put that into action, that's critical, the quality of my work depends on how well I rest.

[Raphael]

27 May 2020

• Wake Up Time: 05:49 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 09:30 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Work Sessions:

• 11:50 AM - 01:00 PM: I had a discussion with a client. Work Duration: 1 hour 10 minutes

 

• Total Work Duration: 1 hour 10 minutes, including 0 minutes of Deep Work (objective 0 minutes)
• Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes, I'm not reading anything currently)

 

Edited May 27, 2020 by Raphael

[Raphael]

28 May 2020

• Wake Up Time: 06:22 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 10:27 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Work Sessions:

• 11:30 AM - 11:50 AM: I had an issue with the connection to the database. I tried to fix it and saw that the necessary port wasn't opened, so I opened it and it fixed the issue. Work Duration: 20 minutes
• 12:01 AM - 12:27 AM: I wanted to do some research, but I noticed that a tier API is blocking me because my app is still in development mode. Work Duration: 26 minutes
• 01:53 PM - 02:25 PM: I did some research on the tier API to verify what I can do in development mode. Work Duration: 32 minutes
• 02:41 PM - 03:09 PM: I had a call with a client. Work Duration: 28 minutes

Deep Work Sessions:

• 08:43 AM - 09:53 AM: I did some improvement on the client's website. I had some parasite thoughts and also got distracted a little. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 10 minutes
• 10:11 AM - 10:28 AM: I did a few other corrections to the previous work. Deep Work Duration: 17 minutes
• 10:33 AM - 11:30 AM: I went back working on my personal project and did a few tweaks. Deep Work Duration: 57 minutes
• 07:28 PM - 09:26 PM: I did more work on the client website. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 58 minutes

This day has been quite sloppy. It started well, but I then got discouraged by an obstacle that I didn't expect so I had motivation issues after that. I finally decided to do the work for my client in the evening, which is a bad practice because it usually excites my brain before going to sleep. I'm expecting to have trouble sleeping tonight.

• Total Work Duration: 6 hours 8 minutes, including 5 hours 51 minutes of Deep Work (objective at least 6 hours)
• Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes, I'm not reading anything currently)

[Raphael]

29 May 2020

• Wake Up Time: 06:25 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 12:38 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Work Sessions:

• 09:15 AM - 10:12 AM: I started the day by doing some verifications and creating fake data. Work Duration: 57 minutes
• 11:09 AM - 11:23 AM: My client told me that he would be ready soon, so I didn't want to start something new and waited, but he finally took more than an hour to get back to me. We then had a call. After that, I got distracted and spend some time on youtube. Work Duration: 14 minutes
• 12:05 AM - 01:05 PM: I searched for product pages examples. I was listening to some talks at the same time. Work Duration: 1 hour
• 02:05 PM - 02:43 PM: I did a little of project planning and analysis. I realized that there's a lot of mistakes that I need to correct. Work Duration: 38 minutes

Deep Work Sessions:

• 02:50 PM - 03:44 PM: I renamed a model, did the necessary fixes, created a pull request, and merged it. Deep Work Duration: 54 minutes
• 03:53 PM - 04:43 PM: I did more fixes. Deep Work Duration: 50 minutes
• 09:20 PM - 12:17 PM: I slacked off so much and started to work late at night. I was tired and distracted myself a little sometimes during this session. Deep Work Duration: 2 hours 57 minutes

This day was a little sloppy too. I was lazy, and finally got a lot of work at the end of the day which caused me to work very late. The good point is that I worked for more than 7 hours today.

• Total Work Duration: 7 hours 30 minutes, including 4 hours 41 minutes of Deep Work (objective at least 6 hours)
• Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes, I'm not reading anything currently)

[Raphael]

30 May 2020

• Wake Up Time: 07:07 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 09:47 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Work Sessions:

• 08:10 PM - 09:05 PM: I had a call with a friend. I presented him two projects, he seems interested to work with me. Work Duration: 55 minutes

Deep Work Sessions:

• 02:05 PM - 03:52 PM: I did some fixes on my personal project and merged my pull requests. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 47 minutes
• 04:00 PM - 04:58 PM: I continued the corrections on the application. Deep Work Duration: 58 minutes

I didn't sleep a lot yesterday, it caused me to wake up very late. Because of this, I got very lazy and didn't get the motivation to work most of the day. I still managed to work for almost 4 hours.

• Total Work Duration: 3 hours 45 minutes, including 2 hours 45 minutes of Deep Work (objective at least 6 hours)
• Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes, I'm not reading anything currently)

[Raphael]

31 May 2020

• Wake Up Time: 07:20 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 10:15 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Work Sessions:

• No work for today

I had a really bad night because I was too excited thinking about some stuff so I almost didn't sleep at night. However, I took a lot of time to relax today so I will be productive tomorrow.

• Total Work Duration: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes)
• Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes, I'm not reading anything currently)

[Raphael]

01 June 2020

• Wake Up Time: 07:40 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 09:50 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Work Sessions:

• 09:30 PM - 09:39 PM: I checked my emails and had a short conversation with a client. Work Duration: 9 minutes
• 08:00 PM - 08:50 PM: I did a little more cleanup and some research on PWA and mobile responsiveness. Work Duration: 50 minutes

Deep Work Sessions:

• 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM: I started to clean up a project. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour

Damn... I'm having back issues with work for more than one week now. I have been extremely lazy today and didn't want to work at all. Even if I don't live in the US, George Floyds' death and the protests made me very agitated.

• Total Work Duration: 1 hour 50 minutes, including 1 hour of Deep Work (objective at least 6 hours)
• Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes, I'm not reading anything currently)

Edited June 1, 2020 by Raphael

[Raphael]

02 June 2020

• Wake Up Time: 06:35 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 10:00 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Deep Work Sessions:

• 10:21 AM - 12:15 AM: I created a few new components and did some CSS work. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 54 minutes
• 01:12 PM - 14:02 PM: I added and styled a delete button and did some design experiments. Deep Work Duration: 50 minutes
• 02:08 PM - 03:14 PM: I tried to integrate a date picker. I got how the directive works, I need to create a model and component to make it more reusable. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 6 minutes
• 03:21 PM - 04:51 PM: I started to create the new component and its functionalities. So far, so good. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes

 

• Total Work Duration: 5 hours 20 minutes, including 5 hours 20 minutes of Deep Work (objective at least 6 hours)
• Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes, I'm not reading anything currently)

Edited June 2, 2020 by Raphael

[Raphael]

03 June 2020

• Wake Up Time: 06:27 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 09:14 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Work Sessions:

• No work for today

 

• Total Work Duration: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes)
• Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes, I'm not reading anything currently)

[Raphael]

04 June 2020

• Wake Up Time: 05:32 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 09:57 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Work Sessions:

• 08:35 AM - 08:57 AM: Date picker customization searches. Work Duration: 22 minutes
• 10:12 AM - 10:40 AM: I had a call with a client. Work Duration: 28 minutes
• 04:01 PM - 04:33 PM: I started to install Flutter and its dependencies. Work Duration: 32 minutes

Deep Work Sessions:

• 07:41 AM - 08:35 AM: I went back working on the custom date component, I did a lot of progress. So far, so good. Deep Work Duration: 54 minutes
• 09:07 AM - 10:07 AM: I continued the work on the date component. I got interrupted by a call. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour
• 11:07 AM - 12:43 AM: I continued the work on the date component. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 36 minutes
• 02:10 PM - 03:48 PM: I completed the date component. It looks good, I hope that there will not be any unexpected issues on this in the future. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 38 minutes

I'm starting to get back on track. I feel like when I'm using affirmations, when I do a lot of effort, and identify myself a being productive and focused, my ego is afraid of failing, so I worry and it causes me to fail. Whereas, where I just accept reality and let go of expectations, I get out of my mind, and nature perfectly do its job without any efforts. What a paradox of personal development, this is worth contemplating.

• Total Work Duration: 6 hours 36 minutes, including 5 hours 14 minutes of Deep Work (objective at least 6 hours)
• Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes, I'm not reading anything currently)

[Raphael]

05 June 2020

• Wake Up Time: 08:03 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 09:24 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Work Sessions:

• 09:56 AM - 11:05 AM: I continued the installation of Android Studio, but I'm facing some configuration issues. I was distracted during this session as I was watching youtube at the same time. Work Duration: 1 hour 9 minutes
• 11:35 AM - 01:07 PM: I found out that most of the issues that I had were caused by a lack of free space on my drive. However, I still have other configuration issues. Work Duration: 1 hour 32 minutes
• 02:10 PM - 04:04 PM: My environment is finally set up to develop mobile apps with Flutter. It was quite painful, but now I'm ready. I was distracted during the session as a lot of files were downloading and configurations were made. Work Duration: 1 hour 56 minutes
• 07:50 PM - 08:51 PM: I wanted to do some deep work, but I found out that someone hacked my database. The person wants me to pay 0.015 BTC so that I can recover my data. Hopefully, all the data were only test data, so it's not an issue. It seems like the attacker didn't had direct access to the server, but find another way to disrupt the database. He/She probably either found a way to insert MongoDB code from the backend API or directly connected through brute force. The second option seems more plausible as the database is accessible from anywhere and has a very weak password. I will research tomorrow to find the real cause. Work Duration: 1 hour 1 minute

I woke up very late because I almost didn't sleep last night, my mind was crazy. Nevertheless,  I still managed to set up my mobile development environment and acknowledge a database hack that I will investigate tomorrow.

• Total Work Duration: 5 hours 38 minutes, including 0 minutes of Deep Work (objective at least 6 hours)
• Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes, I'm not reading anything currently)

[Raphael]

The Danger Of Shallow Work

Shallow work: non-cognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts don't create a lot of new value and are easy to replicate.

Shallow work is not a choice that can be easily reversed. Too much time spent in states of frenetic shallowness permanently reduces someone's capacity to perform deep work and excel in life.

[Raphael]

Deep Work Helps To

• Quickly master hard things
• Produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed

Deep work helps to quickly learn complicated things. To remain valuable in our economy you must master the art of quickly learning complicated things.

The real rewards are reserved for those who are comfortable building innovative distributed systems that run a service.

Edited June 6, 2020 by Raphael

[Raphael]

Deliberate Practice

• Focus your attention on a specific skill
• Receive feedback so you can correct your approach to keep your attention exactly where it's most productive

Learning requires intense concentration. Deliberate practice cannot exist alongside distraction, and it instead requires uninterrupted concentration.

[Raphael]

Producing At An Elite Level

• High-Quality Work Produced = (Time Spent) * (Intensity of Focus)

To produce at your peak level, work for extended periods with full concentration on a single task free from distraction.

Edited June 6, 2020 by Raphael

[Raphael]

06 June 2020

• Wake Up Time: 07:05 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 09:10 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Work Sessions:

• 09:10 AM - 10:38 AM: Research on MongoDB security. Work Duration: 1 hour 28 minutes
• 10:56 AM - 12:56 AM: Research on security and secure databases. Work Duration 2 hours
• 01:42 PM - 03:10 PM: I continued to improve to database security. I also got interrupted two times by a client. Work Duration: 1 hour 28 minutes
• 03:22 PM - 04:35 PM: I configured MongoDB to use SSL/TLS encryption, but I still didn't figure out how to connect to it. Work Duration: 1 hour 13 minutes

 

• Total Work Duration: 6 hours 9 minutes, including 4 hours 41 minutes of Deep Work (objective at least 6 hours)
• Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes, I'm not reading anything currently)

[Raphael]

07 June 2020

• Wake Up Time: 07:00 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 11:32 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Work Sessions:

• 09:03 AM - 09:47 AM: I had a call with a client. Work Duration: 44 minutes

Deep Work Sessions:

• 12:15 AM - 01:12 PM: I did multiple fixes and improvements on a client's website. I distracted myself a little sometimes. Deep Work Duration: 53 minutes
• 07:22 PM - 09:05 PM: Bug fixes on the client's website. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 43 minutes
• 09:10 PM - 11:16 PM: I did some layout fixes and start to implement the cart functionality. Deep Work Duration: 2 hours 6 minutes

I didn't expect to work today, but sometimes people just come at random times. I was lazy to get started, so I worked late at night.

• Total Work Duration: 5 hours 26 minutes, including 4 hours 42 minutes of Deep Work (objective 0 minutes)
• Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes, I'm not reading anything currently)

[Raphael]

08 June 2020

• Wake Up Time: 07:43 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 09:10 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Work Sessions:

• 01:46 PM - 02:16 PM: Discussion with a client. Work Duration: 28 minutes

Deep Work Sessions:

• 10:30 AM - 11:42 AM: I added an API call, saved some data in cookies, and fixed the scroll back issue for the navigation grid. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 12 minutes
• 12:20 AM - 01:11 PM: Work on URLs to make them more user friendly. Deep Work Duration: 51 minutes
• 02:35 PM - 3:52 PM: More updates to the navigation grid. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 17 minutes
• 04:00 PM - 04:57 PM: Cart loading on application initialization. I'm trying to access the data with Redux in a component, I'm having some error. I had a lot of parasite thoughts that came back about previous bad experiences in work environments. Deep Work Duration: 57 minutes

 

• Total Work Duration: 4 hours 45 minutes, including 4 hours 17 minutes of Deep Work (objective at least 6 hours)
• Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes, I'm not reading anything currently)