Over the past month and a half or so, I’ve stumbled on a very effective system.
The problems I had were simple – Food and Sleep. Yes, the basics!
In a nutshell, I needed the following to be in place –
1. Lunch @ 11:50 am (latest 12ish): So I avoid the crazy afternoon rush.
2. Snack @ 3:50 pm: 4 hour food refill.
3. Get out @ 6:15pm
4. Dinner @ 7:50pm
5: Sleep @ 9pm
The reasons are simple. This routine is designed for my early morning wake up. So, 3, 4, and 5 are straightforward.
Point 2 i.e. the snack at 3:50pm is a big problem as I am generally mid-way through a nice work session right then. And it is much easier to just skip it and wait for dinner but I’ve had enough issues with acidity in the past because of my tendency to just motor through hunger when I’m in ‘flow’.
And what’s the way to do this? Recurring alarms. Due App on the iPhone (developed by a friend’s friend) has daily alarms at all these times. That’s the easy part of course.
The annoying thing is that the alarm doesn’t let go. It continues to buzz till I get it done.
Now, these things hardly ever happen on time (snack, get out, eat dinner, sleep etc) but atleast they happen at a more reasonable point than before as I have disciplined myself to switch the reminder off only after I have finished the task.
Does this drive me nuts? YES! Can you imagine what it might be to be half way through a problem and spend the next hour with a phone vibrating every 2 minutes?
It is extremely annoying. But, it gets stuff done. And that’s the point.
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Coincidentally, Lifehacker had a similar piece on this idea
A Learning a Day 