Wherever you are, make sure you’re there. — Dan Sullivan
You’re likely familiar with things like the 4-hour work week and the Pomodoro Technique (a.k.a. tomato timer), but have you tried it? I’ve always had an internal drive to be efficient, be organized, try not to waste time, resources—but have never tried using my work time more efficiently because the 40 hour work week is an institution of the industrialized world. Eight hours of sleep, eight hours of work, eight hours of leisure. But I came across a medium post introducing the idea of “deep work,” which—as you can guess—means short, hyper-focused spurts of work as opposed to low velocity, highly distracted long periods of work.
But you don’t have to turn your whole routine upside down to see if it’s for you—sometime this week, try setting a period of time, set a goal for that period of time, and do nothing but work toward that goal for the allotted time. When that time’s up, get up, think about something else, move around—just take a short break whether you’re done or not—then go back and do it again.
However you do it, be deliberate with your time.