Enigin Digital

This Enigin Developer’s Morning Challenge

Back in January I wrote that I was going to attempt to become a morning person. It’s now four months on and I thought i’d provide an update on my progress.

Well, it’s gone quite well! For the last few months, i’ve been getting up at 6-6:30am every morning! (except weekends when 9am seems an appropriate time to rise!).

The first few weeks was a nightmare. I’d hear the alarm and sit on my bed for the next 30 minutes resenting the fact that I had to wake up at all! But it’s getting very easy now, and i’m jumping out of bed with energy every morning, sometimes even before the alarm sounds!

Has this had a positive affect on my life? You bet it has. I have plenty of time for breakfast, a nice long shower and I’m usually among the first to get into the Enigin office every morning. (As oppose to being the last!). But the biggest difference is how much more energy I have.

So was this experiment a success? Yup! It’s going to be part of my usual operating parameters in future! (That was a geeky software-related sentence!)

My next life experiment to be announced very soon! It’s a big one!

Photo by Mundoo - http://www.flickr.com/photos/mundoo/285220997/

Enigin goes grazing…

A few cool people in the Enigin office have started ordering ‘Graze’ boxes through the post. The Graze box contains four varieties of nut, fruit or seed and helps combat 3pm trips to the Enigin snack box! The natural goodness also helps maintenance a stable blood-sugar level and helps you concerntrate.

If you’re in the UK, then you can order your FREE trial Graze box by clicking on the following link and signing up.

http://www.graze.com/p/T4B2FHF

Enigin Productivity Tip #3: Stop being productive and have some time off!

It’s impossible to spend all your time being 100% productivity. At some point you and your body will need time off to rest and do things which are not related to work. Most people (including myself up until a few months ago) get frustrated when they are not feeling productive and attempt to plough through anyway, often working to exhaustion.

I’m a complete workaholic and regularly work long hours on Enigin and personal projects because I choose to. I know that getting work done in my own time means that there’s not so much pressure on me during work hours in the office. It also allows me a little freedom in the jobs and projects that I work on during the day because people know that I get stuff done.

But overworking can’t be good for us, right? That’s probably true. I regularly forget this and am feeling a little run-down at the moment. So my mission for the next 7 days is not to work outside of office hours. Will I achieve it? Probably not… but it’s worth a shot for a week or so!

Personal Goal for this Enigin Developer

I’ve never really set New Year’s Resolutions before but here’s one of my personal goals for 2010 which, as of writing this article, i’ve already broken!

- Become a Morning Person -

Yes, really!

I hate mornings. I really hate mornings. I’m very much a ‘night’ person. I find that I am my most productive between the hours of 10pm - 3am. There’s no interruptions, nothing on TV and for some reason I find it easy to do the tasks which i’ve put off the day before. My mind works differently at night and it’s easy to think through problems I may have had with work during the day.

The Problem with ‘Night’ people

Although this late night working produces great productivity, it has many downsides…

• Struggling to wake up in the morning - I usually wake around 8am and get into the office about 9:30-9:45 which is fine, but is at least 45 minutes after everyone else. It’s not a huge problem as Enigin Directors know that I work late so they don’t mind me coming in late in the morning (I also tend to make up the hours at the end of the day anyway)
• Skipping breakfast - As an aside to rising late in the morning I don’t have time for breakfast so end up leaving home without. This leaves me hungry in the mornings which can affect concentration levels.
• Lack of sleep - By the time I finish work and get to sleep, I usually only get a maximum of 4-6 hours rest every night. Which is below the 7/8 hours each night recommended by Doctors. I tend to make up these ‘lost’ hours on Saturday morning! There’s a medical term for this, which is ‘delayed sleep phase’. Chronic sleep deprivation has been linked to a range of risks, from obesity to depression both of which I struggle with badly.

Studies have shown that being a ‘Night Owl’ can be partly genetic and is not easy for some people to combat. But i’m going to try by taking the following steps:

• No computer work after 9:30pm
• In bed by 11pm every day (even weekends to start with, apart from gig nights of course!)
• Buy an alarm clock!
• Wake up at 7am every morning and get out of bed as soon as my alarm clock goes off, not hitting ’snooze’ for another 5 minutes under the duvet! Once i’ve done 3 months at 7am, i’ll then try 6:30…. then 6:00.
• Have breakfast!
• Still get into work at 9:30… it’s actually quite convenient as I live 60 minutes drive away from Enigin in St Austell and the traffic has died down at this time in the morning. I will use the extra time in the morning to have a nice breakfast and make lunch for the day.

So, that’s it. That’s my challenge. Wish me luck!

Enigin Productivity Tip #3: Red Flag: The Rules

This week, we are trialling a new ‘red flag’ system in the Enigin development department. We had our designer, Alan, create some flags which we attach to our Apple Cinema Displays with the help of Cocktail stirrers and bluetak. When we want some ‘concentration’ time we simply set the flag to the upright position, indicating that we don’t want to be disturbed unless it’s an emergency.

Here’s the full set of rules:

• If the flag is in the upright position, then Enigin staff are encouraged not to disturb us unless absolutely necessary.
• If an interruption is absolutely non-avoidable, then email is the preferred method of communication. Simply put ‘Urgent’ in the subject line.
• The flag is only allowed to be raised for 3 hours at any one time. This allows your colleagues a period of time to get answers to their questions.
• No sales calls should be forwarded to a ‘Red Flagger’
• We have yet to come up with a punishment for Red Flag abusers, but rest assured, staff in violation will be dealt with swiftly!

If you work for Enigin and would like your very own flag, then these can be purchased from the Development department for the tiny sum of £1.00

Enigin Productivity Tip #2: Deciding what is important

One aspect of productivity is deciding which of your current tasks are important and which can wait. You will know instinctively which tasks you should place in high priority, as these are the tasks which are giving you the most ‘hassle’ at that time. ‘Hassle’ maybe in the form of a customer who keeps contacting you, a fellow staff member putting pressure on you or an order may have come down from the Enigin Management team for some work which needs urgent attention.

I mentally sort my tasks in to the following categories:

Urgent - This needs to be your number one focus until such time as it’s complete, nothing is more important and your life will be easier once it’s over. Having more than 1 task in the ‘Urgent‘ category will probably increase your stress level!

Important - These are tasks which are time-sensitive and need completing as soon as possible. If you’re not careful then ‘Important’ tasks can soon get elevated to ‘Urgent‘

Other - These are items which you’ve discussed with a co-worker and the phrase “when you’ve got time” is heard. Not time-sensitive, but tasks from ‘Other‘ can at anytime be elevated to ‘Important‘

Many people promote the use of a ‘all singing all dancing’ task management application, but I find that simplicity is the way forward. At Enigin, I started by using a pen and paper but then moved on to using TadaList by 37signals about 5 months ago. I am now considering moving back as there is something satisfying about drawing a real line through your tasks as they are complete!

You can also use your email inbox as a task list, but this has a huge drawback… it means that anyone can add items to your task list without asking you first!!