Humans of Martech 30: Be productive, stay sane and healthy
Jon and I are both pretty busy dudes.
Jon
- a father,
- he works for Klipfolio,
- he’s a podcaster,
- he’s a consultant,
- he’s learning to code and
- he manages a community of marketers.
Despite all that, JT still finds time to unearth the best UFO threads on Reddit and the dankest GME meme stocks.
Phil is
- a husband and dog father (lolz)
- I work for Close,
- I’m a podcaster,
- I teach a post grad marketing certificate,
- I mentor local marketers, and
- I’m an avid member of several marketing communities
Despite all that, I still find time to run a fantasy hockey league and binge all the best TV shows on Netflix.
So how do we do it while staying happy and healthy (for the most part).
Alright, I want to start by breaking down our weekly schedules by putting everything into 6 priority buckets:
- Family and friends
- Health
- Learning
- Work
- Chores
- Escapism and hobbies
Being productive and having an effective routine gives you room to fit things from all 6 buckets into your week.
Sunday nights are for time blocking
I like to plan my week on Sunday nights, that’s where I finish blocking time in my calendar. Might be controversial because of weekend but sometimes I have too many work things going on in my head before bed on Sunday, so planning my week before going to sleep is a great way to put my mind at ease.
Go through the list of priorities, break them up into 1-2 tasks and block time in my calendar for it. As much as I can, I like to theme my weeks with 1 big thing I want to do. What’s my #1 focus.
Key here is not over blocking. Leave some flex in there to move things around as things pop up during the week.
Daily walks with my dog
I split between 3 modes, 1 is podcast, 2 is music, 3 is just silence.
Monday nights
1 hour of shitty TV if I’ve worked on the cast.
Tuesday and Thursday nights
Tuesdays and Thursdays are usually blocked for reading. My wife is part of a book club and is an avid reader, so we try our ebay to turn the TV off on Tuesdays and open a book.
I alternate between a book on Tuesday and on Thursday I learn something, right now learning Segment.js but have plans for SQL and deeper API.
Wednesday nights
I usually plan a friends or family zoom call on Wed nights, I usually have no meeting Wednesdays so I’m happy to get some social time in the second half of the day.
Something we want to try is everyone picking the same recipe, we open Zoom and watch each other chaotically build a recipe and eat together.
Sometimes I’ll host a Zoom with friends and we watch a bunch of hockey games over screenshare.
Friday nights
Most Friday nights are reserved for my wife, we’ll usually order in and watch TV or a documentary.
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