How makers stay productive

Usually I don't 🤯

Wake up 8:00 AM getting ready for my work, having a cup of coffee with family. 10:00 AM reaching the office Usually, I leave 05:00 PM and sometimes 7:00 PM depending on work progress. Until 10:00 PM i enjoy my time with my wife and son. 10:00 PM to 2:00 AM reading, watching youtube videos, learning, building.

That sounds pretty productive. I also spend time to morning just watching videos and learning.

I don’t it very much depends on days :)

Notion.so with a kanban board. 2 to 3 tasks max per day. Netflix to change my mind and gym 2 to 3 times also 💪

I'm getting used to Notion still though I organized most of my stuff, how's your notion organized?

Up by 8AM, get kids ready for school and delivered by 8:30. Go to coffee shop, work on emails or simple work until coffee is gone. Home by about 10, shower, work on heavy client work. Eat around 1 PM, do some social media, wrap up some client work. Pick up kids at 3:30, hang out with them until about 4, do some more work until 4:30, then I wash the dishes, clean the kitchen, pick up the house. 5:15ish wife calls on her way home from work. 6-7PM is dinner time, more homework time if needed. Family time until about 9, kids go to bed. Do misc. chores, talk to the wife or workout. 10:30 work on personal projects until 1 or 2 AM. Go to bed.

I'm mostly using Notion for the kanban board. Also, I appreciate the fact that you can insert code, datatable, links, citations etc. As a maker, you always need to take notes because you have not enough time to implement everything so you always build little by little. And idea pops every time and in all form!

Notion has really a lot of feature so I'm starting to learn more and more how to use it too!

Also guys, side question - sleep schedules? How are you all doing in that regard?

I feel like I can run on pretty low amount of sleep most of the time (until I sit down on the couch for an hour, then I pass out). I find I sleep far better if I stay awake until I'm dead tired, then I fall asleep pretty quickly. If I go to bed "early" to try and get some extra sleep I lay in bed for 4 hours wide awake. I'm a night owl for sure, I always say waking up is the worst part of my day. (My wife is the opposite, she's in bed by 9 and up at 5 or 5:30)

I had a sleep study done about 2 months ago, I have mild sleep apnea (5-15 episodes an hour. I got a mouth piece appliance rather than doing the C-Pap machine and have to say I sleep far better, snoring is way down, easier to wake up in the morning, no longer wake up with massive headaches and find I have more energy during the day. (Wish I had done a study 15 years ago).

My experience is close to that. Barely get any sleep but run pretty well.

Answer is. I manage my time in the most stupid way and end up feeling bad that I couldn't use 24hours properly. I sometimes sleep for 1-3hours and that makes drains the productivity a lot of times. Damn, guys tell me how do I figure out a proper balanced one. 😭😭😭

Haha, I feel the same. I barely get sleep and even though I function I feel I waste too much time sometimes.

Yeah. I wish I could do organize myself like Micah is doing. I envy his style, now. :P

I'm not quite as consistent as I sound :) I still feel like I waste a fair amount of time, trying to work on that. I recently came across this video by Casey Neistat on scheduling and thought it was pretty interesting: https://youtu.be/ZexvTZ1sV8U?t=1m56s - I'm thinking I might try to get more "official" structure in place like he has. (He's a machine by the way).

I also have very little "entertainment" time, I rarely watch TV, I don't play video games, I don't go to parties, I host a Meetup once a month but don't attend anyone else's and sometimes go on a hike or bike ride on the weekends with the family. The only real "entertainment" I do regularly is go to movies. I love the theater experience, the popcorn, the immersiveness of it. I go to a movie at least once every two weeks (if not more), 99% of the time I'm by myself and it's usually like a Tuesday at 9:30 or 10PM on a whim. It's the only way I have discovered to "reset" my mental state. If I start feeling depressed or discouraged or stressed or burnt out, I go to a movie and I'm immediately reset. Last night I went to Bohemia, got home at 1AM :)

Start the day with a morning stand-up with my wife who also works remotely on her own product. Then spend the next ~5 hours working on https://monkeytest.it and other projects. Later in the afternoon/evening I spend around 5 hours doing freelancing to help pay the bills ;-)

Really depends on the day since I'm mostly freelancing lately. I block time using my calendar, the blocked time is not to be used for anything else. For the rest of the time available I use trello to manage projects and Things for less project based todos. I used to go to sleep at a decent hour, not anymore…