Maker Survival Kit

🛠 Maker Survival Kit

As a maker you need lots of uninterrupted focus time, but when you're on a manager's schedule it's hard to get enough of it.

In this case, it's not always realistic to just cancel meetings and abandon your team, but instead it's about maximizing and protecting the focus time you have.

Here's how!

📋 Stick to a simple agenda

Make sure that every meeting has no more than 4 items.

Include the agenda in the calendar event for every meeting, and be sure to politely remind people about it at the start, and if you see things veering off track for no good reason.

🤏 Keep attendees to a minimum

Invite only the people who really need to be there, and send them a note before the meeting to let them know what you want to achieve.

Having clear objectives will save you time.

☕ Avoid undefined meetings

Those “let’s grab a coffee” type meetings without an agenda or explicit goals can take a lot of your time and energy.

Politely decline them if you can, or reschedule when you've got more bandwidth.

🏄‍♀️ Get into a flow state

When you have the time for deep work, you want to get focused as quickly as possible. Use these hacks to trigger a flow state.

• Reduce distractions - open a fresh browser window, set your phone to silent.

• Listen to music - try something familiar or without lyrics to help you stay in the zone.

• Define your task and your goal - know the steps you need to take, so that you don't have to re-evaluate while working.

• Create a cue - always do the same stretch or breathing exercise before starting. This will trigger your brain that it's time to enter the flow.

⚖️ Keep your balance

By eliminating time-drains, streamlining your meetings, and using your focus time super efficiently, you'll be able to balance your time and survive - or even thrive! - as a maker on a manager's schedule.