"i only speak liquid" #21: Productivity Hacks ⚡️

Hey all 👋!

Welcome to 'i_only_speak_liquid' by Storetasker, where active Shopify developers like me (Jean-Philippe Allard) share learnings we face daily. This is my first of 4 editions!

PS: I'm a developer on Storetasker; Apply here if you want to join Storetasker's gated network of vetted Shopify developers.

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Who is this Quebecois / French-Canadian guy?

Here's the story of how I fell into freelancing:

I started working in digital communications in 2011. 5 years later, I went back to University for a Master's in Marketing. After graduating, I worked in-house for small businesses as the "go-to marketing and technical guy". That's where I realized I really liked dev work, feeling it was the most "tangible" part of my work.

In 2019, I had my first child (now at two!), lost my job (that sucked), and built a SaaS business from scratch (still alive, on the backburner). Let's say it was en eventful year! But since that time, I'm proud to say I'm boss free, and intend to keep it that way. There's something exhilarating about being freelance full time, that I might talk about in a future issue.

Now, by a mix of luck and hard work, I have (mostly) fun, challenging and rewarding work from a roster of local and international clients, and losing my job seems like the best thing that could've happened to me!

Staying organized: The biggest challenge of the solo freelancer

I'm not a naturally organized person. It's simply not something I like, or have an affinity for. Over the years, I developed strategies, found tricks, and set-up tools to compensate for this. 2 books helped me set up the groundwork for this:

1. Getting Things Done - The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen

2. Deep Work - Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport

I adapted these books for how my brain works and made these rules:

1. The Under 10 Minutes Rule: If a task takes less than 10 minutes, do it right away.

2. The TMS/Calendar Rule: If a task or meeting is not in my Task Management System (TMS) or calendar, it doesn't exist

3. The 30 Minutes Rule: Work at least 30 minutes on a task before switching to anything else

4. The Tracking Rule: Time everything

These four rules have had profound effects on my productivity and stress levels!

1. The Under 10 Minutes Rule 

If a task takes less than 10 minutes, do it right away.

Basically, it takes more time and energy to note a short task to do later, than to do it right away. But you can't use it to "break out" of a 30 minute focused work session!

For example, while reading emails, I complete small tasks and respond accordingly. During meetings or phone calls, I use an inexpensive notepad to jot down highly condensed notes. Afterward, I either complete small tasks immediately or file them This rule, coupled with the TMS/Calendar rule (below), simplifies decision-making as you get hammered with new tasks over your day.

2. The Under 10 Minutes Rule

If a task or meeting is not in my Task Management System (TMS) or calendar, it doesn't exist

Simply trusting your brain to remember something at a later time is both error-prone and stressful. Trying to remember all your tasks (personal or professional) is quite simply bonkers.

There's a million TMS's out there. I really like Clickup, which is the only one that "sticked" with me, but you can use whichever one you like. The two important things you need are:

1. A reminder mechanism: a way for your TMS to remind you of something on a specific day

2. A status mechanism: a way to tag a task according to how it's progressing.

For the reminder mechanism, I use due dates. For statuses, I have a simple progression: Inbox ➝ To Do ➝ In Progress OR Waiting/Delegated ➝ Complete OR No Longer Needed

3. The 30 Minute Rule 

Work at least 30 minutes on a task before switching to anything else

You'll find a million variations of this rule all over the Internet, the most famous one being the Pomodoro Technique. Pomodoro is the Italian word for tomato, and refers to tomato-shaped kitchen timers. Legend says early pomodorists would set a 25-minute timer, be 100% focused for 25 minutes, then take a 5-minute break, then start over again.

While I think it's a great way to start gaining focus in work, I personally don't like this approach, as it forces an interruption when you might have gotten into a state of flow. I prefer to minimize interruptions by silencing all notifications, flipping my phone upside down, and closing down all non-necessary tabs.

4. The Tracking Rule 

Time everything

The first time I had to track my time, at my first agency job, I despised it. It didn't help that we used a horrendous time entry system that crashed half the time, but that's another story.

I started tracking my time again when I started working on my graduate thesis, using Toggl. I was curious to know just how much time a huge project like a grad thesis took. Soon after, I realized something: I was much more focused. Tracking myself doing a specific thing, I felt like I was "cheating" if I did anything else. It seems silly, but it worked!

Since then, I've tracked every (working) hour of every day, whether I need to for billing purposes, or not. I've found it reduces task switching and increases self-accountability, since I want to keep that timer running, and want to see in my weekly report if I’ve been slacking off. And it's also just easier to bill clients, as I can give them a detailed breakdown of time spent on tasks.

My personal next steps

I don't have "the method to rule them all". But hopefully, you might benefit from seeing how I work.

Hope this gave a few ideas on how to improve your productivity, and decrease your stress!

On my end, my next steps in terms of organization are to get a good Knowledge Management System in place. I started dabbling with Obsidian and the Zettelkasten Method, but I'm far from having made it a habit yet. Maybe I need to put that in my TMS?

Hope you enjoyed this edition, and talk to you again in two weeks!

Jean-Philippe