This is a story about my most productive Fridays!
There was a time in my career when almost every Friday meant an early log-off to a rendezvous with friends. Most of the time, the rendezvous would last until early Monday mornings.
To pull this off without affecting my work, I would come to work on Friday with a definite plan and would work furiously to ensure there were no hiccups on Monday.
After a few weeks, my manager commented that I was more productive on those Fridays than on any other day of the week.
I have been reading Deep Work by Cal Newport. He mentioned doing deep work in sprints with extreme deadlines.
He gave the example of Teddy Roosevelt, who had boxing, wrestling, dance lessons, poetry readings, and many more things on his calendar during his Harvard College days. Thus, he had little time remaining o study. So he would study for the remaining short duration with blistering intensity.
Cal Newport suggests injecting an occasional dash of Roosevelt intensity into your workday by giving a hard deadline and committing to it publicly.
I could now relate this to my most productive Fridays and realized how the early log-off time drove me to high productivity on those Fridays. This also happens when I have to meet an external deadline.
The next step would be to incorporate it into a daily work schedule for about 60-90 minutes and observe the results.
Happy Friday!!