#27 Why You Should Prioritize Creativity in Your First 2 Hours at Work?
Unlock Your Potential by Shifting from Reactive to Proactive Work
Have you ever heard of create mode vs. response mode in your daily job?
or may be I can call it reactive vs. proactive work?
How often you start your work by responding to emails? or messages in slack or team chats?
I can see you raising hand 🙋🏻♂️
And that could be one of the reasons that killing your productivity or stopping to unlock your full potential in your job.
As humans, our brain or call it instinct… it’s always ready to react first rather than start yourself something.
For a change, start your day with a creative work and observe the difference.
What is Create Mode?
Create mode is doing proactive work of what your job actually means to you rather than responding to emails or messages.
Your mind and body will be highly active at first 2-3 hours because that’s the first thing you think about when starting your day just like how you are going be super active at the beginning of a road trip which may not last until the end of it.
Here are some examples of creative mode:
If you are a developer, use this time for complex programming tasks that require deep focus
Sketch out new product ideas or refine existing designs if you are into designing
Work on long-term plans or strategies for your business or personal projects
Personal Experiment
When I was an Engineer, I spent most of coding at nights or in evenings that’s where I used to get time to actually focus.
Because rest of the day would go for issues, meetings and code reviews etc..,
And I didn’t realize until recently on how important the first 2 hours of work is.
In the last 4 months I started experimenting some days in a week by prioritizing create mode vs response mode.
Monday, Tuesday - started days with response mode
E.g.., emails, slack messages, follow-ups etc..,
Wednesday, Thursday - started days with create mode
E.g.., reading customer feedbacks, pain-points, discovery and research, writing, etc..,
At the end of each day I think about how am I feeling about that day
At the end of week, Friday, I think about how do I feel about that week.
Days where I start with create mode makes me satisfied of that day than other days starting with responses/reactions.
I will be continuing this experiment as it’s not about just a single day but how the week’s been progressing and 4 weeks (a Month) been progressing is what I am currently evaluating.
Again, it’s not easy to practice first 2-3 hours of your day with create mode, because there can be urgent matters that you need to respond, spillovers from previous day, and the urge to respond/react is very hard to control and definitely there are going to be focus breaks while you are in create mode.
The goal is to reduce those breaks and find a balanced distribution of immediate response and getting back to create mode is the challenge.
Conclusion
Start your day with create mode and experiment how you feel about your day
The hypothesis is your productivity increases with better job satisfaction
Inherently, this mode setting can also help you discover new modes that you might need to follow through by setting up on your calendar.
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What I enjoyed watching this week?
This is by far the best documentary I have ever watched after Social Dilemma, if you want to learn behind the scenes of retail and eCommerce, watch this today.