At the time of writing this blog I’ve edited 12,000 words of my book proposal manuscript. I haven’t touched it since the start of school closures in March but this week I’ve been on fire!
The secret to my productive burst?
The kids being back at school?
It certainly helps but they’ve been going every day for certain periods of times since the start of June.
What gave me the practical drive?
justdoitjune, the monthly hashtag theme of #MakeMarchMatter online community?
It definitely helped my mindset. Publicly announcing I wanted to get it out of the door by the end of June has helped my drive.
But the real secret sauce for practical action is….
Drum roll please
Virtual Co-working!
It’s nothing revolutionary but it has been an essential framework for getting stuff done. Talking to a client today I realised that it might not be common practice so I wanted to share how to run a successful virtual coworking session.
Here’s how we run ours over at Make March Matter.
1. Someone takes the initiative to set up a session.
Share the calendar invitation and zoom link with the group. The wonderful Katheryn Gronauer from Thrive Tokyo has been a real leader in setting up regular sessions. We favour an 08:30 to 10:00 slot as it gives us an early win and we can start the day on fire!
2. Online coworking space opens
The first few minutes are a check in. We use Zoom but any video meeting system will do the trick!
A quick “what’s new?” and then the focus question “what are your goals for the session?”
3. Peer coaching opportunity
If people are struggling with what to prioritize, you can get a bit of peer coaching here. We’ve talked about using the session for projects that are Q2 in Eisenhower’s priority matrix (important but not urgent). External deadline focused work tends to get done anyway so how will you use this focused time for something that is different or special? Which feels harder?
4. Work segment 1 begins!
Camera off, Mute on and away we go! Knowing that there is a deadline, other people are working and you made a public commitment really help to keep you in a proactive mood, away from inbox, alerts and focused on the task in hand.
5. Half Time Check In
We get back together after 35-40 minutes and have another check in. Updates, obstacles, reaffirm next steps or actions. You might also do this standing up and stretching!
6. Work segment 2 begins
Again 35-40 minutes. We usually have some peer coaching in the half time check in so this is often 25 minutes but a Pomodoro works for me!
7. Final 5 mins for the Closing check in
Celebrate progress, thanks and done.
So what do you think? How could you use this in your business?
What other ideas do you have to increase WFH productivity with your team?
