Strategizing is easy. Executing is really hard. In his book "Deep Work", Cal Newport recommends to make use of the _4 Disciplines of Execution_ to get work done and improve your process along the way. The 4 Disciplines of Execution are: First, **have** a wildly important goal (As in my case: "Deeply understand and absorb Customer Development as taught by Steve Blank") Second, **act** on those (lead) measures that you have direct control over (As in my case "Hours spent fully focused on this topic") Third, **keep track** of your daily progress with a scoreboard (I have a sheet of paper where I track every minute of focused work) Fourth, **create** a weekly cadence of accountability to reflect and improve (As in my case: A Retrospective at the end of the week) Given this context, I would like to share with you my results from this weeks' Deep Work accountability session. But first some high-level information: ## When and how much did I work? With my scoreboard, I was able to track 6.75h of Deep Work this week. It is 5% less than the week before (7h). - Monday: 2h - Tuesday: 1.5h - Wednesday: 15m - Thursday: 1.5h - Friday: 0h - Saturday: 0h - Sunday: 1.5h I am still proud about this achievement even it is the lowest amount of focused work I've done since I started 5 weeks ago. I am proud of it because my regular full-time work at Pivotal Labs has started again and I got the flu on Friday. In general, I have gotten up at 5:00 - 5:15am to get going. My morning routine has changed slightly, too. I have come back to practice Yoga again instead of writing morningpages. I felt that 26 weeks of daily writing was enough for now. You may already see some oddities here. Wednesday I barely had time in the morning to sit down. I did a quick Anki recall session but it was very short. On Friday I couldn't clock in any time because, as it turned out throughout the day, I got the flu and needed rest. Saturday and Sunday were to be my regular days off but on Sunday I felt better and had the energy to put in some work. It turned out to be good. ## What went well? **The Scoreboard helped me keep track** This is the first week that I feel that the scoreboard helped me become aware how outside influences impact my morning routine. Also, the scoreboard was crucial to do a retrospective like this one because I would, otherwise, likely have _forgotten_ what happened this week. **Planning ahead what and how I'll work was crucial** When I made a quick list of how I was going to spend the 1.5h beforehand, it was much easier for me to start a timer and dive into the work. In best case, I had made that plan the day before, but even just scribbling down a bullet list of tasks at the outset of the morning session helped to take my mind off planning and focus better. **Made progress on the course and book** I feel like I have made solid, if a little slow, progress on the course and book. I am still trying to figure out the best rhythm between reading, taking notes and recalling facts. I started to notice my own speed of learning and what works good for me. **I was able to better reason about product and customer development at work.** As a consultant it's important to have my facts straight. In several instances I was able to apply my new learnings and past experience to help my clients understand and solve their issues. **I started my days with Yoga again** While somewhat tangential to the time spent focusing, it felt great to start the day with breathing, asanas, relaxation and a short meditation again. While I only had 30 minutes, a short practice session still gave me more focus and calmness. **My kitchen-timer keeps me focused** With the recommendation to split the time up into more manageable chunks of time, all I really need is a $5 kitchen timer. I'm amazed at how effective this little plastic tool is. **"Oh, hey! I can use some of my weekend mornings, too!"** Structure is good for me. As it turns out, I felt happier throughout the week than during my usually unstructured, free-flowing weekends. So, I've decided to add a pinch of deep work schedule on Saturday and Sunday just because it makes me feel good. ## What went okay? Here are a few things that were "okay" or came up as questions. Not really bad or good, just sort of "Hm?". **1.5 hours in the morning seem to be the practical maximum.** Given that getting up at 5 is already pretty hard, and given that I want to shower, stretch, meditate and eat, 1.5h hours is a practical maximum before I have to head to work. It's not good or bad, just a clear limit to my set-up. **Am I learning to slow?** So, I set out to learn (about) Customer Development and just had the feeling that I wasn't moving as fast as I could/should/would bla. I guess, I'm still getting used to this whole thing, so it's too early to tell. But of course I want to know everything NOW! **How does such a schedule work with a partner?** This is a question I wonder about. As a single I am in the position to completely command my time spent. Which is great. But how does it work when there is a lovely partner with me? Is it sensible to keep up such a strict regimen? Is it possible? **What has been my output?** I feel like I haven't produced much for others besides these blog-posts that are sort of meta to the whole experience. Then again, I have been able to pin-point clients to very specific Customer Development ideas and concepts to help them understand how to approach new customers. **Little time for breakfast and getting ready.** I have to really get up at 5:15am latest to be able to get everything done. Breakfast is somewhat hurried and I usually wind up with 10 minutes to get ready for my day. It's not ideal yet but also no deal-breaker. ## What went bad? Looking back, what didn't go well and what can I improve upon this week? **Even just one drink in the evening throws my morning off.** I'm not a huge fan of drinking anyways but it was significantly harder to get out of bed early on Wednesday and Friday because of drinks the night before. The main learning here for me is to really be careful when I go to town. It's fun sometimes but it has its implications on my ability to get up and concentrate the next day. **Learning is not practicing.** I am proud to have learned a lot, in an academic sense. But I am also not yet at the point where I have tackled the hard stuff "by hand." In case of Customer Development, there is much I can learn _about_ it but the hard work comes when you actually 'get out of the building'. These are the skills I truly want to learn and master. And that takes practice not mere learning. (Learning is important to practice, but it's just a step). To mitigate this issue, I have looked to Josh Kaufman's "The First 20 Hours" which is a great book to learn how to practice. ## What am I working on? The main focus of my work in the morning has been to learn and deeply understand Steve Blank's Customer Development processes. For this, I have started to take his Course "How To Build a Startup" and have done most exercises and suggested reading. Since the video lectures are relatively short, most of my time was spent reading, annotating, transcribing and memorizing the key-facts from his book "The Startup Owner's Manual." I have also started to deconstruct the book "Business Model Generation" alongside. My goal here is to really get into this original work and better understand where I made mistakes in the past, make better decisions in the future and better serve my clients at work. With this in mind, here is my assessment of what went well, okay and bad this week as I continued to learn and establish my concentrated practice: \-- Wow, so there you have it. A recap of last week's working on my own early in the morning. I have learned a bunch about myself already and I am looking forward to continuing. If you have any questions yourself, please feel free to contact me here or on my blog.