Andrew Spittle

One of the fantastic things about working for Automattic is that I determine a lot of how I work. The schedule, location, and surroundings are all up to me. My co-workers are night owls, early risers, home office, and café types. Most importantly, we all work in the way that suits us.

Until October of this year I worked solely from my home office. In October Daniel and I started working mostly out of PIE, which is a great location. Over the course of 2011 my location changed but my overall schedule did not.

For a while now my schedule has looked something like this:

• Wake up around 7:00am
• Start working around 8:00am
• Work solidly through till about 4:00pm with the occasional break

The problem is that I have been growing less and less effective at working this way. My efficiency, focus, and happiness have been slipping. So, I’m going to change it up.

While I’ve been thinking of changing my schedule for a while a chat with a co-worker a couple days ago and two serendipitous articles convinced me to try it now. I’m going to see how I get on working in 90 minute increments with 30 minute gaps.

This fits with how I naturally work when I work weekends. Those days I frequently do more in 3 hours than I do in an entire workday during the week. Granted, part of that is because fewer people are around. Still, I think it’s worth considering.

My plan for those 30 minute gap times is to do one of the following: read fiction, cook delicious food, go for a run, write something longhand to post here later.

My goal is to get back to where I was in early October, a time when I was far more productive. Hopefully this schedule and those breaks keep me sane while increasing what I do. After all, it’s what you actually make that matters.