Recently I've been working in one-week sprints, and I've really enjoyed it! Tl;dr I need to do a lot of creative knowledge work, and have recently fallen into a routine which IMO is pretty good at facilitating that.
The week
Monday and Tuesday — intense new work. I'm recharged and high-energy, and ready to grind very hard! I try to keep the whole day free: one contiguous, uninterrupted stretch of deep work, 12 hours or more. I aggressively clear meetings out of this space — a 15-minute standup is ok but not more.
Wednesday — recovery. I'm tired after 2 hard days. I also want to let the work settle: gain some distance, see if my perspective changes. I spend a little time writing up what I did so I don't forget it, but I don't take on substantial new work. Sometimes it's a half day, or less. Ample time blocked for restorative activities - calls with friends, work out, reading.
Thursday — consolidation. Writing up, dissemination, generating ideas, planning what's next, reflection, process improvement. It has to be Thursday, because I won't feel like doing any of it on Friday. That also makes Thursday the right day for meetings and all-hands.
Friday — slack. Whatever I meant to get done earlier in the week but didn't, I do now. The buffer keeps the rest of the week from having to be perfect.
Saturday and Sunday — rest. For fun and recharging, so Monday can be intense again.
Notes
One intense sprint per week. This routine is designed around creating ideal conditions for one stretch of highly intense work each week, while leaving room for everything else I need to get done.
Two days is about the right length for an intense sprint — for me, anyway. Past that I hit diminishing returns: my energy drops and I'm just less productive, and the marginal value of more new work falls below the value of stopping to consolidate and reorient.
Rest is part of the routine, not what's left over. It's very tempting to keep adding things in. I need to actively maintain negative space in my schedule so I can rest and let new ideas emerge.
Meta: I've found it to be worth optimizing how I work, not just what I work on. There are large gains here, and I think they're underrated.
Caveats
This is tuned to the kind of work I do. My guess is it generalizes reasonably well to most knowledge work, but I could be wrong, and you'd want to adapt the specifics to your own energy and constraints.
That said — I've been enjoying it a lot, and I'd recommend giving it a try. :)
Recently I've been working in one-week sprints, and I've really enjoyed it! Tl;dr I need to do a lot of creative knowledge work, and have recently fallen into a routine which IMO is pretty good at facilitating that.
The week
Monday and Tuesday — intense new work. I'm recharged and high-energy, and ready to grind very hard! I try to keep the whole day free: one contiguous, uninterrupted stretch of deep work, 12 hours or more. I aggressively clear meetings out of this space — a 15-minute standup is ok but not more.
Wednesday — recovery. I'm tired after 2 hard days. I also want to let the work settle: gain some distance, see if my perspective changes. I spend a little time writing up what I did so I don't forget it, but I don't take on substantial new work. Sometimes it's a half day, or less. Ample time blocked for restorative activities - calls with friends, work out, reading.
Thursday — consolidation. Writing up, dissemination, generating ideas, planning what's next, reflection, process improvement. It has to be Thursday, because I won't feel like doing any of it on Friday. That also makes Thursday the right day for meetings and all-hands.
Friday — slack. Whatever I meant to get done earlier in the week but didn't, I do now. The buffer keeps the rest of the week from having to be perfect.
Saturday and Sunday — rest. For fun and recharging, so Monday can be intense again.
Notes
One intense sprint per week. This routine is designed around creating ideal conditions for one stretch of highly intense work each week, while leaving room for everything else I need to get done.
Two days is about the right length for an intense sprint — for me, anyway. Past that I hit diminishing returns: my energy drops and I'm just less productive, and the marginal value of more new work falls below the value of stopping to consolidate and reorient.
Rest is part of the routine, not what's left over. It's very tempting to keep adding things in. I need to actively maintain negative space in my schedule so I can rest and let new ideas emerge.
Meta: I've found it to be worth optimizing how I work, not just what I work on. There are large gains here, and I think they're underrated.
Caveats
This is tuned to the kind of work I do. My guess is it generalizes reasonably well to most knowledge work, but I could be wrong, and you'd want to adapt the specifics to your own energy and constraints.
That said — I've been enjoying it a lot, and I'd recommend giving it a try. :)