I’m a proponent of yearly themes to tie together a general direction for the year. I was first exposed to this idea from Gretchen Rubin and Elizabeth Craft’s Happier Podcast. It’s also a recurring topic on Cortex with Myke Hurley and CGP Grey. Here’s a video CGP Grey made about it:

My theme for 2021 is Hone. I am mostly fine with the things I am doing, but I just don’t do them enough. 2021 is about doing them more deeply and getting better at them.

I want to run more seriously, and since we might be able to race again in 2021, I’d like to try to set some PRs.

I am going to write more. My goal is quantity because I think that will be the best way to improve. To drive this, I am reading and note taking more diligently.

I have been sketching for years, but not often enough to improve. Now, I am setting aside at least a little time every day to sketch. One easy way to start this is blind sketching, where you look at the subject and not the paper at all. It lowers the bar enough to make it an anytime activity.

I became mostly vegan in 2019 for health reasons. My cholesterol is now normal, but I want to lower my oil and processed fat intake as well to see if I can get it even lower.

So, I am grouping this all together as HONE, which I interpret as sharpening via repetition.

I keep a physical daily journal in an A5 Dot Grid book. At the end of each day I draw a template for the next day and try to fill in as much as possible. For example: on January 18, I drew this for the 19th.

The red checklist at the top is three things that I must get done that day (The Big 3). This is reserved for my most important tasks. If I can’t commit to three, it’s ok, I can use one or two, but never more than three.

Then, below that are my time blocks for the morning and work-day. If I have meetings, I’ll put them in, and then I try to find a couple of big blocks to work on my Big 3. It’s ok for this to be a little blank the night before, but sometime in the morning it will be mostly filled in.

Under that I’ll keep a running list of tasks and notes for the day as a bullet journal.

This technique is a result of refinement over time derived from a combination of Free to Focus and Deep Work, both highly recommended.

I have a variant of this that I do at the end of the week that I’ll post about soon. One element of the weekly plan is to collect my WINS from the week before, so at the end of each day, I try to pick out one or two things I did that will bring me joy later when I reflect on them.

Since my computer is factory equipment, I consider its ability to show me news and social media a defect. One easy fix is to edit /etc/hosts to block these sites, but that’s reversible by just re-editing it. A year ago I found an app, SelfControl, that takes these edits out of my hands.

To set it up, you give it a list of blocked sites. Then, when you start it, it will put entries into /etc/hosts that sets their IP addresses to 0.0.0.0. If you remove these entries, it will keep reapplying them. And since it asks for privileges, it can do this in a complex way. You could thwart it if you wanted, but it’s enough of a pain that you probably won’t bother.

After using it for a while I added a few practices that make it more useful.

1. I use the Due app on my iPhone (and Watch) for simple recurring reminders. I set up a morning reminder to restart SelfControl.
2. I went into my /etc/hosts and made a copy of the SelfControl section (it’s clearly marked with comments) and made it a permanent part of my hosts file. I italicized permanent because I can edit this part, but it’s there to be a little bit of a deterrent if I try to go to any of these sites in a non-blackout period.
3. At the end of the week, RescueTime sends me an email with a summary of my productivity. I can easily see if any new distracting sites are taking significant time and add them to SelfControl.
4. I found an app for iPhone called Zero Willpower that does the best it can to replicate SelfControl on the iPhone. It’s essentially a content-blocker that you can edit and a timer you can set to disallow deleting. On the iPhone there is nothing they can do to stop you from removing the app or disabling its content blocking privileges, so thwarting it is easy if you want. Again, it’s enough of a pain, that it’s enough to keep me off distracting sites.

In Deep Work, Cal Newport makes the case for sustained, focused work on hard problems and gives practical advice for helping you do it. The book helped me realize why two practices I had adopted were working so well. They are both related to the mindset I have about my computer and devices:

1. I think of the computer I program on as factory equipment.
2. I monitor my usage of it and make it impossible to do anything that interferes with productive work.

Most of the tactics I employ flow from adopting those two practices.

Your computer is factory equipment

To me, it’s a big problem that the same computer I use to write code can also go to Reddit. And Slack. And Gmail.

It’s bad that the phone that I develop apps for also gets text messages, calls, and other notifications.

The typical way to treat these machines is to use them as intended — as a general purpose machine. But programmers are not typical users of computers.

Imagine if Picasso’s paintbrush rang a few times a day. Or if Jane Austen’s notebooks also showed Tweets. Maybe we’re not doing as important work, but coding requires long spans of deep concentration, and we don’t need distractions to be a CMD-Tab away.

Business communication apps like Slack and e-mail are a tougher problem as it’s usually not ok to not run them at all. But even our collaboration apps can be a distraction if we don’t control their use.

If you accept this, it’s logical to take steps to turn this general purpose machine into just a coding computer.

Monitor your productivity

It’s hard to convince most people that they have no idea how productive they are, but you don’t need to trust me. Do this test:

1. Write down how many hours you think you spend coding, doing business communication, and other work activities during the week.
2. Go install computer usage monitoring software like RescueTime or Qbserve and let it run for a week.

I have been spending my whole career trying to measure and optimize my productivity. I used to do this more manually — just jotting down the number of hours between programming interruptions (this is a Peopleware suggestion) — but these tools are far more accurate and unforgiving. Even with diligence, I was surprised where my time was going.

But even more important than monitoring your work is doing something to increase the number of contiguous hours you spend programming (and on programming-related activities — code review, testing your work, technical documentation, estimation, etc).

Cal argues that there are two kinds of work we do:

1. Work that only experts can do
2. Work that you could train a smart intern to do in an hour

Look through your logs and try to figure out how many hours in a row you are spending doing the things that need your expertise (or expertise you want). You may still need to do the other work, but the time spent should be shrunk and sequestered to not interfere with the work that matters.

This doesn’t even address distractions like social media, time-wasting sites, or non-business communication. I’ll let your logs speak for themselves on whether you have a problem, but they will probably be incomplete since most of these distractions come on your phone, which isn’t as easily monitored.

Since usage monitoring software can’t be installed on an iPhone, I just assume that my phone is a giant distraction and set it up accordingly. Android users can install RescueTime, which I would recommend.

In the coming weeks, I’ll expand on my suggestions and explain my personal setup. If any of this sounds interesting, go read Deep Work, as Cal lays out the fundamental approach and many actionable suggestions.

NOTE: Here is a follow-up to this post with more details on how I use SelfControl.