After Day Two was off the rails entirely, I wanted to rest and recuperate a little, so I set my benchmarks low. Okay, I'd rather gear down and be Conan the Barbarian with a big ol' sword, but it didn't work out like that.

Here was my plan, emphasis added --

Tomorrow:

Wake 5:30PM (7 hours sleep… hmm).
GGW call scheduled for 6PM.

GGW call concludes… 7PM?

Gym for back.
Get to office by 9.

9PM:
Absolutely no distractions and minimal socializing.
Summarize yesterday on blog.
Work on sales process significantly.
At least 10 sales calls (which will then be way behind schedule for this week if that's all).

Mid-week review around midnight? Go through all metrics and make sure they stay on track to be met.

Take the night off early if not in flow state.

Here's what wound up happening --

Awake: 5:30PM (7 hours sleep)

5:50PM: (10 general-life, 10 semi-productive)

AGENDA FOR CALL:
*Shopify Fund replied, we still want that?
*Where's the site at?
*Business Plan, quick look and feedback
*Recruiting

6:30PM: (10 semi-productive, 30 philanthropy/social)

7:05PM: (35 productive)

7:20PM: Cleared a few email and skimmed a couple articles sent to me before heading out. (15 semi-productive)

10PM: Really good workout for back. Gym unusually empty, and a nice night, so I spent quite a while -- did cardio to start (not normal for me, normally dislike cardio), warmup sets with no weight on every lift before starting, and also a lot of isolated muscles where I might not always bother. Really nice workout and a while in the gym, followed by eating and zoning out. (100 fitness, 30 relaxing, 30 general-life)

Midnight: Kind of out in space, but not letting it really bother me. (30 semi-productive, 30 relaxing, 60 distraction)

1AM: Only 3 sales calls, but one new client. Interestingly, I'm below my "action" metrics but above fast on my "results" metrics… that said, the easier leads/offers are almost out, so harder sales coming up soon. I want to hit the action metrics too (usually easier!), but results metrics much more important of course… hmm. (60 sales)

8AM: Took the night off. Called one of my friends, went for a long walk, caught some nice music, picked up a book of short stories I haven't been reading and put some time in… really nice night, happy I took the night off. Feeling strong. Going to not sleep, and look to normalize Sat night / Sun morning. (120 distraction, 60 semi-productive, 240 relaxing)

And the results --

I basically followed the Day Two gameplan… I fell short on some of the listed/action metrics, but I put in time with a nice slow workout, walking, music, reading… I knew I needed to recharge and just went with intuition instead of forcing it. I'd like to gear up for a killer Monday and Tuesday and pull out all my metrics, which I think is possible. I'll look to knock out some of the more abstract and creative work on Sat/Sun (writing definitely, business planning, looking into some of my personal development goals and how to up those, improving the sales process). Going to let Day Three go however it wants, I'd like to get a great piece of writing out of today (which I think is possible), but I'll leave the day relatively open as to how it goes.

--

Fitness: One of the best workouts I've had in ages for back, abs, arms, shoulders. Some cardio. Great mind/muscle connection. Some fantastic perfect-form reps with low weight spending lots of time on the negative, slow up and down, no momentum, and good strong new high sets on my deadlift and pulldown.

Sales/Clients:
*Only 3 calls, jeez.
*One new client, though.

Philanthropy:
*Solid meeting/review with Ternes
*Good advancement on recruiting process/methodology

Personal:
*Time tracking was solid until I took the night off and then untracked (no computer).
*Planned day the night before.
*Sharing on blog good.
*No writing.

People:
*Couple good phonecalls.

Analysis: It's interesting, when doing goal-setting you can sometimes choose between "action goals" (run a mile) and "results goals" (run a mile in under 5 minutes 30 seconds). Action goals are much more under your control than results goals... but funny enough, I seem to be on pace to exceed my results/production metrics, but not some of the action metrics. Funny world.

When you have a day totally off the rails, it's like a rock getting thrown into a lake -- it can ripple a while. Friday I set it up so I'd get some decent time in on a few things (gym, philanthropy, sales) and then I would've geared down if I was really "on" with one of them -- I wasn't, so I took the night off early.

That's an interesting thing about this planning and doing it publicly exercise -- I have to think through and plan, knowing my decisions can be evaluated. So I have to choose whether to "gear down" or let up when something is off. There's a huge danger of letting up if you do it aimlessly, but if you can knock out some fundamentals and grab some recovery, it might be the ticket. A lot of the stuff I'm doing requires high creativity, so I can't use pure brute force willpower if I'm rundown, tired, etc. Oh, I'm a huge believer in willpower, but less so when you have to use creativity and judgment a lot, and a slight tweak can have an orders of magnitude difference in results.

This is also a reason why focusing on one core thing and maybe two side things can exceed having many varied projects -- needing to use judgment and discretion means lower performance during down times, since the bar gets set high when you're inventing, researching, discovering, testing, and synthesizing stuff, especially in unrelated domains.

But, here we are. I'm passing on sleep, taking modafinil, and normalizing my sleep schedule a bit by going to bed somewhat early and waking up earlier than I have been.