Last week, I moved back into a full-time, in-house role. I left my last such job in 2018 (before I actually moved into games/was writing and designing full time). This has meant an interesting shift in my working practices.
When I was freelance, I managed to structure my time to maximise 'deep work' -- being able focus really intensely on a thing for an extended period. I used to use Pomodoros -- sequenced 25-minute chunks -- but now find these too short unless I'm having an attention crisis.
Now, 60 or 90 minutes at a stretch is good, interspersed with slightly longer breaks. I developed a routine designed to maximise the number of these I could get in a single day, and found that to be extremely efficient. I never measured it, but my intuition is that I could achieve in one of those spans at least as much as a 50% longer chunk of less focused time, and with much greater consistency and enjoyment.
Now, that whole structure was based on a few factors specific to my working reality, including:
- Not requiring frequent real-time collaboration
- Limited number of meetings
- Steady backlog of larger creative tasks that benefit from deep work
- Material circumstances permitting a proverbial (and literal) 'closed door' approach
It's also... quite tiring. Periods where I ran that schedule five days a week were exhausting and not what I'd consider sustainable. Three or four days a week with the other days structured differently were the sweet spot for me.
Shifting back to being an employee, I'm not expecting that to work out precisely the same way. My responsibilities are different, I'll need to do more collaboration, and it's just straightforwardly different working in a company. BUT my previous approach was so effective and valuable that I don't intend to discard it altogether, either.
Here's where I've landed so far. I expect this to evolve over time.
- Recognise the different roles deep and lossy working time play. One is not strictly superior to the other; it depends on the task, role, and material circumstances.
- Be explicit about what sort of 'time mode' you're in
- Accept that you can't plan this as far in advance as you like. BUT still make it a proactive decision to avoid being wishy-washy. When I'm assembling my schedule at the start of each day, I decide which mode I'm in, and plan accordingly.
- Right now, I've got three working modes:
- Deep. Much like my old schedule -- go offline and work intensively for planned spans, and check in outside of them.
- Lossy. More fragmented. Task- and context-switching are still undesirable, but flexibility and ongoing communication are prioritised over singular tasks.
- Hybrid. The day is split half deep, half lossy. Recognise the switch and roll with it.