For the past 1.5 years, most of my mornings have looked like this:
1. 30-60 minutes of focussed work
2. Break
3. 3.5 hour virtual coworking session
4. Break
5. (sometimes) Second 2 hour virtual coworking session
My virtual coworking sessions unfold like this:
- 2-3 people (if more than 3 people show up, split into groups of 2)
- (First 5-10 minutes): Check-in. Topics:
- How's it's going?
- What are you going to work on?
- What concrete thing(s) do you commit to completing?
- (ideally) How will you prove, at the end of the call, that you made your commitment?
- (Next 2 hours) Focussed work.
- Sound off (usually).
- Camera on or off (my preference is "off").
- Google Meet call ongoing (unless people have calls).
- (Last 5-10 minutes) Check-in. Topics:
- How did it go?
- Did you make your commitments?
- (often) Brief chat about something interesting that came up, or some challenge you faced.
Crucially, the virtual coworking sessions are pre-arranged, so there is a strong "must show up on time" accountability effect.
We arrange sessions by sending each other Google Calendar invitations.
The norm is to do "deep work" sessions during these calls, but it's totally fine to take meetings, run personal errands or even just workout or nap if that's where you're at. The only hard rule is that you show up at the start, say what you're going to do, then show up at the end and say how it went.
#todo Explain and quantify the benefits.