Cave Day: Mono-tasking is the New Multi-tasking

As a small business owner, I often work alone & have multiple projects going on simultaneously.

I thrive when I am making progress and completing projects, but feel a general dis-ease when projects are floating in the ether or have too many loose ends. Someone once joked that I have Project Completion Disorder. I cherish the feeling of marking an item on my to-do list as "complete," and feel drained when things are lingering.  Although this might be true for work tasks, my own personal projects have been taking a back seat to work. Time to fix that!

I’ve been hearing about Cave Day for the past year and decided that their new half-day Cave Day offering would be the perfect opportunity to dedicate some time back to my own projects.

The structure around a Cave Day is simple yet supportive:

Scheduled breaks allows for a “reset” between sprints of work, and open concepts allow for both comfort and productivity.

My goals with Cave Day were to have some intensely focused time in order to complete a few lingering projects, but also to feel supported.  Although there was no true socializing, having people in the same room who were similarly focused created a very productive working atmosphere. To me, it felt akin to exercising in a group class rather than alone at the gym;  there is a collective energy & enthusiasm, and even stronger accountability. Everyone voluntarily committed their Sunday to working, primarily on their own creative endeavors.

In order to fully release myself into the project, get into a Flow State, and not judge or gauge myself,  I covered the clock part of my computer, This helped me to retrain my brain to focus on the task at hand, not worry about the pressures of time and simply be in The Now of the work.

Knowing that I was dedicating this time solely to myself, with no client interruptions via email, phone, text or meeting enabled me to truly focus on my own goals. I didn’t feel guilty for not being available - I was re-dedicating time to myself. Mono-tasking with laser-like focus allowed me to complete 2 projects that had been lingering. Check, Check!

Although the realities of production may not allow for a full Cave Day of digital detachment, I can see myself adopting some of these practices into my own work day. I’ll report back on that!

Do you have any tips or tricks you’d like to share about staying focused? Or prioritizing your own projects? What personal projects are you currently working on?  We’d love to hear from you!

Drop us a line at: hello@theproducer.com

If you are interested in checking out Cave Day for yourself, they host regular sessions in NYC, LA, and remote work sessions. Use the discount code A_ANNIKA for 25% off your first cave at www.caveday.org