Minimum Viable Productivity Setup
There is a storyline that I’ve transitioned from working in an office-style to be 9–5 at the home office for past years. Thus I’m really friendly to re: learn stuff in a new way to explore & preserve to be adaptable. Now I’ll probably be transitioning again because of work and relax as well in a new location. Thus I’m building a framework to thrive better every day in comfort way, owning less.
Disclaimer: I’ve been living without a fridge and kitchen for 18 months.
I identify as a sort of sigma male, and thus I don’t maintain any tribes thus not please masses, even doesn’t need to have a kitchen as rest of society need to virtue signalling.
This article is purely my learnings what has worked for me, which mightn’t need to work for you. I’ve realized that I don’t need to hold any more things that are really needed to survive in society and produce value to keep me afloat and affordably explore new avenues economically.
People hoard stuff that you need eventually store, somewhere, somehow — and that’s probably a bad habit of owning. Once I’ve realized this, I’ve sold 100+ items from my storage room on local Craiglist and keeping only needed things I use weekly.
I’ve realized I should own less, enjoy more.
I’m probably pretty well positioned and privileged that the only thing I need to produce value and earn a penny is a connection to the Internet and a display with a keyboard; sometimes, the battery is worth it whenever a power outage comes for you.
My thesis is to invest in stuff that brings you personal value in the long-term and can yield happiness and joy in return. Maybe satisfaction is it.
Let me walkthrough you with things you’ll probably need to have near you to keep yourself going.
I’ve not figured out what should be in particular great order, so mind your own approach. You may learn something new which will work for you better.
Actions, insights, values and things
- Great habits and routines
- Optimal sleep
- Comfy productivity setup
- Mental setup
- Healthy wellbeing
- Social connection
Comfy productivity setup
Physical
This is, for me right now, the biggest load to travel with. Having a standing desk, ultrawide monitor and chair for healthy sitting — mind your spine offers you unbeatable comfort during long periods. Small things account here like a notebook, headphones, microphone, toothbrush, electric water kettle and yerba maté bombil. This is probably stuff that would keep me up and running and slowly could transition being camp life.
Mental setup
Mind your brain diet.
Attention span
Your attention span is probably the most scarce resource you may have every day. You are in charge of how you will spend it. Probably you want to spend it to talk with valuable people, extract value from them which might be beneficial to you for your self-growth and give it back, helping others.
Scheduling calls
As I’m myself limit not having too many calls, find your optimum; I’ve learned to have just afternoon calls where it suits collaboration with others. For example, I’ve saved my time on scheduling using Calendly. You can add Stripe to have paid meetings upfront from people you don’t know; it’s great to filter as you don’t know their reputation. They need to stake few coins on your time.
Tiling windows
I’m trying to be efficient using my screen real estate, I’ve been using Slate before, and now I’ve transitioned to Amethyst. Works great, a lot of layouts you may welcome!
Deep work first
In the morning, I’m strongly against starting a reply to others as I’m wellbeing-first; I need to care about my morning needs. Every decision you are making during the day counts and makes from your willpower hole-punched cheese. It’s great to think about what you want to learn today, what long read you might want to eat in morning cereals, what you want to think about during the day. I could recommend that working 3–4 hours on the day is efficient for your wellbeing as you preserve deep focus and balance with deep relaxation at unwind periods. You probably won’t burn out, and if you do, I’ve made my brain dump on that topic.
Isolate yourself for the work period
How you could keep yourself constant during deep work is to turn off all notifications, put all stuff in unimportant and do async-work first, which is the most important task for you to make progress. There you may prefer someone do postal pickup for you whenever the courier arrives. Using noise-cancelling headphones, work from the focus room, limit any distractions you may have, removing cues. Your productivity will be grateful, and you will see yields of progress.
Healthy wellbeing
Diet
One needs to be slim and lean. Keeping your own fat under 20% and muscles under 50% is the way to go. I’ve been experimenting for longer periods with intermittent fasting 18:6 — save breakfast time, which works great to lower your insulin levels and raise insulin sensitivity. You can easily transition to being keto. Be aware you can not push that hard exercises while you are Keto.
Food
One needs to be flexible while travelling. You can’t bring your kitchen with you, but you can think about what’s essential for your survival. I could advise using Soylent-like food, i.e. Plenny Shake, a plant-based food, add water.
Excercise
To keep yourself healthy and fit, one needs to move. Exercise has a lot of beneficial impacts on your health. I choose a bike every day, around 200–300kcal and one long ride per week, 1kkcal. It brings me meditative states in the morning, exploring woods, wandering new paths in forests. Simple.
Memory recall
To keep my memory recall up, I use a red light therapy device and a second brain. The next stuff that I’m experimental on is biohacking. It offers a lot of stuff to explore and what’s works for your mortal frame.
You need to try out to learn, reflect, adjust and repeat.
Biohacking
I’m experimenting with free hydrogen and might swap it for yerba mate as it doesn’t elevate my resting heart rate that much and offers mental clarity long during the day.
Supplements
I’m here quite experimental to try and maybe throwing money. Sometimes I spend over 600–1k$/mo depends on the workload. DYOR.
Decisions
Every decision you need to make cuts your willpower in hole-punched cheese.
I’ve learned not to make any decisions, especially if I’ll not earn value from it. For example, having Philips Hue lights combined with Google Home automatically lights up when I’m home, scripted household helps me focus on my thoughts rather than flipping the light switch at home. The same goes for floor vacuuming. Getting Roomba is probably the best investment you could make for your air quality at home.
Mind thing you could automatize and withdraw your decision-making from.
Social connection
What makes one human well-being happy is to feel connected with others. That’s why you are probably talking to others for a sneak peek at their life, systems, achievements, life events to keep yourself updated and what you should do better, what good takes and habits you can borrow from them, incorporate into your life. Here I’m an introvert, and probably you can think of how you talk with people, what outcome is from your calls, collaboration and watercooler chats.
Relationships are built on the way up.
You can learn from here to give heads-up, and you want to be probably a better person, so others have great reason to chat with you, and you can exchange meaningful value for both parties. Either improving in personal, business or family life. All (time) vectors are worth it to think about how you are spending time with others. The best advice is you should not waste your time and others if you could not contribute to others. Best framework is to try to work on yourself first, so you have value add to share with friends.
Conclusion
The best takeaway would be that you will adopt something I’ve suggested from my improvement cycle. On the flip side, feel free to DM me you are thankful and suggest what I could change and do any better and perform better.
