Side project time management, alternating verses sequential

For the past few weeks I have been trying a few ways to manage my project productive in the limited hours I had in the early hours of the morning. For a whole week I tried alternating between my Passbook project one day, and focusing on marketing my MatrixSolver program the next. This alternating method was tried first because I felt both tasks required equal urgency and therefore I should give them about equal attention. However, after the first week I decided to try something a little different.

The next week, on the second or third week of February, I tried instead to schedule Monday to Wednesday for Passbook and Thursday and Friday for marketing. The result was not unexpected but the productivity gains were. I managed to complete a whole lot more tasks for each area of focus after the work periods simply because I could pickup from where I left off much quicker than before. The constant switching of areas of focus was causing me to backtrack a lot more than needed.

Therefore the need to reduce the amount of distractions, however productive and constructive towards other goals those distractions are, remains important in maximizing productivity. Although as a side note I have now stopped waking up at 1 or 2 am and have returned to a more regular routine of waking up between 3:30am and 5:30am, depending on whether I plan to workout before work. Putting the focus back on exercise instead of side project accomplishments has made me feel better as a person, although not as accomplished.