Monk Mode: How I Got a Year’s Worth of Work Done in a Month

It’s easy to spend a month working hard in your video production business without getting around to the things that would make it better. Client projects move forward. You deliver the work. But the website, the proposals and the systems you’ve been meaning to improve stay on the list.

I recently took a month away from recording new podcast episodes to give those kinds of changes my full attention. There were improvements I needed to make to our production and marketing systems, and I wanted to get them done while I had the energy and motivation to do them properly.

Looking back, it feels like I got a year’s worth of work done in that month. Some of it might never have happened if I’d kept waiting for a quiet week.

I think of these periods as going into monk mode: choosing a defined stretch of time, stripping away distractions and concentrating on something your business needs.

Consistent action, with occasional sprints

I often talk about the value of small, consistent actions. Following up with clients, working on your marketing and improving the way you run projects all make a difference when you keep doing them.

But some changes need more sustained attention than you can give them in the gaps between other jobs. You need time to understand the problem, make decisions and work through the details without repeatedly stopping to deal with something else.

Business advice tends to gravitate towards two extremes. One promises passive income and a life where you barely need to work. The other celebrates working all the time and pushing harder in every area of your life.

What works for me is a rhythm of regular daily action, punctuated by occasional sprints. Most of the time, I keep things moving steadily. Every now and then, I give a particular part of the business much more attention for a short period.

Knowing that the sprint has an end is part of what makes it work.

What travelling through Laos taught me about work

In 2001, the year before I started Dream Engine, I spent four months backpacking through Southeast Asia. I’d been freelancing for a few years and had begun the work of turning it into a business. I knew life would change once I fully committed, so I took the opportunity to travel.

I spent about a month in Laos, travelling by boat and staying in small villages along the way. Often a family would put me up, which meant sleeping on the floor of their hut and sharing meals with them. We usually had very little language in common, but somehow we found ways to communicate.

I spent a lot of time reading, sitting and observing. One thing that struck me was the rhythm of work. At certain times, people would sit together under a tree, talking, joking and laughing in a completely unhurried way. At others, the work was intense.

I remember watching the father of one family digging out a rice paddy late at night under lights. He was completely absorbed in what he was doing. My impression was that this stage of the growing season needed his full effort, while other stages allowed a much slower pace.

That stayed with me. I could see a way of working that responded to what was needed at a particular time. I’ve found a similar rhythm useful in my own business. Some periods call for maintenance and steady progress. Others call for a concentrated effort to build or change something substantial.

How I make room for focused work

For me, monk mode starts with creating blocks of uninterrupted time. During the working day, that might mean protecting a solid two-hour session for one project.

The biggest opportunity, though, is often after dinner. Instead of watching a couple of episodes of a show, I spend that time working on the business.

During the day, there are phone calls, questions from the team and urgent things that need my attention. After dinner is quieter. I feel calm, and I can stay with a problem long enough to make progress.

I know some of my coaching clients would hate that arrangement. Once they finish at five, they want to put work down and spend the evening doing something else. That’s completely reasonable. Your focused time might be in the morning or during a day you’ve deliberately kept free of meetings.

The useful question is where you can create space to work without constant interruption. Choose a time that suits your life and energy, then decide what you’ll temporarily put aside to protect it.

It also helps to enjoy the work. I find building my business creative and satisfying. I like learning, solving problems and seeing something improve. That makes a short period of extra effort appealing. If the whole thing feels like a grind before you’ve started, it’s worth reconsidering the workload or the way you’ve planned it.

Choose something that will make a difference

There are usually a few things you already know your business needs. They’ve been on your list for months, and they keep coming back to mind because leaving them unfinished has consequences.

Perhaps your website no longer reflects the quality of your work. Your proposals take too long to write. Or you’ve been so busy with production that you’ve neglected marketing, and there’s more white space in the calendar than you’d like.

A useful starting point is to ask: if I gave one part of the business my full attention for a month, what would leave me in a stronger position afterwards?

Be specific about what you want to finish. “Work on marketing” gives you very little direction. Updating your main service pages and adding recent examples of your work gives you something concrete to complete. So does creating a proposal template you can use for the next enquiry, or setting up a past-client follow-up system and beginning to use it.

Choose a manageable amount of work and put time for it in your calendar. The aim is to finish the important things you’ve selected. A longer list won’t necessarily produce a better month.

How AI helped me get through the work

AI played a significant part in this recent period of focus. I’d already been using AI in my business, but I found I could now get much further with projects that had previously felt too complex or time-consuming to tackle.

That made a real difference. Some of the work had been sitting there because I knew how much effort it would take to work through on my own. Having help meant I could keep moving instead of repeatedly putting it aside.

I still needed to decide what mattered, give the work my attention and judge whether the result was right for the business. But combining that focused time with useful assistance allowed me to complete much more than I’d expected.

The result was better production and marketing systems, weaknesses identified and addressed, and a stronger sense of confidence about where the business was heading.

Give the sprint an end

Monk mode is a temporary arrangement. You might choose a month, a week or even a single day, depending on the work involved and the time you can make available.

Decide when you’ll finish, as well as what you want to get done. When that time arrives, look at what has changed. Which projects are complete? What still needs attention? What small, regular actions will keep the improvements working?

If you’ve built a follow-up system, for example, you’ll need a weekly habit of using it. The concentrated effort gets it established. Consistency makes it useful over time.

I’ve now stepped out of this period of monk mode and returned to my usual routine, including the podcast. I feel more confident because I’ve dealt with things I knew needed my attention. There’s a lot of satisfaction in that.

What’s the thing in your business that you’d most like to feel that way about a month from now?

Want support with your own month of monk mode?

I’m supporting video business owners who want to spend a month making important improvements to their businesses.

We start with a one-to-one call to identify your priorities and make sure you’re concentrating on the things that will make a difference. I turn that into a written action plan, and you work through it with my support.

We meet weekly on a group call to check in, ask questions and get feedback. Between calls, you can contact me on Slack whenever you need help.

If you’re ready to give something important in your business the attention it needs, get in touch and ask me about Monk Mode.