Hi all, Chris here! I love finding ways to become more productive. There is so much to cover on the topic, but today I want to focus on providing you the strategies and tactics to combat procrastination, fight distractions, and engage in deep work.
⏲️ Procrastination is a problem with starting work
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🌫️ Fog of Obscurity. Procrastination begins at the intersection of two emotions: the thrill of starting something new and the overwhelm of not knowing what to do first. It's the crucial mental barrier that you need to overcome. Ali says the solution is to (1) separate the doing from the planning and (2) schedule time on the calendar to do it. Put the steps on paper, sort it out, and develop a path. The process will provide clarity and enable you to figure out the one action you can take right now that will guarantee you'll actually do this thing. That one action can be as simple as writing the caption for the video you want to post or drafting the email if it's finding a guest for a podcast. Do that now.
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🌉 Bridge of Anxiety. Once things become clearer, you are likely to run into a rush of anxiety. Ali says the solution is asking yourself targeted questions to understand the emotion better. He proposes using the RAIN method (from meditation practice). Recognize that a feeling of anxiety is getting in the way. Allow it to happen and acknowledge that it's okay because you are human. Investigate and explore why this emotion may exist. Nurture the mind and let it know that just because you feel anxiety does not need to hold you back from starting. Embrace the idea that just because you feel anxious does not mean you can't still act (just act while having the anxiety).
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🐪 Hump of Inertia. Finally, with your emotions understood, it’s time for an initial energy boost to get some momentum. Ali's way of doing this is to make a pact with himself to try the first step in the plan for two minutes. And after two minutes, you can stop doing it and try again later. He finds that most of the time he builds the motivation and confidence to keep going. Two minutes, that's it.
You can find more of Ali's lessons on productivity in his Ultimate Guide to Productivity.
⌛ Distraction is a problem with continuing work
Where procrastination is a lack of clarity to start, distraction is the desire to escape discomfort in the moment. While it's logical to believe that it's the desire to seek pleasure (think dopamine spike of checking Instagram), we rarely realize discomfort is the driving factor. I spoke with Nir Eyal (🎧 Ep25) about becoming Indistractible. Nir says to look ahead, schedule your time, and then do what you plan to do in the allotted time. Time management is pain management.
The concept is more formally known as timeboxing. It is a technique of assigning a fixed period to a task, scheduling it in a calendar, and sticking to it. In a study of 100 productivity tricks, timeboxing is the most effective. This means you should ditch your checklist for a calendar. It's not that checklists are bad; it's that they are never-ending. The feeling of checking off one task may be a short-term win; but tomorrow's checklist seems to always have just as many things on it, if not more. And that can leave you defeated. With a calendar, you are constrained by a limited supply.
Some people take timeboxing to the extreme, scheduling everything literally. I suggest starting with your working hours and then building up if you feel the need. Use a planner. And don't forget to schedule your "thinking time" and "free time." While timeboxing is designed to keep you productive, you still need time to be creative and spontaneous (just schedule it in).
👀 Watch out for false productivity
Take reading a productivity newsletter (😁) or re-organizing your inbox folders. Both activities are beneficial, but if they infringe on the critical action you planned to work on now, then they are a distraction. Schedule time later to do them.
🤺 Your nemesis is context-shifting
Your best results will come from focus without distraction (deep work). Multitasking has historically been a badge of honor, but you can't actually be productive by shifting back and forth. People highly underestimate this cost of “context-shifting.” Cal Newport (🎧 Ep63) is the author of Deep Work and many books on productivity. Every time you switch your focus, it negatively impacts your brain. Even a quick email check or notification ping will put you at a disadvantage (especially knowledge workers). Context shifts worsen your output, extend the time to complete, and tire your brain more easily, which means it will likely fall for even the most minor distractions. Cal also strongly advises timeboxing and training your brain as productivity techniques.
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Try interval brain training. If you haven't run in years, don't expect to run 15 miles in one day. The same is true for your brain. If you need to focus intently but routinely leave notifications on, don’t expect to stay focused for 90 minutes. Set up a time to train. Use a timer and try not to break concentration. Keep doing it and gradually extend the time. After a few months, you can routinely get 90 minutes to 120 minutes (which in Cal's research puts you in the top 25th percentile of all people).
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Practice boredom therapy. Give yourself intentional doses of boredom. When we constantly check our phones during downtime, our brain creates a pavlovian response to boredom. So, when we experience boredom, it triggers us to pick up our phones. Why does this matter? Deep work can feel boring to our brains since it's a single task for an extended time. And without training, you will prevent yourself from doing the work. Try this next time you stand in line.
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Be productive in smaller periods. Pull apart the work you are mixing together. When working on one thing, work on only that one thing. It may mean that you have small chunks of time on your calendar, but you can calm the hyperactive mind from having to switch.
📩 Email can really do cognitive damage
Let me be clear, email is an essential tool and required for almost any job, but it's also one of the biggest hijackers of our productivity. It's not replying; it's checking and rechecking. It can take 15 minutes to refocus on your essential task. When you get a notification or just go for a quick inbox check, your attention immediately diverges from your work. 80% of the time, the email can wait. 60 minutes of productivity is gone with just 4 non-essential emails.
Here are ways that you can make email more productive:
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Set up a time for email. Schedule a block of time in your day that is dedicated to email only. Remove notifications and don't check your inbox throughout the day. Communicate to your closest colleagues that you have these rules in place. You can even include an away message that informs the sender not to expect an immediate reply.
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Use the two-touch rule. Interact with emails twice. The first is to label it, and the second is to respond. To do this, use time-based labels instead of categories (e.g., respond today and respond this week). If it doesn't fit either label, archive or delete it. Then use your email time block (mentioned above) to reply to emails labeled respond today, then to the rest. It’s likely that many emails that once needed a response don’t need your attention because the sender did the work or the email is no longer a priority. I use this method with Superhuman. It helps me achieve inbox zero without spending countless hours.
🕓 Implement office hours to help optimize back-and-forth conversations.
Collaboration has evolved to require this persistent unstructured, back-and-forth messaging. At first, it was email, but now we have instant messaging tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams. These asynchronous conversations demand a lot of attention. Since it has become the common form of communication, decisions can stall if there is too much time between messages. Even setting up a meeting could take 3-4 messages.
According to Cal, these asynchronous conversations are the biggest enemy of your deep work. To fix this, you really need to pull your work apart. Separate the communication from the focused work. Implement office hours on your calendar to open all your communication channels dedicated to conversations requiring more than one message. Make the office hours public to let everyone know that this is the dedicated time for these types of conversations. You will protect your attention.
🪝 Create an end-of-the-day routine with an unusual hook.
"Schedule shutdown complete" is the phrase that Cal routinely uses to signal to his brain that work is done for the day. It closes open loops and distinguishes between work and non-work times. Too often, your work mind tries to creep in during the wrong times. The rumination prevents attention recovery, reduces sleep quality, and can impact family or hobby time. He proposes you develop a unique phrase and routine to complete the day. Over time, your brain will adapt to the process, and you can combat that rumination more effectively.
You can use this routine even if you have to work later in the evening ("second shift"). Cal proposes to still end your daily routine (with the unusual hook) but specifically plan the task for your second shift. It will tell your brain that you are done with your typical work day, and the only thing scheduled for later is one specific task. Consider ending your first shift earlier if you consistently do a second shift.
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