Multitasking is not faster and it harms our ability to think deeply, work deeply, and do our best creative work. One thing at a time. It’s faster than multitasking and you do better work.
What work should I do first?
There are varying opinions on the order in which we should work. Should I do a bunch of easy tasks first and build momentum into an awesome work day? Or should I just into difficult tasks when I am more fresh?
Our focus runs out as the day goes on. I used to believe that a day that started with a bunch of easy tasks was a great way to build momentum, but I have switched to a “hard tasks first” approach. I’ve been MUCH more productive since this change.
As your energy wains, your focus fades, and as we over-tax our brains, we find distracting things more distracting. We also begin o feel like all those easy tasks were lots of work and maybe we don’t have to get to the difficult tasks until tomorrow. And so the process of procrastination begins. Do the hard stuff first when your energy is high and your discipline meter is at 100%.
Work Boundaries
We’ve never been more connected to each other than we are at this very day. With the ability to be constantly plugged in comes the ability to be plugged into work 24/7.
One of the reasons this leads to eventual burnout is because the human body is great under short, intense periods of stress. Short intense stress usually makes you stronger. But long, dull, and constant stress is a killer. Literally. It’s terrible for both body and mind.
How can we de-couple from the 24-hour work cycle?
I think that having a solid set of available hours when we work and a good shutdown routine at the end of the workday is a good start. These are ideas stolen from the author and brilliant thinker on the issue of “Deep Work,” Cal Newport.
Newport posits that only when you have the confidence that you’re finished with work until the next day can you even begin to recharge your energy and prepare for another day of work. He says that trying to squeeze out a little bit more work in the evenings could make you a much less effective worker the next day.
Even if it means leaving some work on the table and not getting as much done today, respecting your “office hours” and keeping work in its place makes you a better, more stable, and harder worker.
Deep practice making your brain stronger
Practicing any skill deeply works to make anybody better at the thing they are practicing because when we focus intently on a specific skill or study and drill it over and over again, we force our brain to fire a specific circuit in our brain over and over again.
When this brain circuit repeats again and again, it causes cells in our brain, called oligodendrocytes to wrap layers of a substance called myelin around the neurons in those circuits. Myelin insulates the transmission of electric pulses through our mind and literally helps us to think and function faster.
This slowly takes that skill we’re practicing and cements it into our nervous system and helps us get better and faster at doing or thinking about the things we’re deliberately focusing on (i.e. practicing!)
Practice sessions that are made up of un-distracted, deep, and intent focus on a single idea or skill are vital to this process.
The process of work, not the finished work
The appreciation for a master builder, craftsman, watchmaker, etc… is not that we find every little thing they build to be amazing. The appreciation is the way they go about their work itself. The attention to detail, the willingness to work hard, the effort they put into their work, not necessarily the outcome.
The don’t need to do special work, you need to have a special approach to the work you do.
Stretching your mind (part II)
The best parts of somebody’s life tend to happen when they stretch their mind or body beyond the limits of what they thought was possible. When we voluntarily stretch our limits in an effort to do something difficult and worthwhile, we find the greatest sense of growth and accomplishment on earth.
The worst part about losing focus
When the human mind loses focus it doesn’t tend to think about what is good in your life. It tends to focus on the bad. The unfocused mind falls into the trap of catastrophizing even the most mundane parts of life.
Being the best
Combining a bunch of mediocre talent does not add up to an outstanding talent. Talent cannot be bought in pieces and combined together by just making a bunch of mediocre people work together.
This is why it is important for us to work to be the best. When we are at the premium level, there is a value that goes with that which cannot be had unless they come and hire you.
You have premium talent. A bunch of pretty good designers do not combine to make one premium talent. Ask for your price accordingly and judge yourself honestly.
Stretching the mind
There is an old quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson that goes something like, “The mind once stretched with a new idea never goes back to the old mode.”
It appears to me to be as much a warning as an invitation. What happens if your mind is stretched in a bad way, but you can’t see it? We’re always much more charitable toward ourselves and the things we do compared with how we deal with others and the things they do.
Don't think and don't dream!
“It is easier to tone down a wild idea than to think up a new one.”—Alex Osborn
Peak Productivity
I was reading about somebody who was bemoaning the idea of chasing peak productivity in your life. I am a big fan of peak productivity in my life, but not an unbounded optimization to squeeze life until there is no juice remaining. The chase for peak productivity is really about optimizing the hours you spend working so that you can provide an amazing life for yourself and your family while not working 18hrs a day.
If you chase peak productivity for the 5-9 hours each day that you work and can deliver double what the “normal” worker can in that time, is that not an objectively good thing? You can nearly handle two jobs at once while investing little to no more hours than the person who does not manage their time and attention as well.
Search for peak productivity and discover optimized hours along the way. Don’t work more hours, push more work into your hours now.
Perfectionism IS a weakness
It’s not a clever way to humblebrag to your friends. It doesn’t convey to others that you’re special, that you have high standards, or that you do good work. It communicates that you cannot complete your work because you’re chasing an illusion–perfection.
We don’t have control over the outcome and the more we try to control the outcomes of our life and work, to less freedom we will have to think and move.
When you fear making mistakes or breaking things along the way, you take away opportunities to learn.
Perfectionism kills your ability to be creative by trying to infuse control in a process that must be free to flow and splash around like water.
Few things in life are free
Be honest, hold yourself accountable, and be on time. These are all free and completely change your life if you make the effort to do them.
Losing the ability to think creatively
We can become so addicted to the feeling of “getting things done” that we speed run through our to-do list and completely lose the ability to enter an “open mode” of thinking where we can be playful with ideas and create innovation.
Maybe the addiction is the feeling of adrenaline when we put out new fires that arise on an hour-by-hour basis.
Either way, we begin to lose the flexibility that allows us to create new things. Productivity is vital, but producing things that are good ideas is the best productivity.
The goal is to enter a playful and open mode of thinking when brainstorming for ideas and novel things to create and then to enter a closed mode of thinking in which we can laser focus on knocking out tasks on our to-do list and building the ideas that we come up with.
If you can’t win
If you can’t win, make the guy who beats you set a new world record.
Lack of self-awareness is a kiss of death
The guy who thinks he’s the funniest in the room is never the funniest in the room. The guy who tells us how good-looking he is –is generally insufferable. The guy who doesn’t let the conversation breathe, or doesn’t let somebody else have their moment, isn’t usually the most popular guy at work. (And maybe even the guy who writes blog posts thinking he’s some kind of philosopher or something is also pretty annoying.)
When we allow our ego to get to our head and drain our humility, we have been touched by the kiss of death. It’s very difficult to be successful or even liked when you lack self-awareness. And a lack of self-awareness is accompanied by a galling level of self-importance. Indeed a kiss of death.
Ideas are free
Ideas are all free, yet we strangle ideas in the cradle because we become distracted thinking about how the idea might be possible.
When you’re coming up with new ideas you should intentionally try to NOT be practical. Finding ways to make the ideas work is for later. Coming up with ideas should be a time when you unbind yourself from the constraints of reality.
Dreams aren’t real and your ideas aren’t either. But without a good wealth of ideas, you won’t make stuff that is creative or innovative at all.
Don’t destroy ideas because they seem impractical. All the best ideas are impractical, but figuring out how to make the idea come to life is for later. Ideas are free so don’t be scared to capture them, save them, and share them.
Creating something new every day
Pablo Picasso lived for almost 92 years. He had around 33,398 days in his life. He created 26,075 works of art over the course of his life.
That is an average of one new piece of work every single day from age 20 to age 91. Every. Single. Day. Picasso made a new thing every day.
Create something every day. When you consume, take the time to create. Sustain your creative drive by making something each day.
Squeezing more money out of people
It's not all about squeezing the most money out of people. Better to offer a price that's fair and won't break the bank, especially when you consider what else is available out there for your best customers. When folks feel like they're getting a ton of bang for their buck, they're much more likely to come back and spend with you again. It's a win-win.
Rebuilding trust
Trust is broken in a moment and takes years to rebuild. Lately, I’m convinced that trust can only really be rebuilt when the person who broke the trust acknowledges that nobody should trust them again. With humility there is healing and where there is healing, trust can be rebuilt.