- I got a lot of value from Cal Newport’s last book, Deep Work, so I’m looking forward to his new one, out at the beginning of February: Digital Minimalism. Cal was recently on the podcast Hurry Slowly, discussing Using Technology with Intention.
- How to Develop Better Habits in 2019: Some good practical tips from Ryan Holiday for building habits this year.
- A Weekly Review For Your Goals: Review your goals weekly to see your progress and push your plans forward.
- How to Exhibit Leadership as an Individual Contributor: “Leadership is not tied to a position. Leadership is a mindset.”
- I just started using Ulysses this week to organise my writing and notes, and it’s fantastic. A simple hierarchical folder structure (with custom icons!) is a game changer. I found Shawn Blanc’s guide to his Ulysses setup had some really helpful ideas for how to use it.
- The developers behind Codea, the awesome coding app for iPad, recently blogged about the little details behind their app’s dropdown menu interface. It’s a fantastic piece of UI, and so much thought went into it. Part 1, Part 2.
- Sean McCabe posted this fun little video on Twitter as a reminder not to overthink things, and just get your story out there: Stop Overthinking. Start Doing.
Tag: productivity
Week Links – 2018/12/23
It’s nearly Christmas and I’m spending time with family, so just a few links this week!
- Shawn Blanc’s Plan Your Year workbook has been updated for 2019. I’m really excited to sit down with my wife and plan our upcoming year. We did it for the first time for 2018, and it really helped us put more thought into how we were going to spend our year instead of ambling from one thing to the next.
- Jocelyn K. Glei’s upcoming RESET course sounds interesting!
- Six Years With a Distraction-Free iPhone – After removing Twitter from my phone, I noticed I’d often replace that habit with checking email or Slack instead. After reading this post I’ve removed those apps from my phone too.
- How a Password Changed my Life – I remember reading this a couple of years ago but it came up again this week. Neat idea!
Week Links – 2018/12/15
I’ve decided to start collating a short post each Sunday of interesting things I’ve found online over the past week. It could be anything; this week there’s productivity posts, books, some podcasts, and even a recipe. It’s an experiment.
I’ve decided to start collating a short post each Sunday of interesting things I’ve found online over the past week. It could be anything; this week there’s productivity posts, books, some podcasts, and even a recipe. It’s an experiment.
Podcasts
- The Seanwes Podcast. Creativity and business topics, released weekly. I listened to a handful of episodes so far which I really enjoyed:
- 381: Why and How to Start an Exercise Habit. I had a pretty great exercise habit going last year, but I let it slide in 2018 while we were expecting our second child. I finally broke my 465 day move streak on my Apple Watch, and since then exercise just hasn’t been a focus for me. And I’ve noticed it! This episode has helped to give me a kick to start to work on this again. Ask yourself each day: what have I done to exercise my body today?
- 375: 3-Month Guide to Waking up at 6am Consistently. My morning routine isn’t entirely under my own control, as I have both a 3 year old and a 3 month old kid. But I love the idea of a relaxed morning routine with time intentionally set aside to start the day right and think or stretch or exercise or write.
While I can’t completely control when I’ll need to be awake on a given morning right now, I can control my evening routine. Listening to this episode made me realise I need to make sleep more of a priority, and I’ve already incorporated some of the ideas into ‘shutting down’ slowly in the evening and getting to sleep at a decent time.
The other big takeaway for me was thinking about a proactive vs a reactive morning. If I’m woken up by my son yelling that he wants to get up, I’m starting the day in a reactive state. The same goes if you’re checking your email or Twitter as soon as you wake up – you beginning by reacting to what the world is throwing at you. Instead, think about being more proactive and setting your own agenda for the morning.
- Hurry Slowly, “a podcast about being productive, creative, and resilient, through the simple act of slowing down”. I’ve only listened to 003: Craig Mod – I Want My Attention Back! so far, but it definitely made me think about what an attention suck my smartphone is.
Productivity
- Start your days right with a consistent shutdown routine – The Sweet Setup. Cal Newport discusses a similar idea in his book Deep Work.
- Seventh Week Sabbaticals. More from Sean McCabe, this time the idea of taking a sabbatical week every 7 weeks to prevent burnout and create margin.
- Taking a Depth Year by Leo Babauta at Zen Habits. I don’t think I’d go so far as doing this for a whole year, but I like the idea of finding more depth and value in the things you already own and the activities or hobbies you’ve already started. Improving existing skills, watching media you already have, reading that stack of books you haven’t got to yet or rereading your favourites.
- Also from Zen Habits: Simplify Technology with Limits. I really liked the limit of “No phone use in the car, at the dining table, while in line, or while talking with other people”.
- Finally, a tweet (or rather, a short thread): https://twitter.com/clairejlew/status/1072910212573495296. In 1:1 meetings, ask specific questions and suggest ways you can help instead of just asking an open-ended “how can I help you?”.
Books
- I just finished Atomic Habits, by James Clear. It’s a really concise, practical guide to creating good habits and breaking bad ones.
- Also, inspired by the morning routine episode of the Seanwes Podcast mentioned above, I’m currently reading My Morning Routine.
- I came across a great top 100 list of books from 2018. I downloaded a bunch of samples to my Kindle while going through this list.
- An older post, but Shawn Blanc has an interesting idea of creating an alternative index for a nonfiction book while you’re reading it. Normally I wouldn’t even consider defacing a book, but I can see this would be a really useful approach with nonfiction books. I current try to mostly read Kindle books, as I want to minimise the amount of physical ‘stuff’ that I own, but flicking through a physical book is definitely much easier and you get a better spacial awareness of your notes and highlights. I’m still not sure what the best balance for me is here. See also: Ryan Holiday’s notecard system.
Misc
- Matt Gemmell posted about mechanical keyboards. I’m now lusting after a WASD keyboard, and started following them on Instagram.
- We’ve been prepping Wholefully’s overnight oats for a while now as quick grab-and-go breakfasts, but I just discovered their instant oatmeal recipes. Easier to make than porridge, easier to clean up, and you can prep the pots days before. Just add water.
Tweet Less, Do More
My wife and I spent some time last week planning some goals, events, and projects for 2018. Among other things, I’d like to read more, blog more, and be more intentional about how I spend my free time.
A first step to achieving this: on the 1st of January, I deleted Tweetbot from my phone. If I want to check Twitter, I can do so on my iPad, but I’ll only look once a day. The payoff has been great, even after only one week:
- I used to be a timeline completionist (I had to read every tweet), but now I’m letting it go. It’s freeing.
- I’ve found I’m no longer carrying my phone around the house, everywhere I go. Why did I do that before? What was so important?
- It’s not just that I’m carrying it around less though. I’m using it less in general. I feel less attached to it. I don’t feel anxious if I don’t know where it is. The other day I left the house to go and work from a cafe, and accidentally left my phone at home because the need to have it didn’t really occur to me.
- I’ve started charging my phone in a different room at night (not the bedroom), so it’s not the last thing I look at before bed. I also don’t rush to get it first thing in the morning – I’ll generally pick it up before work. Again, it’s one less thing to think about.
- Instead of constantly checking my phone, I’ve started ensuring my Kindle is always to hand. Before bed, I’ll read some of a book. Any downtime I want to fill, I can read some of a book. As a result, I’ve already read two books in the first week of the year, and that’s unheard of for me in recent times.
Hey, and here I am writing a blog post.
Singletasking
In recent years, I’ve become increasingly concerned about my scatterbrained-ness. I find it hard to focus on a single task for a prolonged period of time: for example, I find it takes me far longer to get through a book, or even read a short passage of text, than it ever used to. I don’t listen to the other person when I’m having a conversation — or rather, I try to listen, but the information somehow always seems to pass through my brain without being stored anywhere. I’m not really present in the moment. My brain gets distracted very easily, and I’ll swear I hadn’t had that conversation with you. My comprehension of texts is perhaps worse than it’s ever been, too. Not all the time, but often, I have to concentrate quite hard in order to actually take in the details of what I’m reading if I want anything more than a cursory understanding. When using the computer at home, I never seem to do anything productive — just follow an endless cycle of checking my feed reader, my e-mail, Twitter, and flicking through my open tabs. Sure, I get things done, but slowly, and piecemeal. My concentration usually feels scattered, my focus divided, my brain like it’s trying to juggle too many balls/clubs/knives/porcupines at once.