Today has been a busy day with the celebration of Vinayaka Chathruthi (a famous Indian festival), so I have decided to post a blog from the past which is my notes from a discussion I tuned in to on YouTube.
Books Mentioned:
1) Make Time – John Zeratsky
2) Getting Things Done – David Allen
3) The Sprint – John Zeratsky
4) Story Worthy – Mathew Dicks
5) A Million Miles in a Thousand Years – Donald Miller
5) Making of a Manager – Julie Zhuo
6) The First Twenty Minutes – Gretchen Reynolds
Mission vs Vision:
Mission and vision are different.
Mission – How you want the world to be different from the work you’re doing.
Vision – A mental picture of what it would look like if you pursued that mission. But, a vision helps see what you can do to get ‘there’ so it’s useful.
4 Steps to make time:
1) Highlight – What’s that one thing that you want to focus on for the whole day. The one ‘highlight’ that gives you the energy to complete it.
How do you think about what your highlight should be vs what your to-do list should be?
– Use your highlight to design/structure what the rest of the day looks like.
– Our experience of life is based on what we pay attention to.
– A highlight is essentially a focusing tool on top of what you’re already committed to.
How do you think about goals?
– Think of goals as directions, not destinations.
– They’re more like stepping stones to structure your day.
– When we focus too much on goals, we put ourselves in a situation where we can’t win.
Types of Goals
– Numerical goals – I wanna get x subscribers
– Progress goals – improving the quality of videos
It’s perhaps better to think of goals as progress as opposed to numerical rewards. And they’re more directions than destinations.
The ‘Might-Do’ List 😂
To-do lists set us up for disappointment. We start optimistically and end up not finishing everything on there. The ‘Might-Do’ list is set up to counteract this belief by creating a system where you don’t have to commit to anything.
It has some rules:
– Plaintext/ unprecious.
– No ranking or prioritising.
– Don’t work off the list. It’s supposed to help you do things when you are figuring out what to do and working off the list eliminates the point.
Similar to goals, a to-do list is like a guide to remind you what you need to. The actual task isn’t done until you translate the to-do list to actions.
Differences between GTD and Make Time
Make Time is really a focusing system to figure out what matters. It mainly provides tools to avoid distractions and build energy in your system. GTD however, is more of a productivity system that you have to follow to enjoy its benefits. Make Time is not an organisational system. It’s more of a tool.
– Don’t get trapped in finding the perfect productivity system.
Personal Sprint
– This is basically a concept where if you work on the same thing consistently, for example, 2 hours a day for a whole week, essentially you are doing 15hours worth of work in 10 hours because similar to RAM in a computer, we have quickly accessible things in our mind which we can pull and get right back into it.
Becoming a Morning Person
– When you wake up early with a task that you know you want to do, it provides a motivation to power yourself to wake up early.
– Staring at a screen immediately before sleep can be super disruptive before you go to bed. If you wanna wake up early, the first thing you have to do is sleep early. And to do this, you have to set a time to put away your devices so that you aren’t distracted.
How do you start?
– Break down big things to small things.
– Start in the middle. Pick the thing that feels like a good place to jump in.
– Dive in where you can dive in and spread out from there. It provides a sense of freedom.
How to manage tasks without deadlines?
– Schedule days where you think you can do the task.
– Create deadlines for yourself.
Infinity Pools
– These are essential things(ie apps, websites) where you don’t really have an end – they go infinitely. For example, in Netflix, the next episode plays automatically without any pause and forces you to watch it.
– When it comes to habits vs willpower, habits win
What are the best ways to stay focused on tasks?
– Create friction for social media. For example, use auto-generated passwords that you can’t remember and save it in some hideous document. Every time you’re done with the social media app, logout. Whenever you’re drawn in, you’ll be stuck with the login page and so you will basically retire to your original task due to the time cost in logging in and the laziness.
– Compartmentalise these apps so that you only use them at a given time each day. For example, check email for 20 mins at night and restrict yourself for the rest of the day.
2) Laser – Managing attention by breaking distractions and not having to depend on willpower to resist checking stuff.
– Listen to music which doesn’t interrupt your foreground.
3) Energise – Simple ways to take care of yourself so that you have the energy to do what you want.
– Focus on doing small things every day and it becomes much easier to build habits – especially exercise.
– With something like exercise, make it as low friction as possible so that you can actually do the task which can then help you build the habit.
– Inconvenience yourself so that you are not forced into thinking that outsourcing everything is the best option. For example, instead of getting a takeaway every day, learn to cook! Force yourself to ‘not outsource’ and you’ll create a fine boundary between work personal life.
4) Reflect – Look back and take notes on what worked for you. Reflect on the tactics and strategies.
– Write something ‘story-worthy’ at the end of the day. This helps you force yourself to create a good story every day.
– Think of your life as a story. Make it interesting, not boring.
5) Misc Notes – Additional points that I couldn’t really fit into a particular category.
– Work expands to fill the time that we allocate to it.
– When you build and allocate a lot of time to one particular task, you can really get quality out of it.
– Should you go for safer options or a more story-worthy life?
– With creating stories, the benefits are more for you than bragging about yourself to others.
– Getting stuff done isn’t the same as doing the stuff.
– There are some universal truths, but the most important thing is to establish your own system and believe that your time and attention and energy are yours to design and experiment with. – John Zeratsky
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