This was the most productive week of my life
Oh, hi friends!
This week has been a radical shift in my work habits and life habits.
It started when I read the book Deep Work by Cal Newport. I’d heard about it for years, read articles about it, but never picked it up.
On Sunday, I sat and read it cover to cover in four hours.
Because here’s the thing…
I do not want to be busy.
I want to create and produce incredible work.
And as projects have accelerated, the tools I was using before weren’t working.
I need to be in a “deep work” phase — aka flow state aka all your energy is on one task — as much as possible, whether when editing, or writing lyrics or plays or articles. Instead, I felt torn between a thousand things (some of which I like, some of which I don’t like) and still wasn’t producing much. I did not feel in control of my time.
So here’s exactly what changed after reading this book. I know this won’t work for a lot of people who are managers or whose job depends on quick responses and being tuned in. But I am going to replicate this on the weekends, too!
I do not look at email when I wake up (or the news, or social media, or anything on my phone). Instead I simply…go to work.
Take a 20-second peek at my inbox to see if any writers have emailed or if there is anything directly relevant to my first task of the day.
Do the most urgent tasks of the day — editing, getting stories up — and then around 12:30, I look at email.
I have around 50 emails by then. 10 are junk I delete. Then I start at the top of the inbox, and answer every single one in order. This takes about an hour.
Before lunch, I look at my texts for the first time that day, respond to all of them.
I work on forward-looking tasks in the afternoon, and again look at email around 4:30. Same process. Delete, then respond to all of them in a row. There are fewer, so this takes a half hour.
I also keep track of what I’m doing all day in Notes, since I realized it’s the only thing that syncs between my phone, work laptop, and personal laptop. I reprioritize and move things around as they come up, but it captures everything that I need to do that day.
At night, I peek at email once and open nothing unless it’s from one of three people.
And I jump on Instagram for a few minutes after dinner to respond to people.
And that’s it.
Writing it out it seems very obvious? Duh, less email. Duh, less phone time.
But this week I managed to publish and assign more stories at work, made great progress on a secret project, researched and wrote for my 10-minute musical, wrote these newsletters, and saw theater every night, which means I didn’t work after 6pm. I only spent around 1.5 to 2 hours in email a day (down from probably 3-4). And around 2 hours in Slack for the week. I felt very much in control of my time.
And here’s what I learned…nothing takes long when you’re not distracted.
But most importantly, my brain feels free and less cluttered and eager to create. Which is exactly what I wanted.
Deep work. Is that what you need?
This lil' guy needs to find an ocean!
Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán from Pexels
"The tiniest thing shipped is better than the best thing planned."
From this piece how to overcome procrastination. (h/t my friend Nina, from her EXCELLENT new monthly newsletter — there were so many gems in the first issue, you should get on the second.)
My friend Mike Ross has a genius way to getting work done—he takes the subway: “I’ll get on the Q, which I’m at the north end of, and I’ll ride it all the way to Coney Island. And in doing that, I get at least a thousand words of whatever I’m working on.” From his very entertaining interview with Joe Keenan.
Beautiful prints for book lovers! (h/t Danielle Friedman)
The right way to ask 'can I pick your brain'?
"Being with people I don't know and feel I have to entertain — I find that exhausting," [Ina] Garten told me. "But being with people I love? I have more energy after." Love this piece about how dining habits change over 50 — and how people are more likely to visit restaurants they love over and over. A few years ago, I didn't understand this. Why be a repeat customer when they are so many places to try? But now I totally get it. (h/t Charlotte Maiorana)
Very good profile of a very good actor.
The busier you are, the more you need quiet time.
How Nathan Chen is straddling the hyper-competitive worlds of Yale and professional figure skating.
What "I can't afford it" and "I don't have the time" really mean. (h/t For the Interested)
Catching up with articles that are four months old, like this one about getting rejected 101 times.
Very timely, since I just received a rejection last night, and was so happy about it I stuck it on my refrigerator.
On to the next!
Do you like these daily emails? Please share with a friend!
Thanks, as always, for reading.
Love, Kara