Re keep Do Not Disturb on, I will literally power my phone down completely and put it away when I have to do deep work or focus. Turning a phone back on is just a little too high of a barrier for a trivial peek at X or Instagram. Keeps me honest 💪🏼
I wish I could get used to using my calendar as my to do’ list as I can’t definitely see the value. Although practically, I always find that (1) it requires so many click events to create outlook calendar events these days (2) I use so many other apps (ie slack, teams, notion) that going to create an event in my calendar feels so foreign. How has everyone else managed this?
I usually block out my calendar for focus blocks, but then refer to my a Notion doc called "daily to do" (a kan-ban board) with what's up next, things in the backlog, things to be done by end of day etc. Once I am in "focus block" on my calendar, I go to Notion and figure out what I should spend that time doing.
#1 works really well for me and I find myself not pushing tasks as often this way.
I also love the "Focus time" function in the Google Workspace calendar that allows me to automatically decline meetings + set myself to busy during those focus time events in my calendar. It's been a real blessing to both keep time for tasks and for deep work.
#3 & #4 feel really eye opening with the way you wrote it out. Getting in the habit of writing top 3 tasks every morning has been tricky but it's always helped when put in motion!
Great write up. It’s amazing how much more productivity i became when I moved my to-do list from sticky notes to my calendar. Now I must remember to use the DND as well
I will be adding a post-it of "waiting for" and will keep it on one of my monitors.
I find I put #4 into #1. My calendar is the most important app on my phone. I didn't know that someone wrote about this technique. I naturally started embracing it years ago.
I lean toward airplane mode or silent versus Do Not Disburb.
Recently I had to restore everything on my phone and have now deleted 5 apps and not logged back into 3.
Awesome ideas. I’m going to try implementing at least two of these starting tomorrow. My job requires a lot of Slack channel management but it’s become too all encompassing. People will survive if they don’t hear back from me for an hour or two.
Also, can we just call it Twitter? It’s much better.
Re keep Do Not Disturb on, I will literally power my phone down completely and put it away when I have to do deep work or focus. Turning a phone back on is just a little too high of a barrier for a trivial peek at X or Instagram. Keeps me honest 💪🏼
Next level!
Love it!
I already follow some of these techniques and I really works!
So many great tips here. Every changed for me when I made 2 X Deep Work sessions my priority in the morning before anything else.
Block my internet, set a timer, headphones.
12 months later and I have 14,000 Medium followers and a thriving part-time writing business.
YES!!!
Tremendous write-up. Every odd time I add my todos to my calendar rather than a todo app or note my productivity is at least double if not more.
SAME
This was great Lenny. It felt really logical and practical. keep up the great work!
This post is gold
I wish I could get used to using my calendar as my to do’ list as I can’t definitely see the value. Although practically, I always find that (1) it requires so many click events to create outlook calendar events these days (2) I use so many other apps (ie slack, teams, notion) that going to create an event in my calendar feels so foreign. How has everyone else managed this?
I usually block out my calendar for focus blocks, but then refer to my a Notion doc called "daily to do" (a kan-ban board) with what's up next, things in the backlog, things to be done by end of day etc. Once I am in "focus block" on my calendar, I go to Notion and figure out what I should spend that time doing.
#1 works really well for me and I find myself not pushing tasks as often this way.
I also love the "Focus time" function in the Google Workspace calendar that allows me to automatically decline meetings + set myself to busy during those focus time events in my calendar. It's been a real blessing to both keep time for tasks and for deep work.
Great tip!! Added this to the post.
#3 & #4 feel really eye opening with the way you wrote it out. Getting in the habit of writing top 3 tasks every morning has been tricky but it's always helped when put in motion!
Great write up. It’s amazing how much more productivity i became when I moved my to-do list from sticky notes to my calendar. Now I must remember to use the DND as well
Fabulous list.
Thank you.
I will be adding a post-it of "waiting for" and will keep it on one of my monitors.
I find I put #4 into #1. My calendar is the most important app on my phone. I didn't know that someone wrote about this technique. I naturally started embracing it years ago.
I lean toward airplane mode or silent versus Do Not Disburb.
Recently I had to restore everything on my phone and have now deleted 5 apps and not logged back into 3.
It feels liberating.
You list is now on one of my lists!
Thanks for sharing all of this Christine 🙏💪
GTD is such a great book/productivity tool!
@Waiting for is such a great way to keep tabs of the "open loops" in our brains.
Not there yet with hiring a VA/EA but can see the leverage of this step, so it will be a great milestone when it happens!
Have just started waking up at 5am to start doing 'deep work' and I have gotten more done in 3 hours than I have done for the last 3 days!
These are such valuable tips. Thanks for sharing.
Awesome ideas. I’m going to try implementing at least two of these starting tomorrow. My job requires a lot of Slack channel management but it’s become too all encompassing. People will survive if they don’t hear back from me for an hour or two.
Also, can we just call it Twitter? It’s much better.
🙏🤣
Great stuff - For async I use very quick loom/slack videos. This is great for remote working, better than email/messages in many cases.
Great add to the post!
This is very timely for me coming back from a family vacation and needing to jump back in. Thank you!