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Category: Being Productive

Unread Emails

Published on January 11, 2024

I don’t know about you, but I have a ton of unread emails.

Mostly from blogs and people I subscribe to who send valuable, but non-urgent messages.

My current system is to read and reply to the urgent first, then start making my way down the non-urgent from newest to oldest.

This process has left me hovering between 800-1,000 non-urgent unread messages for what feels like years.

This week, however, I started a new process.

Instead of reading emails from the top of my inbox down… I’ve been sorting my inbox based on person or blog and reading all of the emails sent by them first… before going to the next person or blog and so on.

For example, this past week I read through all of my unread Daily Stoic emails and now I’m making my way down all of my unread Seth Godin emails.

This has been significantly more efficient because I don’t have to keep voice/tone/context changing as I read various messages from various people who are all writing in various different ways.

I can keep the same voice/tone/and context in mind and blast through a whole series of emails with much better retention and much less mental fatigue.

It’s like reading 20 pages of one book versus reading one page of 20 different books. The difference is remarkable.

Would recommend.

P.s. Know someone who might enjoy getting these emails? This is me kindly asking if you’d forward an email you liked to a person who you think would like it, too. Thanks :)

Personal Growth via Annoying Tasks

Published on January 7, 2024

What’s one chore you find yourself doing more than any other chore?

  • Laundry?
  • Dishes?
  • Landscaping?

What if I told you that inside of this mundane, annoying, hair-pulling chore lies one of your greatest personal growth opportunities?

What if, instead of feeling dread and resentment towards this unavoidable, time-consuming task… you found a way to integrate a task you’ve been wanting/meaning to do, but never seem to have the time to do?

  • What if laundry time suddenly became audiobook time?
  • What if dishes suddenly became meditative time?
  • What if landscaping suddenly became podcast time?

Suddenly… you just made personal growth one of your most time consuming tasks via one of your most time consuming “hair-pulling” tasks.

You might not be able to change what tasks you need to get done to keep your world spinning… but you can always change your approach to these tasks.

Life is too short to spend so much time daily in resentment and annoyance. And you only have so much hair to pull before you go bald. Might as well find ways to align life tasks and change your mind about what you can. Especially if the alternative is awful… what’s there to lose?

P.s. In case you missed it, you can read the best of what I posted to MoveMe Quotes last week, here.

Where’s Home?

Published on January 4, 2024

One thing that has been helping me with organization is, when I come across something that’s out of place, I ask myself: “Where’s this thing’s home?”

If it doesn’t have a home, then it’s no wonder that it keeps ending up all over the place.

Being organized isn’t just about making things aesthetically neat and pleasing.

It’s about giving things homes.

Places where they can continue to reside; not just temporarily get moved to.

And if you’re going to go through all of that work to clean things up anyway, you might as well do the little bit extra it takes to give them that residential spot.

And not just some arbitrary, hard to remember place—a place that makes sense, that’s close to where it usually ends up anyway, a place that feels right.

P.s. I sip on coffee while I write these. If you enjoy these posts, you can support my future work by supplying me with one of my next cups of joe here. ☕️

Coming In 2024…

Published on December 26, 2023

There are five things that I’m seriously considering pursuing in 2024.

  1. A Poster Store. I have the words. I’ve been having a great time generating AI Art. I want to combine and share them in inspiring ways.
  2. A Podcast. I’ve been toying with the idea for years. I have my questions and I know who I’d ask… it’s only a matter of doing it.
  3. Video Courses. My digital guides are the syllabus’. Next I would turn them into self-paced courses that would provide significantly more guidance than a simple .pdf file.
  4. Live Workshops. My vision is to keep them small. Five to ten people max. Everybody participates and works together to answer challenging, hard-to-face alone, inner work related questions.
  5. More Digital Products. I have shipped two. I have ten more outlined that I want to produce for The Art of Forward Series. And I have a slew of other digital products that I want to create outside of that series. Including Kaizen templates to help guide daily action, the Ultimate Kindness/ Pay-It-Forward Party, and Poetry books.

I’m sharing this because I’m sure you, too, have a bunch that you want to do in 2024. My recommendation is don’t make it your goal to do it all. Start by writing and feeling them all out—yes.

But then, pick one thing to focus 100% of your energy on. None of it ever works out to be as easy as it seems in your mind. Try to do too much and you’ll fail at it all. Get an A+ in one and you’ll be well on your way to properly conquering them all.

Easy Swaps For Exponential Gains

Published on November 5, 2023

Imagine this: you take the most wasteful 20/30/60 minutes of your day and made them into some of your most productive 20/30/60 minutes instead.

By wasteful, I mean adding no value to your current or future state.

And by productive, I mean the opposite.

Which, isn’t to stress you out with the idea of needing to work / focus / do more.

It’s a strategy to help you do the opposite.

So, instead of 20/30/60 minutes of media scrolling… what if you swapped that for an easy 20/30/60 minutes of meditative reflecting?

Instead of 20/30/60 minutes of trying to refocus after preventable distractions… what if you swapped that for an easy 20/30/60 minutes of Do Not Disturb mode, over the ear headphones, and undisturbed work?

Instead of snoozing your morning alarm for 20/30/60 minutes each morning… what if you forced yourself up right away and went to bed 20/30/60 minutes earlier instead?

Heck, what if you swapped the 20/30/60 minutes of most unproductive work-time of your day and simply sat there in silence and meditated instead?

Small changes like this are what lead to exponential long-term results. Don’t get all grandiose and try to get all of the productivity squeezed from your days right now and all up front.

Be patient. Make small meaningful changes. And keep collecting dividends on that investment for years to come.

P.s. My guide on building self-improvement habits into your life—for life (minus the hustle)—can definitely help with this.

Skipping Thinking

Published on October 5, 2023

Thoughts that we try to remember end up throttling our brains—like a skipping record that’s stuck playing the same beat.

Here’s how I imagine it going down:

  • Average thought
  • Average thought
  • Average thought
  • Average thought
  • Average thought
  • GREAT IDEA
  • REMEMBER
  • REMEMBER
  • Aver—REMEMBER
  • Averag—REMEMBER
  • Avera—REMEMBER
  • Ave—REMEMBER
  • GRE—REMEMBER

Essentially all further thoughts get halted as our brains try and remember the one.

We need to write down/record the random thoughts/creative ideas we have so as to free up our minds for smooth, continued thinking.

The more we try to remember, the fewer total ideas we’ll have.

And the fewer ideas we have, the lower the chances we’ll come across (allow) our best ones.

P.s. I use the notes app on my phone for this. It’s simple and easy. Don’t complicate this. You just need an easily accessible place where you can brain dump on the fly.

Leashing Your Mind

Published on September 29, 2023

When I take my dog for a walk, I follow a premeditated path and she follows the pulls of the leash.

My dog without her leash is like my mind without focus—ready to wander, deviate, explore, circle, double back—all aimlessly—and in whichever direction the circumstances pull.

The leash I use with her is a tool that keeps her on track, just like my noise cancelling headphones, silent mode on my phone, and a block of uninterrupted time—are all tools that help keep my mind focused and following a premeditated train of thought.

Walk your (untrained) dog without a leash and good luck following any kind of premeditated path. Walk your dog on too tight of a leash and neither of you will have a very good time.

Somewhere in the middle—where there’s a modestly sized leash and a patient demeanor—lies an ideal experience for both dog and walker that covers the premeditated ground while also leaving space for mini-explorations and imaginative deviations along the way.

P.s. The Art of Forward: Consistency > Intensity drops TOMORROW! You guys will be the first to see. Thanks for your ongoing support and readership. I hope you love it :)