☕ saturday mornings - March 5, 2022

achieving goals, fearing failure & my productivity system

Mar 05, 2022

Good morning all!

Happy Saturday. I hope you’re having an excellent start to your weekend.

Below is your edition of “saturday mornings”, a weekly recap of the coolest things I’ve been pondering and exploring this week.

Thanks for being here.

Total read time (bolded sections) = 2 minutes

Total read time (all) = 6 minutes

✍️ Quote I’m pondering:

“What you get by achieving your goals is as important as what you become by achieving your goals.”
— Henry David Thoreau

💡 Idea from me: Overcoming Failure

“Don't fear failure. Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts, it is glorious even to fail.”
— Bruce Lee

In facing the fear of failure, I came to a conclusion that provided a lot of clarity: I should be more fearful of the long-term regret I’d live with if I chose not to push myself to achieve big things than the fear of failure.

The only way you can actualize your potential is by going forward, towards fear, even at the risk of failing.

Yet, the real risk isn't failing. The real risk is not doing everything you can with your abilities during your one life on earth. The real risk is unfulfilled potential.

Facing failure is a signal that you’re doing something difficult but worthwhile. Don’t be discouraged by fear. Grow increasingly comfortable co-existing with it. Lean into it.

Discomfort, especially the discomfort associated with potential failure, is how change is made, growth is achieved, and how the world opens up to you.

Fear not trying more than you fear failing.

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💻My Productivity System

Books, videos, and blog posts about how to be “hyper-productive” and “optimize your time” have drawn millions of followers.

Personally, I think a lot of it is garbage. Most advice leaves you feeling more insecure and less productive than when you started (then maybe you’ll buy their course...)

Am I the most productive person? Far from it.

But have I tried (and failed) at TONS of different productivity systems, hacks, and gimmicks? You betcha.

And from my years of experiments, failures, and (slow) learning, I’d love to share what I’ve gathered. So you can avoid wasting as much time as I did.

I think I’ve found a sustainable and practical system to manage my work life. It’s worked well for me, so perhaps there may be some valuable info for you.

Is this the best system in the world? Heck no. It’s still a work in progress.

Do I feel overwhelmed whenever I have a ton going on? Has this forced me to create a bulletproof system that replaces anxiety with a scheduled plan? Yes and yes.

Reality Check

First, we have to dispel the idea that there is a person out there who feels completely in control of their time, on top of things, and consistently gets everything done they set out to. Said person does not exist. (Even if they have a course for $1500).

As harsh as the reality is, no productivity system will ever eliminate anxiety and allow you to conquer seemingly impossible workloads. However, they can help you focus on the important, and make work slightly more manageable.

We can’t overcome the sense of urgency to get more and more done by being more productive. There will ALWAYS be more to do. Getting more done often just increases the speed your to-do list repopulates and you end up feeling less productive.

Rather, the way out is through accepting you’ll never feel completely on top of things. You’ll never feel that everything is done, no one is disappointed and you’re free to breathe a sigh of relief. It’s a mirage that will continually evade your outstretched arms. No matter how hard you reach.

But the comforting truth is that everyone is in the same boat.

Now that we’ve acknowledged that no productivity system that exists will eliminate anxiety and allow you to effortlessly finish all your work, we can move on to a system that helps you manage work to the best of your ability.

What are we trying to accomplish?

What is the purpose of a productivity system?

Life inevitably generates work for us to do.

Simply put, the role of a productivity system is to organize, schedule, and manage tasks so you can carry them to completion.

If you have a good system, it helps you focus on the few important projects (opposed to the trivial many), reduces anxiety, and gives you the necessary time to complete your best work.

It’s not a magic formula, but rather a toolkit you can use to combat the onslaught of work demands.

Guiding Principles

KEEP IT SIMPLE. Complex systems seem better. They’re intricate, detailed, and give an air of superiority to their users. Because they take more effort, we automatically assume this leads to better results.

9 times out of 10, complex systems become monsters and fall apart. Or, they require so much maintenance time, you give up on them completely.

People we see with super-complex systems built them over years, adding in layers over time. (Or they spend all their time managing their productivity system and no time doing work).

Emulating someone’s super complex system when you’re just beginning is intimidating and typically leads to inaction.

You’re aiming for a Minimum Viable Product. Look at it as your first draft. You can work on it and improve it over time.

My System for Productive Living

I split up my productivity system into two parts based on the time in which they occur: (i) Weekly and (ii) Daily.

1) Weekly

A) Batching

At the beginning of the year, I created a batching schedule. That way, when planning my week, I have a clear idea of what my main objectives are for each day and I can schedule things accordingly.

This helps me to stay focused and reduces the number of decisions I need to make to plan my work. The decision is already made.

For example, Mondays are intended for schoolwork, generating writing ideas, and going to the gym. If someone asks for a call on Monday, I can ask them to chat Friday as that’s a day when I do most of my phone calls. This helps protect blocks of time where I can move the needle on difficult projects.

My Monday Batching Schedule:

B) Weekly Review

Tiago Forte recommends conducting weekly reviews. In simplest terms, it’s housekeeping for work.

I set aside 15 minutes once a week (in my calendar) to conduct a weekly review.

This consists of a few parts:

Clearing your email inbox from the past week
Clearing your desktop
Look at next week’s calendar (Google Calendar)
Review tasks and choose tasks for the week (To-doist)

Google Calendar

No surprise here, but my life runs off of Google Calendar. Yet, the biggest mistake people make is putting everything into Google Calendar.

The only things that go into my Google Calendar are events with a set start and end time where I have to be present (appointments, classes, or meetings), as well as future deadlines.

Periodically I’ll also put in time blocks for periods of deep work, to focus make progress on a project, but not often.

Todoist

This is a free app, for both computers and mobile devices, which helps organize and schedule tasks. It’s a virtual to-do list.

You can create folders for each area of work in your life and then populate as many tasks as you’d like in each folder. Then you can assign tasks to a given day of the week.

Then each morning, Todoist will only pull up the tasks for that day and you can check them off as you go. If you don’t have time to get to something you can reschedule it to another day.

I’d recommend, after making this mistake, to make tasks easy to accomplish in a short block of time. If you’re working on a larger project, break it down into bite-sized chunks.

For example, instead of writing, “Study for Business Midterm” (which is vague and anxiety-inducing) put “Review Chapter 1 for Business Midterm + Take Review Notes”. If you need to review multiple chapters, put multiple items in.

Example from my Todoist:

Checking things off and seeing them disappear feels fantastic. All about momentum.

On Sunday, after looking at my Google Calendar for the week ahead, I’ll usually generate a list of all the tasks I need to get done and schedule them throughout the week (based on my batching schedule).

That way, I don’t need to worry if I’ll meet a deadline or if I’ll be prepared for a midterm. I just have to make sure I get through my task list each day.

I don’t use Todoist all the time, but it’s especially helpful when I’m feeling overwhelmed and there are a ton of tasks to get done.

2) Daily

A) 5 Minute Journal

The 5 Minute Journal wasn’t designed to be a productivity tool, but I’ve found it helpful to clarify what the important tasks are for each day and to focus on those first.

Every morning, I write down 3 things for “What would make today great?”

This question forces you to distill the 3 most important things you have to do that day. I am very prone to overestimating what I can do in a day and underestimating what I can do in a year. With only 3 bulleted options, you really need to be concise on what the important things are.

Note, it doesn’t just have to be work-related. Often one of my items is to have a great workout or make time to catch up with a friend.

Make sure you get the important things done every day. A great life is made up of a series of great days.

B) Small Legal Pad

Reading the 4HWW, Tim Ferriss mentions he uses a regular piece of paper, folded 3 times for his daily to-do list. This forces him to focus on the few, mission-critical actions.

Using this advice, I opted to use a small legal pad (about 5” x 8”) to record everything I need to do in a day. It’s often a consolidation of my To-doist and Google Calendar for the day, with personal and life-related stuff mixed in.

Is it redundant? Very.

But I enjoy being able to physically write down everything I want to get done that day, and crossing items off, one by one.

If I’m feeling particularly busy or overwhelmed, sometimes I will do this at night, before bed, to clear my head and be able to fall asleep.

So there you have it

I’ve listed every tool and habit I use to manage my work life.

It’s not perfect, nor is it the best system out there. And it doesn’t eliminate anxiety or stress (that’s impossible) but helps me manage it and complete high-quality work.

Pull out some ideas or tactics that sound interesting and try it for yourself.

If you find any of it helpful, I’d love if you let me know.

If you enjoy “saturday mornings”, feel free to share this post with a friend 🙂

That’s all for this week’s edition of “saturday mornings”.

As always, if you have any feedback or thoughts, I’d love to hear from you.

Reply to this email, leave a comment, or find me on Twitter @tommy_dixon_

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Have a fantastic weekend.

Much love to you and yours,

Tommy