Do Fewer Things and Better Work by Protecting Your Focus

I read Cal Newport's new book Slow Productivity and have adjusted how I work over the past couple months. Many of the principles I was already doing (or half-doing.) But I've made a much more dedicated effort to build focus time into my days.

It's been 3 months and I can confirm, dedicating some attention to how I work has had a huge impact on the quality of the work I'm getting done and how much I'm able to fit in. It's also majorly lessened that feeling of "I'll never get all this done" and "there's no end in sight."

I fully recognize that these strategies might not be doable if you don't have complete autonomy over your day. My days are already structured according to client work. I have one client that I work on Mondays and Thursdays. The other is Tuesday and part of Friday. Wednesdays are for any projects I have on top of the two clients and/or I use Wednesdays for personal stuff. I run errands and have a standing piano lesson. But, even if you have less autonomy, there are still things you could take from this list.

And if you geek out on this stuff, or want some very concrete details for how to adapt it to different working situations, just pick up the book. I ripped almost all this off from Cal Newport. He's not on LinkedIn so will never know.

Here's exactly what I am doing to protect my time:

1. Agree to do less. I cut back the list of what I'm trying to accomplish in a week by about 30-50%. I’m not saying no to work (well, sometimes I am…), it's more about being realistic about timelines. If I can't get to it immediately, it goes in a backlog. My list for a week used to be EVERYTHING I needed to do, regardless of timeline so things carried over a lot, which just feels bad. Now I have a backlog for things beyond the current week, so those tasks/projects are off my mind because they're recorded somewhere and I know it will get covered eventually. I just don't have to look at an overwhelming list every day now.
2. Assume more time on each task. I use Motion for project management and to schedule my tasks. I DOUBLED the amount of time I estimated for each task. Humans are horrible at estimating this stuff. Double seems crazy, but if I get done early, it feels great. This, combined with number 1, mean that I'm actually finishing the projects, not getting through parts of things and shifting to something else. STUFF GETS DONE.
3. Weekly Planning. I have a dedicated time on Fridays (usually 30-60 mins) where I plan out my next week. Usually I'm trying to accomplish 2-3 projects for each of my 2 retained clients. I go away from my desk to do this, even if it's just to a different part of the house, or to a cafe or the library, or whatever. I need my computer for this but by moving locations and only using one monitor I am able to stay focused on planning and not get sucked back into work.
4. Defined backlog. Like I said, I'm not saying no to work, I'm just being realistic about when I can do the work. Each week during my weekly planning session I decide which projects to pull out of the backlog to focus on. (Note, for some clients I'm doing this 2 weeks in advance so they have visibility into what's on deck beyond the coming week.)
5. Stopped checking email and slack throughout the day. This is a huge one. I now have fixed times to deal with randomizing comms and this minimizes task switching and the resulting cognitive overload. I check slack and email from my phone first thing in the morning to make sure nothings broken. Then I work out, get my kids out the door and do my first work block of a couple hours. (I get up early, folks. But I don’t cold plunge.) I check back in on email and slack around 10 or 11. Then I check in every couple hours OR during a time I have blocked to look at randomizing things that need response. But I control when those things happen, I'm not waiting around for someone to randomize me on email or slack. Notifications for email and slack have been off on my phone since March, no one has said a word about my response time. Oh and text messages? I could do an entire post on this. It will be hours before I see a text, for sure.
6. Digital + Analog. I've had a written notebook for work since my first internship in college. While I use Motion to tell me what time I'll do a specific task, I use color coded post-its on a white board to map out my week visually and at a high level.? Each column is a day of the week (which equates to a client) and each post it is a project. I draw a line under the active projects and put the "on deck" projects from my backlog to pull in if I'm faster than expected. Love pulling those post its off the board every day. That's why I don't just write tasks in marker. Too much joy from throwing a project post-it in the trash after crumpling it
7. Daily/Weekly Status Calls. I have standing calls with my immediate teams to go over all projects, statuses, and blockers. These short meetings (always less than one hour, usually 15-30 minutes) cut back on SO MUCH administrative overload like more meetings, email, and slack back and forth. Great time to confirm everyone has what they need to do what's scheduled for their week. One client is 30 mins a week (sometimes an hour) and one is 15 minutes a day.
8. Music. I love music, but I love music with really thoughtful lyrics which is less than ideal when you're trying to focus. I also love (and play) classical piano music but if I listen to classical I get distracted thinking about my own playing. So, I have always just worked without headphones, with whatever background noise is around or just in silence. However, I recently started using brain.fm which is music designed to help you focus. I don't know if it truly helps me focus or not. BUT, since I've been turning it on every time I settle in to crank out some focused work, I now have an almost Pavlovian response to it. When that music is on - no email, no slack, no phone, no distractions. Work gets done. Listening to it RIGHT NOW as I write this. 30 days free here. I'm a full-on influencer with all these referral links, amirite?
9. Keeping a list. Keep a list of what you accomplished. I got through so much at the end of 90 days I couldn't believe it when I saw it all written out (this isn't even all of it, and is on top of the regular day-to-day stuff that has to happen all the time…):

• Strategy for an in person launch event start to finish. Promo, offers, all email and sms flows
• Evaluated ABM efforts and designed a custom ABM playbook with the details needed to run five different ABM plays
• Designed a custom ABM strategy for a client that just launched their agency
• Built a B2B demand report to track inbound demand for a client - weekly analysis and insights for exec team
• Built a cross-functional alignment process to keep teams informed and aligned
• Designed and tested a brand new Linked In Advertising strategy
• Executed a Crowdfunding campaign that raised over $600k and included email, SMS, in-person and TV/PR promo.
• Launched a new DTC product including….all the things that you have to do for that. Too much to list!
• Built out packaged offerings for my own consulting business (for ABM and Linked In Ads offerings)
• Created monthly reporting for a client's media programs

I worked an average of 25 hours per week during this time, including 2 vacations in which I completely unplugged. Mostly low stress, definitely no burnout.

That's all. Thanks for reading the most bro-y thing I've ever written.

Seriously though, this stuff actually works. It wasn't a huge jump for me because I was doing some of it already but it's had a noticeable impact on productivity.

If you want to try out Motion, leave me a comment and I'll send you a link to get 2 weeks free instead of just one. #linkedinfluencing

P.S. For the bros - I outsourced 0% of the work in that list, only use a little AI along the way, have never cold plunged because that sounds horrible, and also have used the word "hack" and "crush" exactly zero times in the writing of this article. Guess I'm not good at working smarter. ??