How to reclaim, protect and maximize deep thinking and strategy time in your work week

We all complain about meetings and distractions throughout the work week. But we also need more than just time to execute. We all need time to think!

And the higher you go in your career and organization, finding and protecting time to be strategic becomes even more important.

Last Friday's CMO Coffee Talk sessions started with a discussion about protecting strategy time and evolved into discussions about how to manage distractions, create a culture that facilitates and encourages deep thinking time and much more.

Below are chat highlights from both CMO Coffee Talk sessions. If you are a B2B CMO or head of marketing and want to join a community of 3,400+ of your peers, let me know or click here to learn more and join in on the fun .

This topic is so relevant. I just left a leadership call at my company about this!

There’s no time to focus/think during the week. I’m a weekend thinker as well. Or when out hiking/walking

I’ve given up on strategic “deep work” time during the week too.

The 6 cups of coffee required to keep up probably contributes to that too ??

it's the good old fashioned white board for me

Curious — where do you take notes in a meeting?

I block 7-10 AM on my calendar and I don’t let people take my time. Sometimes I allow a meeting to come in but for the most part I just say no. Everyone will take your time if you let them.

I schedule a full day OOO once a quarter months in advance and protect it like crazy leading up to it.

“Deep work” is done on a notebook or sticky notes on a table (a la whiteboard); away from a screen. It helps.

Computers are so distracting. You can also get caught up in the “tool” you’re using on your computer that limits thinking. A blank sheet of paper and a pen is a truly blank slate!

I'm so overwhelmed with to-dos I printed the list out because I don't feel I can be strategic until I get sh!t done.

I did this in my last role. Most colleagues were on the west coast, so I could block early morning as quiet time to work on the strategic stuff before they arrived at work.

Current job has a large part of the team in Vietnam. We have a “no meeting” Friday rule, which allows me large blocks of time for strategic work.

I do this, too, but use it as to-do time.

Paper and pen? Or Remarkable for taking notes?

Otter.ai . (or another AI recording tool) is really helpful to staying present in (virtual) meetings without missing important info.

Yes and a slack channel! For every customer

It always helps me to go for a run outside.? It lets my mind wander and I usually finish with some fresh ideas that I'll jot down on my phone notes app.

+1 on Notebook. I actually go back and read my notes.

My team does one day/qtr called “Thinking and learning Day”- required . People respect it. You all choose the topic. We all report back .

I find the fewer tools the better, so I try to keep my notes electronically in the project (in Asana) that they apply to.? That cuts down on the time (for me and others) to find them at the moment we need them.

I agree, and I do this, too.

No meetings Friday would be amazing. I’ve had to be relentless in declining meetings with no agenda and no purpose.

I find that using ChatGPT as a strategic thinking buddy can help me quickly organize unstructured thoughts. It quickly helps me frame the way to approach strategic plans.

You want to check them off!

How is the group managing in office days vs at home days? Productivity is very different.

big fan of otter

We make time for what is important. We often don’t see the value of strategy over the value of solving the fires of today. So we don’t prioritize it.

The meeting summaries and insights are so helpful. It also makes sharing notes super easy.

Copilot is starting to help provide greater efficiency. Summarizing email or teams streams, etc.

I do that with a yoga practice every single day.? Before anything else.

agreed- onus is on us. Sometimes that means having transparent convos with the rest of the ELT about what ball you're juggling that you're going to have to sit down for a week or two, so you can focus on the other 99 you've got in the air!

Im lagging on the topics….. As a mobile guy for 2 decades… remembering the old blackberry Crackberry days, I use my phone in time gaps all the time between meetings, in the kitchen, while driving, at events, etc. Notes all day all the time in Evernote on every Device I own because transparently syncs everywhere. At physical meetings or events where mobile note taking is awkward carry index cards (then screenshot and sometimes OCR). Screen shot items during meetings and online work and drop them into notes.

What about a once/month strategy day away in addition to weekly calendar holds same time each week?

I’ve leaned into pretty ruthless prioritization with my time and my calendar is my bible. I will decline a meeting invite if it conflicts with time I’ve blocked for real work

I timeblock 8am-11am ET 3 days of the week and drop in personal work assignments into the time blocks to make sure they get done.

I fly a lot and sometimes my best creative thinking time is on the flights disconnected offline

AMAZING!

Take a deep breath and remind yourself that's the most important work you do!

I read this book a while ago - “Essentialism” and it really helped me with those times when the to do list is so long that it’s overwhelming and paralyzing. Just focus on doing one thing that has the most effect.

I write myself a “permission slip” - it is a mental changer for me.

Well said! totally agree - teams need it too!

Understanding the rhythm of the business and your capacity to plan around it is so key.

Remember to help your team and your leaders to time block and get their creative thinking time each week too

Having an EA as a gate keeper of your calendar also helps.? They can be the messenger of your availability.

Do you get your best creative thinking time in "planned blocks" of time?

and yes it takes a full year to truly understand the cycles and seasons of the business

You said it. We "DESERVE" this time.

I have a saying - everyone wants a slice

I plan my best strategic thinking before the school bell and after.? Evenings with a glass of wine really help with creativity.

I like to set expectations on my teams and outside of my team. I let them know, I’m going heads down. If you need me you’ll have to send up a smoke signal bc I’m turning off notifications for 2 hours.

Even being able to context switch and be fully present for meetings - if you’re back to back it’s just hard. Our brains are not designed for all the context switching

100% agree. I do the same thing. At least letting them know is really all they want. It's respectful of their time too.

Would love to hear more ideas suggestions around this. I’ve found that helping your team set their blocks also helps you.

A number of people have mentioned that sometimes you can’t “schedule” creative thinking.? One small hack I’ve found it that I use this scheduled time to define in specific terms what the problem is I’m trying to solve — and write it down.? I find this alleviates some of the stress and then the answers/ideas come during a walk/workout/shower/whatever.

Worked at a few gigs ago. Not anymore sadly. I get so much push back from my ELT about no meeting day. I said "fine, no meeting morning then".

I cluster all my staff 1:1s on Tuesdays, so I can keep my brain in management mode all at once.? Different modes - creative, numbers, management - work best when clustered rather than switching between.

On the other hand, when I have a 2 hour block in the day, I’m like…what’s happening on Instagram or TikTok…not productive at all.

And I bet it's truly enjoyable!

My VP of PMM is vicious. I love it. She doesn’t show to meetings without agendas. Leaves mid-meeting if it’s meandering.

Contribute something!

She’s very protective of her time and it shows in her results.

I’ve been on a mission to reduce the number of marketing team members on calls. If you’re just an observer and not contributing/engaging in the topic, then why spend the time. We’ve dropped from average of 5-8 people to 1-3.

Your analogies are great

I think like the agency days…how expensive is this meeting?? Average billable rate x # of people

I refuse to accept if there is no agenda INCLUDING how i'm to be impacted. I'm very selfish.

Incredible! Did she just start doing this, or did she check with you ahead of time to ensure you’re ok with this approach?

There was an article I saw yesterday that said that now we have so many meetings that now no one actually know what their job is

On the topic of multi-tasking vs time blocking, there's some great research on the impact to productivity. TLDR, takes about 23 minutes to refocus after a distraction. Ref: https://addyo.substack.com/p/it-takes-23-mins-to-recover-after

Actually measured that overall output has decreased due to the number of meetings

Pulling yourself out of meetings is a skill! If I’m not needed for a decision, I’ll read the meeting notes or get an update offline

Also each meeting should summarize decisions at the end… if no decisions to be made— why have the meeting unless purely informational...

Yes your job is not attend meetings. Its to do something

We don’t have the meetings problem, we have the opposite… we are in the edge of too much independent work relying on? waves of emails and teams, trying to rightsize use of meetings and cross-functional meetings and email/team streams

Love the Artist Way by Julia Cameron

https://medium.com/onebigthought/too-many-meetings-is-not-your-problem-7eafa7ae477c

Agreed Tiziana! https://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/morning-pages/

Do you do morning pages about work or life or both at the same time?

On paper makes it real...

I do both, it just flows.

‘Attend CMO coffee talk… put on every week Latane!

I also block an hour at the end of the day as a “daily wrap”: (1) go thru Slack, emails, random notes I’ve taken throughout the day (2) look at tomorrow’s schedule and the rest of the week (3) revisit my priorities for the week (including personal commitments) and adjust if necessary, and (4) block time accordingly.

For my team, there's an anxiety piece here at play here. Folks want a seat at the table. They find it helpful to “just listen” and feel like they’re "missing context" if they’re not at the meeting. I’ve pushed meeting owners to publish notes to solve for this. But I find most of the coaching is around helping folks understand it might be a good thing to not be at the meeting.

I’m experiencing this as well. Not enough ‘focused’ meetings is the root problem, I think. Too many “show and tells” and not enough “meeting to solve a real problem”.

Again people just want to hang in meetings it’s ridiculous IMO. But maybe I’m just in a mood on it.

Agree. My favorite thing to do in the entire world is to "scratch things off my list." either physically or hitting the complete button in Asana.

I need the sticky notes in front of me with my to do list. But I also have a to do list in my Apple note pad.

“We will have the paperless office when we have the paperless bathroom.”

me too! right in front of my keyboard. I literally just crumbled up 2 sticky notes that I completed. So satisfying!

Defining the problem is so critical - particularly if you have to engage? others.

That is prob why everyone is so successful here

I love crumbling the sticky notes

That’s why we don’t like strategy time because it isn’t a thing to check off. It’s longer and it’s never done. Ha!

I cannot wait for Inside out (3) or (4) to come out about talking how anxiety plays out later on in our life…

If it is not on the list, it doesn’t get done

Yeah. It’s just less dopamine inducing

Looking in the mirror - be creative be creative be creative LOL

I’ve landed on Todoist as the master list for my life — all of my “channels” get funneled there so I don’t have the mental load of “wait, where is that link” or “which Slack thread do I need to follow-up on”

“Feeling like you’re always a little distracted”…I feel like that seven days a week.

Barriers to good strategy again and again: 1. Confusion between strategy and planning 2. Weak cross-functional alignment and 3. Ambiguity and complexity (the ability to say no)

Pomodoro!!

We had one of those for our kids.? 30 minutes of reading time guys!

I have one of those for my toddler ??

Yes, I use Todoist too and love it

Amen to stop going

Meeting NPS

If someone notices you're missing and they ask you, then you can give them helpful feedback about making the meetings worth attending.

When you stop attending the meeting, do they stop having the meeting, because the important people are not showing up?

I started brainstorming with AI. After defining the problem I’ll use a prompt like this: Please ask me any clarifying questions that you need to give me the best possible response.

I also think 1-1s are a good chance to dive into these conversations on a more personal basis

Somehow, everyone blocks time for this meeting. One hour a week to step out of the machine and think about how to approach things differently. Love this group.

I love this meeting!

Love these chats. I don’t always make it but when I do I’m so grateful for everyone’s insights

What are you talking about? I have 265 missed messages in my slack. I"m totally under control (insert sarcasm here).

Meanwhile, my ADHD really LIKES the chaos ?? (in this community, anyhow)

The biggest thing I’ve learned is to step away from the computer - it’s hard to think there (and I also learned that we also even don’t really breathe well in front of screens)

Agree with this. I sometimes feel like I need a big space to think big. I’ve rented a We Work conference room for a couple of hours for just myself to spread out with my notebooks and a whiteboard.

Totally agree. I try to stack every meeting back to back

Yes! People will schedule meetings with 30 minutes in between thinking they're doing me a favor

Plus big schedule blocks on your calendar ??

NO Meetings WED afternoon + FRIDAY

And I'd rather just have them back to back and get them over with so I can focus

staying in the FLOW!

any advice for respecting your own time blocks? i tend to let ppl schedule over mine ??

I do too and too often schedule over it mySELF

I’ve got open blocks on my calendar that lets people schedule meetings

When I have a big block of time, and the a rando meeting, I totally set a really loud alarm on my phone 10 minutes before. :-)

It’s hard. But it’s a gift to others if you protect your own time. Gives them permission to do the same.

Yes. Deep thinking = missed/late for meetings

Yeah, I’m big on time blocking. You have to schedule your deep thinking and doing the work time like scheduling meetings with others

That is the worst. I’d rather have blocks of meetings and blocks of thinking time. It totally breaks my flow when I have a random meeting and it’s so hard to get back.

Agreed with that meeting stacking strategy. Also, honoring your own biorhythms and energy phases.

Totally agree.? I seek my deep work time in the morning. Seek for most meetings to be after 10am pst.? 3rd party meetings as late as possible in the day.

Yes on energy too. I prefer certain activities in the mornings vs afternoons

It may not be popular from a work-life balance perspective, but Sat ams are good for focused time like she is describing. From a Thinking Fast and Slow perspective, I need slow thinking time for those things.

this is making me want to bring back physical notebooks... hello, target trip

Also, travel/plane time = good thinking time

I think that’s ok. Sometimes my brain is more open and functional on a Saturday morning when I don’t have other deadlines or meetings to prep for. I’ve done a lot of Sunday mornings. Works well for me.

LOVE my physical notebook-- and a real planner!

Notebooks and Post-It notes FTW

DND on my phone is great for deep focus time as well

Who uses Remarkable?

I read “sat ams” as a yoga term. ????

It’s Sunday morning for me

I love using my notebook. Of course, I can’t actually read my handwriting, so it’s of slightly more limited use...

As an outsider to your role and daily work life, I have to say that your perspective and presence has changed a lot since taking your new role. It’s a great thing.

Sometimes physically moving to a different location (in the office or house) can help extract myself when I have a time block. As for the calendar - since people can see my time block in Google, I use: “Do Not Schedule Here!”

It’s hard to get away from the computer when you’re in 6 hrs of back to back meetings ??

Preach! I’ve branded this on my team. JOMO is joy of missing out.

If a meeting HAS to be scheduled over a time block, I move the time block to a different time that day, so I still have that time.

yesss. I give my team permission to decline

Love that

Priya Parker in her book “On Gathering” speaks to limiting meeting invitees. Be extreme in your meeting invitees, based on the purpose.

One company I worked at was very meeting heavy... so I had a max of X hours per day available for meetings. When they limit was hit, I didn't accept any more meetings that day... had to be pushed to a future day.

yess and we have to tell other team leads abt that mindset for our team

When I had a Chief of Staff, it was INCREDIBLY useful to have the “do I really need to be here?” conversations nearly daily. I knew she’d have it covered one way or another

Best reminder: manage your energy, not your time! Helps with scheduling/ focus times.

There’s an actual cost to the business when there’s 12 ppl on a mtg.

My earlier company only had working meetings.

Yes, and if you’re one of the higher-level folks in the room, set the example by leaving if you’re unnecessary.

I need to be in the meeting as well as the pre-meeting and post-meetings. NO I DON’T. Recording meetings and using an AI to summarize them is a HUGE boost to focus.

I think part of the reality is that no one reads the summaries either, it’s as if accountability has really fallen off. And then as the leader, I take the hit for x y and z not knowing what’s going on. Super frustrating.

I’ve computed that cost before as an attempt to get out of meetings

I am reading this book Essentialism by Greg McKeown and loving it. The book starts with the quote "Only when you give permission to stop trying to do it all, to stop saying yes to everyone can you make your highest contribution to things that really matter"

One of my favorite books ever!! The One Thing is another great one!

Instantly downloading

Making a “not-to-do” list is helpful.

YES. I used to say, “There’s too much money in this room,” when it was clear the meeting was overpopulated and had redundancies in terms of departmental coverage.

Yep, I also tally time so we cut back the time burn.

“This is important, but it’s not the best use of MY time”

You’re either working (being productive) or in a meeting. They’re mutually exclusive most times.

My friend worked at a large company and they had 35 people at a customer meeting with 10 customers!!

If you require a meeting cost in the invite, it’s incredible how small the invite lists get. We used to do that in agency days because it was literal billable hours going out the door for our internal meetings.

If I don’t participate or add value in meeting one of a series, I don’t join the rest of them. Saves a ton of time!

SAME... I am a morning person, but now work with an EMEA team so mornings have become meeting time. Struggling with making afternoons my deep work time

Monday mornings are my most creative time if I’ve taken the weekend mostly off - my brain does amazing things when I try not to use it so much. So my calendly link doesn’t know that monday mornings exist ??

I had a CEO who knew everyone’s salaries by heart and was good at math…he’d look at a meeting, calculate in his head, and say “This is the cost of this meeting.” He was a bit scary, but super effective.

We have a company-wide “no meeting Friday” policy as well.? It helps all the doers in the org spend their Fridays on deep/focus work. It’s been really great for morale and productivity overall.

What time zone are you in? I find that hard being in PST.

Did you say 8-11 and nothing on Friday?

I do both at once, thereby doing a lousy job of each. ??

I did that add up cost thing at my last in house role and would send it to my CRO and the CEO to get them to take multiple weekly "everyone on the marketing team has to be there" meetings they loved off the calendar.

Friday I have fewest meetings with others, and most time blocks to get things done.

I have no meeting Thursdays!!

I do this with my team

We have Total Focus Tuesday for the whole company - no internal meetings allowed, external only if customer facing and not moveable

No meeting Fridays is amazing.

she doesn’t have meetings on Friday because COFFEE TALK

So many questions...

I have worked places that are so anti-meeting that it actually got in the way of getting things done. We tried to handle too much async, and sometimes just getting 5 people into a “room” gets it done WAY quicker

If Abraham Lincoln can start a meeting by setting the expectation that “History will little know nor long remember what is said here today”, so can we. And it sets the expectation that we should finish quickly and get back to work.

Fun facts:

There are 55 million meetings in the US every single day

They cost $1.4 Trillion dollars per year

And 89% of meeting attendees are unhappy with the meetings they attend The average knowledge worker spends nearly?three hours every day in meetings.? Other than sleep, they are the second highest tax on our time. * Speaking of tax, meetings also represent the highest company payroll expense: $0.38-$0.45 of every payroll dollar gets spent on meetings.

I wish I could do the no meeting Fridays. I have internal meetings scheduled at 4p on Fridays. My current company is extremely meeting heavy. The worst is a 6-8 hrs of back to back 30 min meetings.

I think the Jeff Bezos model is no meeting unless a one pager ahead of time.

YES. This is my only meeting!!! And worth every minute!

4p Fridays is evil unless there are at least occasional happy hours involved

https://paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html

Love this essay

We’re also anti meeting and we had to add a weekly checkin just to make sure we made sure everyone understands the assignments

100% Selling to an anti-meeting company becomes really difficult as well and requires a totally different engagement for the marketing & sales team

Yes, and most meetings are scheduled for longer so that all can review/read the docs before the call commencces

This book has been instrumental in me blocking time for myself and understanding how my rhythm jibes with my clients’ rhythms.

Number of meetings correlated with size of company. Yes, in some small companies not having meetings can be detrimental especially in remote environments.

We’ve been very focused on cutting meeting time in my team and across the biz. Loom updates have become a powerful tool for us to communicate info efficiently and helps us quantify and reinforce the time savings we are delivering back to the business.

One of my best thinking times is when I take a run or swim. It’s not “focused” but helps me break through some tough stuff.

I will say that, as an extreme extrovert, sometimes I get more done if I’m doing strategy with someone else. I can get stuck in my own brain otherwise

OMG yes. The calendar stalking.

Seriously? is this a thing?

I actively monitor my desire to apologize in general but sometimes it’s a good out (when declining invites in my time block) to apologize with something like “sorry! I know it’s an inconvenience but this is important because….@

Especially with social media, our attention is an important resource to conserve.

Love loom for that reason

open calendars is still a struggle for me

what the pre-read does, is focus the conversation on critical decisions needing to be made.

At that moment of burnout, try a 25 minute Power Nap. If you hit REM for even a moment it resets your brain.

I’ve found some people don’t even look at your calendar to check availability. They just send out the invite and assume you can make yourself available.

I think like he said, its a personal thing - I'm allowing the changes - eg ppl say "can you move anything on wed afternoon" and I reply "of course, I can move my time block"...

Absolutely. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had team members message their managers asking if a layoff is coming because leadership is having a lot of last minute meetings.

But the “read the doc at the top” thing at xxx was SO PAINFUL when I had a leader who was a slow reader…very, very slow

I’ve now made a practice of declining meetings that do now have an agenda with a clear goal and default meeting should be 25 min. State the goal, give the info, make the decisions and document.

This is one of my favorite approaches to meetings: https://www.realsimplebusiness.org/running-a-company-with-two-awesome-10-minute-meetings

I’ve learned that there are very few things that are that important that it can’t wait until the next day during an open slot.

I do encourage my team to follow the same blocking approach

I make those block times (8-11) as “busy” or private vs. visible so people can’t override.

I tell my team what I’m doing, including my CEO. Again, after a month or so few people interupt that time.

I have to think and be prescriptive how I use that 3-4 per day and no meeting friday.

Same - I also require a 24hr pre-read ??

Yes - but not a pre-novel. Just get to the specifics.

I'm obsessed with this prioritization grid strategy to figure out what's really most important: Beverly Ryle ? prioritizing grid

exactly - no more than 1 page or 3 slides

I love the 6 month view and review

When I worked at the largest ad agency in America, I had a strict “minus 1” rule, meaning the # of agency personnel had to be fewer than the # of clients. While some clients like the attention, subliminally they’re thinking “this meeting is expensive.”

I love the idea of going to the beach to think.

Can someone please import a beach to CO? (With water, specifically.)

Essentialism and Deep Work: both excellent books

“Make good choices!”

I wish…

yes, I'm seriously buying a notebook like she? uses

You had me at “go to the bar"

Loads of interesting ideas and observations here. A lot of us seem like successful, Type A folks who often take on too much. It has become what we do. But I’m seeing the reverse from some of my team who are all about the boundaries and can’t or won’t deviate and sometimes the work suffers. Any thoughts? Or is this a generational thing?

I get my best thinking done during walks!

Still love print OUTS

It has tended to be generational on my teams

If I go to the bar, I will start watching sports and talking to others ??

Artist’s Way is amazing

LOVE Morning Pages.

Also go on walks when I have great ideas I record voice memos OR a lot of times talk it into a GPT I made (in voice mode on the app on phone) with all the details and have detailed notes on my thinking in my email when I get home!

https://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/morning-pages/

Pen and paper is amazing.

wowwww. do you then burn them at the end of the day? ha

sounds therapeutic

Love New Order and Pet Shop Boys

For me on this one, I find the “place” I’m at gets me into thinking time. A change of scenery. Ex: a small brewery in the afternoon helps me stop thinking broadly and focus

It’s hard to get going but an incredible process - and if you do the program it has different prompts to work you through the process

My brain doesn’t do structure, so habits/patterns only work for some period of time before it needs to mix stuff up

Print outs and lists to cross out at amazing. I think crossing off a line on the list gives me a positive buzz in my brain

Love morning pages - they get all the thoughts that can bog us down out so I can move on with my day.

I remember going to a company where they removed all the chairs from their meeting rooms and replaced the tables with high top tables… it made for short and to the point meetings!

They are also a great way to brainstorm ideas and thoughts that are not worth sharing...yet

I spend time researching what I need to know more about, chatting with you all in slack to ask questions on how others are doing things, and learning what I need to know to direct someone else.

Life is a project worth working on. Creative process should apply first to life design. Read that twice.

I’ve recently heard them called “Micro Missions”

I booked "Planning Hour" for my entire team on Friday afternoon. Clean up Asana, give others updates on things you owe them, ask for updates on things owed to you, make your plan for next week, and finally share our rose, thorn, top 3 priorities for next week in Slack. Then no meetings after that.

I LOVE the subconscious will work on it during the evening ;)

You have to learn to like coffee? I think I was born with a coffee IV

My brain is SO MUCH SMARTER when I’m not trying to use it

Mine is always working - would love to direct it ;)

just gotta make it a habit

MEDITATION

I always assign my sub-conscious a task right before bed that it can work on while I sleep

Same! I often give myself a question/conundrum to work on overnight. The key is not to try to solve it. Just ask it and then trust your brain.

Wine :)

You need healthy fats in the morning. It’s important not to replace breakfast with coffee.

Avocado

This is debatable.

The “Focus” music on Brain.fm is a huge helper for me to get into the zone

“I earned the bread, I need to eat the bread” l o v e? it

I need all the caffeine to wake up my brain. Carbs to keep the energy. Chocolate. Oh, and chips.

Then I think I’m ready

Yes chocolate. I earned the chocolate.

That’s GREAT. It’s like the old “only touch a piece of paper once.”

(Happy to explain to the kids what “paper” was, and I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time).

If I’m not hydrated, forget about thinking

The book 168 Hours has tons of tips. One I’ve adopted is that every Friday I review my schedule for next week and delete any meetings that aren’t necessary, and review my to-do list and make sure I have the appropriate number of Focus Time hours blocked off

I missed the past couple of weeks, but I blocked this time — I don’t have a mentor at my org, I need time to talk to you all and learn

ginkgo biloba helps perk up the brain. Otherwise something like Reign energy drink are a better option than things like coffee or red bull

Same! This meeting and spending time on Slack are so important to me.

I really like Juliet Funt’s book ‘A Minute to Think.’ I reread it every now and then when I go off course.

The one book that has had.a great influence on my thinking has been James Clear’s “Atomic Habits”.

https://www.amazon.com/Artists-Way-Spiritual-Higher-Creativity/dp/1585421472

Morning Pages included in this.

Voice memos!

I use an app called Say&Go for that

Ahhhhhh so good

walking and talking with my AI companion has been GAME CHANGING

don't even need a GPT - just open a chat and then summarize it all after

My low tech version is to voice dictate into my notes on iPhone. ??

You can download Pi from Inflection.al - just talk to it. Then it will organize your notes, and when you get home, cut and paste, voila. BTW, it is free

https://sayngo.dafterapps.com/

Say&Go

Oasis is an awesome app for that as well

I sort of like that but also don’t want to get ONE MORE EMAIL. lol

OpenAI’s chatGPT is built off of Inflection.ai ’s PI, btw.

Love the large rock first and filling with sand analogy for that.

Eat your frogs! - Mark Twain

YES! We call that “eat the frog”, do the most dreaded task first (based on a Mark Twain quote). Was GREAT for both my kids academically.

The ChatGPT app keeps the discussions in the history, like any other discussion. Email is a nice twist but you can also log into ChatGPT when you get back to the office and get a full transcript you can work with.

Mustafa Suleyman, the author of The Coming Wave, was the founder. During the board reshuffle at OpenAI last Nov, Microsoft poached 69 of the 70 employees, he’s now the head of AI at MSFT.

SUCH a great book!

I’m surprised no one has talked about the 4 quadrants of important vs urgent for prioritization. (Covey was big on this)

a? must read. AI + synthetic biology + quantum computing + robotics = scary

Kurzweil’s The Singularity is Nearer is another good one.

Agreed. I use the Voice Memos app a lot. And it might just remain on and in my back pocket when at a music concert; the sound fidelity is great.

I like External mtgs are in the mornings, internal mtg are in the afternoon

I need the "automatically email it to me" feature otherwise I'll forget to go find those voice memos again.

I got here late so I don’t know if anyone has already mentioned Tiago Forte’s work >>

https://fortelabs.com/

His book, Building a Second Brain, is wonderful!

Company wide no-meetings days. That seems to always blow up within weeks of initiating.

I just use “Notes” - automatic voice to text, and searchable!

Second that. I HATE Monday morning meetings.

I block out 8 am to noon on Mondays

One of my clients has a lightning meeting every Monday that is blocked for two hours. The fact that they call it lightning cracks me up.

Weeding the meetings.

Sounds more like slow-rolling thunder.

Appreciate the growth of this community, seeing it from the in-person days at Columbia Tower.

Love it - Not a CMO Community. It is a community of PEOPLE in the CMO roles.

I love this so much!!!

AMAZING as always. Thanks Matt and Latane.

Always a wonderful way to spend Friday morning. Thank you! Learned, have amazing takeaways....