Manage Your Day‐to‐Day

If you had to complete a significant work project in the next two weeks ‐ a keynote speech, a school paper, a book proposal, a website, or a software program ‐ how would you optimize your creativity and maximize your productivity? Jocelyn Glei and her team at 99U consulted some of the brightest minds in the productivity space, such as Seth Godin, Cal Newport, Gretchen Rubin, and Steven Pressfield, to find answers. These productivity experts highlighted four critical choices. If you spot these four choices in your work life and consistently make the right choices, you'll give yourself the best chance to do your best work.

Choice #1 - A little every day or a bunch at once?

When life is busy, it's easier to block out a Saturday or Sunday to work on a project than to make time each day. But spreading your project time across several days will make you significantly more productive and creative thanks to the power of frequency.

1. Daily frequency helps you get started: If you plan to work every day, even just for a few minutes, you create a work cadence and build momentum you can bring into the next day to bypass procrastination.
2. Daily frequency helps you avoid interruptions: When you work a little each day, you can work in short bursts. And when you work in short bursts, it’s easier to delay distractions (most demands can wait 30‐45 minutes while you focus on your project).
3. Daily frequency leads to great ideas: The more often you step away from a project, the more your subconscious works on problems related to your project and discovers creative solutions.

Therefore, whatever time you have to complete a project, divide it across several days and put in at least 15 minutes of project work every day no matter what.

Choice #2 - Creative or reactive mode first?

Work‐life oscillates between two modes, reactive and creative. In reactive mode, we respond to problems and requests from others. In creative mode, we temporarily block out the world and focus on creating original work. Since checking emails is like pulling a slot machine lever (we don’t know if our inbox contains boring messages or exciting developments until we check it), we tend to enter reactive mode as soon as possible. However, going into reactive mode and responding to messages creates attention residue for the rest of the day as our minds are left wondering what people think of what we just said, what else we could have said, and what the responses might be. This attention residue impairs our ability to concentrate fully on complex projects.

We must give our highest priority projects our freshest attention, which occurs in the morning when distractions are minimal and a full night’s sleep has restored our ability to focus. To achieve optimal productivity and creativity, create first and react second.

It’s better to disappoint a few people over small things, than to surrender your dreams for an empty inbox. Otherwise, you’re sacrificing your potential for the illusion of professionalism. ‐ Mark McGinnis

Choice #3 - Rigid or flexible?

The most productive and creative people have learned extreme discipline is needed to unleash creativity. As author David Brooks said, “Great creative minds think like artists, but work like accountants.”

Aim to execute the first five minutes of your project work sessions in the exact same way every time. Stephen King, for instance, sits at the same desk, at the same time every day, takes the same vitamin pill, and listens to the same music. He arranges the papers on his desk in the same manner to kickstart his creative writing session. King says, The cumulative purpose of doing these things the same way every day seems to be a way of saying to the mind, you’re going to be dreaming soon. Starting the same way every time is a form of self‐induced Pavlovian training. The more you get into a deep work state after a starting sequence, the more your mind associates that state with that starting sequence. You start tuning out distractions and getting your mind into a deep work mode the instant you initiate your work sequence.

What sequence of actions will you execute to reliably trigger a deep and creative work state?

Choice #4 - Sustain or cycle?

The longer you remain seated and focus on a task, the shallower you breathe, and the less oxygen gets to your brain. Therefore, quickly step away from your work and cycle your attention every 20 minutes. Quickly stepping away from your work to get a drink of water, walk around the block, or go to the bathroom to splash water on your face allows you to consciously regulate your breathing and get more oxygen to your brain (so you can extend your focus session). During your mini work breaks perform “box breathing” like Navy Seals do before combat – take a deep four second inhale, hold for four seconds, exhale for four seconds, and hold for another four seconds. Repeat for the entire work break.

When you move during your mini work break, you can replenish the neurochemicals you need to focus. Dr. Andrew Huberman says, Physical movement activates pathways in the brain that increase dopamine, which is the basis for epinephrine (aka, adrenaline) and all neural energy. In other words, a short movement period can provide the fuel to focus intensely and continue producing at a high leve