Focus Points and Island Fonts
Hey friends,
Running a little bit late this week — our family hasn't had a solid week normal schedule since before Christmas, and with the coming winter storm that's probably going to continue! 😵💫
Thinking Too Hard 🤔
There was a period of my career where I was SUPER into productivity hacks — to the point where I spent more time THINKING about productivity than actually being productive.
I tried GTD, Pomodoro, time blocking, bullet journaling, keeping a text-only todo list, keeping digital-only notebooks, and a whole host of different apps. They'd work for a bit, but then they'd each fall apart. Each iteration would only be able to cover a section of the things I needed to do, or was too fiddly to maintain.
I've come to terms with life being complicated enough that there will never be ONE thing to rule it all (sorry, Sauron, your plan was doomed). Work will continue be scattered across Github Issues, Notion Tasking, Slack threads, or wherever else the work goes next. Personal and family obligations will be spread across emails, notes from school, conversations, or whatever new system those groups move towards. (Don't get me started on school messaging platforms...)
I might save the rest for a post, but during the DAY — when I sit down to actually 'do the work' — I use a simple protocol: I write down all the tasks I need to do that day, and I put a number beside of it. That number is the amount of 30 minute chunks I'm planning to spend towards it (I used to do 20 minute chunks, but 30 is easier to track). When I have a block of focus time, I start a 30 minute timer. The rule for those 30 minutes is to focus on that ONE task and not wander. It's Pomodoro-esque but way more loosey-goosey. If I need a mental break after the 30, I take it. If I'm ready to keep going, I reset immediately and go again. If I know I'm motivated and mentally ready to dive into something I'll start a stopwatch rather than a countdown timer and see how far I can do.
At the end of the day I tally up my numbers. There's a part of my brain that activates to see big numbers for a day. On a good day I can get 14 or more 'focus points'. On a slower, more distracted day, it might 10 or less. While I like seeing big numbers, I don't let a low number day discourage me too much. It's an indication of where time went that day and how accurate my planning was, and some days just don't go according to plan. But HAVING a plan in the first place is valuable. Without one it's hard to know just how far you strayed.
I share this in case it might help someone — but I'm under no illusions that this is a novel technique or that will work for EVERYONE—in fact it's probably only helpful to knowledge workers like me who spend most of their day on focus tasks. Throw in a bunch of meetings and this protocol starts to get harder. I only found what worked for my brain after throwing out a lot of things that failed spectacularly, and I hope you find something that works for you too!
Interesting Web Bits 🍿
- This Is Bond made a logo out of islands.
- Anthony Fu makes a case for everybody moving to ESM-only.
- Fluid dynamics, but with ASCII.
- "Boring tech is mature, not old. Yep!
- Stanko made a tiny book, because ... well, why not?
- "Beware the faux bold".
- How hard could a calculator app be?? Oh... really hard.