Subscribe to 🔎 Finding Focus, an email newsletter, where I share with you my reflections from the past week to give you one thought, tip and tool to improve your focus and creativity.
🔎 Finding Focus #11 — Overcoming Inertia
|
👋 Hey Friends, This morning I was reading Ali Abdaal’s Feel Good Productivity, and it resurfaced one of the most powerful productivity tips that I’ve come across, which is the Five-Minute Rule. This rule has gone by many names and iterations, and most of those seem to have origins back to David Allen. The Five-Minute Rule is the idea that if you just commit to doing something for five minutes, at the end of that time you’ll have momentum and can continue on that task for significantly longer than that original timer. I love this technique, and it helps me in times when I’m not feeling motivated or procrastination has set in. Reflecting back, I can’t think of a scenario where this technique hasn’t worked. ​ Historically, when thinking about this topic, I’ve always thought about it as building momentum, but I now think it can be better encapsulated by flipping the analogy and thinking of it as overcoming inertia. This is similar to the idea that an object at rest stays at rest, and an object in motion stays in motion, as is evidenced by Sir Isaac Newton’s studies of physics. ​ This goes way beyond tasks, though. Our life is full of inertia. Inertia that, in the moment, feels incredibly heavy to overcome. Due to this, it’s very easy to keep things the same. There are likely some things that you’ve been wanting to do, changes you’ve been wanting to make, but it’s much easier to leave things inert. ​ What decisions or quests do you want to get started on, but inertia is holding you in check? Let’s take two minutes and get the ball rolling. The easiest way I’ve found to get moving is to tell someone that you plan on doing something and establish when you will start. Feel free to reply to this email and tell me about it. I’d love to hear from you, and I promise I won’t judge. ​ I tried out a new format for this week’s newsletter. What did you think of it? Is it better than the older format, or would you like the old format back? Reply to this email and let me know. ​ Cheers, ​ Brandon Boswell |
Looking to improve your focus & creativity?
Brandon Boswell
Subscribe to 🔎 Finding Focus, an email newsletter, where I share with you my reflections from the past week to give you one thought, tip and tool to improve your focus and creativity.
👋 Hey Friends, I've been heads down the last week or two. There are some cool things brewing (more on that at the bottom of this message). Stick to the Plan: A Sticky Note Strategy These first 90 minutes are essential. They are my most valuable of the day. This short window after I get up is when my brain is sharpest. It is my High Energy Time. I’ve known this for two years now, but I still wait until that block starts before I schedule something for it. I wake up, walk down the hall, grab a...
👋 Hey Friends, Today’s post is a personal reminder to myself. Many call me particular. Others say: attentive to detail. It is a skill that I have found helpful, especially as a designer. I recently came across this quote from John Gruber: “The quality of any creative endeavor tends to approach the level of taste of whoever is in charge.” — John Gruber I like to think my particular nature has led to increased quality in the projects I’ve been involved with. What I haven’t (until now) thought...
đź‘‹ Hey Friends, Remember that negative thing that Matt said? Actually, he never said anything at all, and I think that hurt more. I still think about it from time to time, and it still stings. That amazing dinner I had with Steve? That has long since been forgotten. This is how our brains work, they are built for survival. To our brains, things that are going well are often tuned out to create room for things that are a risk or cause us harm. This served us well when we lacked shelter and...