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Mission: to help you create online alongside your full-time job.

PTCC: #28

In the mail 📧

• Mental model: Occam's Razor
• The main story: Productivity hacks
• Around the web: Facts, Twitter, science & inspo
• Ideas worth pondering: Environment, audits & ideas

Read time: 2 minutes

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MENTAL MODELS

How to think about thinking.

Occam's Razor: when there are a bunch of explanations, usually, the simplest explanation is correct.

THE STORY

You can only hold focus for 90-120 minutes & studies have found on average people waste 2.09 hours a day at work.

I have a theory.

The more productivity blogs you read, the more likely you are to need to shift projects altogether.

Why?

Because it’s procrastination wearing a productivity face mask. The truth is, you don’t need more blogs, you need more flow.

Let me explain.

The problem with productivity

When people start out online, I see the same things happening over and over. People choose to create part-time but the same problems trip them up:

• Motivation dwindles
• Procrastination takes over
• The online noise detracts from the work
• Creators fade into the haze of trying to be something they’re not

It’s a rigged game. If you’re finding yourself clicking on productivity blogs instead of getting the work done, there is another way.

And it’s called flow.

Why ‘flow’ is so important

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a Hungarian-American psychologist, popularised the term ‘flow’. He was surrounded by tragedies from World War II and he became obsessed with people that found happiness.

So he asked a basic question:

In extreme cases, Csikszentmihalyi noted that artists got so lost in their work that they forgot their basic human needs such as food and water.

Reverse engineer flow

The best place to start is to work backwards. Ask yourself two questions:

• When was the last time you got lost in your work?
• Why did that happen?

5 years ago I was trying every business idea under the sun. I found writing 3 years ago. Since then I've written over 1M words on the internet part-time & hit my first 5-figure month with writing.

Here's my recipe for getting into flow.

1. Get away from distractions

Distractions exist in the physical & digital environment. From 17 tabs up to a messy desk. Anything that surrounds you that takes willpower to avoid is slowly draining you.

You destroy distraction by doing the simple stuff and the smart stuff. The simple stuff is clearing the desk, having one tab open, and avoiding social media & emails before 9 am.

The smart stuff is:

• Gamify to focus your brain
• Set a timer for 45 minutes as a way of chunking tasks
• Analyse when your mind is clearest & build into your routine

2. Prime yourself to do the work

Writing is like being an athlete. I played football as a kid. Thirty minutes before any game, we’d get on the pitch and kick the ball around, we’d run drills and warm up for the game.

Writing is no different.

I warm up with a few different techniques:

• Post-it noting my ideas down
• Reading before an hour’s block
• Running through my Notion of headlines

It’s all in an effort to ready myself for the work block and make sure I’m showing up to the best of my ability.

3. Make sure the goal is manageable & achievable

Big goals are a productivity killer.

They overwhelm you. Take 15 minutes to write down your goals for the day and likely you’ll write something so audacious that you’ve crippled yourself before you get started.

Instead, write your goals the night before and go small.

Make the goal achievable.

• Good example: Write x1 article & x1 newsletter.
• Bad example: Write x7 articles & x7 newsletters.

One is manageable the other is setting the bar so high you’ll never reach it, which will stop you from starting.

4. Clarity on ‘what’ and ‘how’

Successful creators get super clear on what they are doing but also how they are doing it.

Anyone can write a ‘to-do’ list but more important is the ‘how-to’ list.

So you want to write an article, cool but how are you going to write that article? Where are you going to start? What’s the topic? How are you approaching it?

Systemising your ‘how’ is the best thing you can do when it comes to productivity and flow states.

I've been systemising writing articles on the internet for the last 3 years and so far I've written 833 of them. Systems work.

In a nutshell

Here’s a new way to think: you don’t need 7 hours a day to write on the internet, you need 1 hour of flow state thinking. That’s it.

I’m able to write 3 articles in 2 hours of flow and chop them up into tweets and maybe even a thread if I’m feeling good, you don’t need more productivity blogs, you need more flow.

Lately I've just built a system of writing one piece of content and turning it into: x1 newsletter, x1 thread, x1 LinkedIn post & x7 tweets.

How? Flow.

AROUND THE WEB

Born in 1856, Tesla was a prolific inventor, and he held more than 300 patents in his lifetime, including patents for the AC motor, the Tesla coil, and the radio.

BUSINESS

A breakdown of the businesses I think are worth sharing this week to inspire your creations.

This week? DNA Diets. What? Yep. Tailored diets to fit your gut spec. I know weird but when you think about it, it actually makes boatload of sense.

In the US alone 60-70 million people live with a digestion disease. Where there is a problem, there's a solution.

Viome, Thryve & uBiome are all companies that offer a personalised gut-testing business that specialises in tailored diet advice. thousands of customers.

The future? Maybe.

TWEETSPIRATION

The best content I stumble across on Twitter, each week. If you see any gems next week, be sure to send them my way!

Let's see the picks of the week:

​Charlie talks about quitting the 9-5, Chris Ryan talks about disconnecting inputs from outputs & Val on his start up story (it's wild).

Alex Mathers @Alexmathers84 14 dirty little secrets that will quadruple your productivity (I’m not joking) - thread - April 27th 2022 6,492 Retweets 30,907 Likes

• Kuba's breakdown on Twitter hooks.
• Nathan Baugh's breakdown on business.

SCIENCE

🧬 A paper published in 2020 found that people's beliefs about their abilities impacted their stress response.

🧬 A paper published in 2021 found that people's beliefs impact their willingness to engage with challenging tasks.

MY RAMBLINGS

​How I Review My Week on Sundays For Maximum Productivity​

I love Sundays.

Cosy blankets, roaring fires, country walks. Mmmhhhmm. I love them. They are (without a doubt) my favourite day of the week.

And one of the things I love about Sundays is the chance to sit, with a bottle of water (I literally drink water or coffee and too many coffees give me the shakes) to review my week.

So here’s how it works.

👉 Link to story.

KILLER CONTENT

👨 Ryan Holiday on the secrets to better habits in 2023. P.s. there are no secrets.

👔 Sam Parr revealled his new startup, Hampton on this week's My First Million.

🪑 Jacob Zander is a great example of how you can create content in-line with your own learning. I call it docu-learning. Maybe it'll catch on.

💰 Big money on Medium, read how AI Anany made $7,475 in Feb.

SMALL IDEAS

• Change your environment if you want to spark new ideas.
• Audit your day if you want to find your energy peaks.
• Write ideas down to get them out of your head.

HOW I CAN HELP...

Time is tight, I get it. It's why I've put together super-affordable courses to help you create alongside your full-time job. If you're interested in growing your Twitter, I'd recommend:

→ ​0-1k Twitter course - the exact strategy I have used to go from 425 to 8k+ followers in less than 4 months. Join 224 people using the course.

If you're interested in growing your Medium account, I'd recommend:

​→ The Medium Blueprint - the system for writing alongside your full-time job. The system I've used to go from 0 to $2k/month. Join 89 people.

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