focus

Work Focus; Rest Focus

After breakfast, I sit down and schedule out the rest of my day.

I literally schedule every single minute.

scheduled minutes

An activity that takes no more than five minutes.

Scheduling my day used to take 10 or 15 minutes, but I’ve gotten better at it over time. And even if it took 15 minutes, it’d be worth it — time spent scheduling is not time wasted.

When I’ve got that plan for how I’m going to spend my time, and what I’m going to do when, I get more done during the day, and my day is significantly less stressful.

I used to think a schedule meant I’d never get to have fun. Because if you’re scheduling your time then you should only put Super Duper Important things on your schedule.

Well, I do only schedule Super Duper Important things. I just have a smarter definition of Super Duper Important.

Did you know I schedule time to watch Netflix? I schedule time for a mid-day nap if I want. Time to read for an hour and a half in the middle of the afternoon. Time to take my wife out for dinner once a week. Time to go running at the gym. Time to play trains with my kids. Time to have lunch with a friend. Time to help my wife with dinner. Time to write for as long as I can handle in the morning.

In fact, by scheduling every minute of my day, I help make sure I do all the things I want to do — for work and for play.

But…

I’m not here to talk about the how and why of scheduling every minute (I’ll do more of that in a few weeks over here).

The Week’s Wildly Important Goals

What makes it easy for me to schedule every minute of my day is this: I already know what I want and need to do that day.

I get this because on Sundays, usually in the late afternoon, I sit down and list all the big things I want to accomplish over the next 7 days.

In 4DX terminology, this is me listing out what the Wildly Important Goals are for my week.

For a recent example, here are the outcomes I listed out for the week of February 1st:

Knowing what my desired outcomes are for the week means I can assign some time to them.

By assigning time I know when I will be doing the things that are important. This is far more effective (and stress free) than just having a list of things I want to do and hoping that I’ll get around to doing them.

Planning the Week’s Focus

With my week’s goals listed out, I then sit down and plan the main things I’ll be focusing on each day for my Monday – Friday.

For this, I have two areas of focus: work and rest.

  • Deep Work Focus: I have capacity for about 3 hours of deep work each day — 2 hours in the morning and 1 hour in the early afternoon.

Thefore, for each day of the week (M-F) I list out what my one or two areas of “Deep Work Focus” are going to be.

  • Rest Focus: I know I’ll have down time in my day because, as I mentioned above, I schedule it. And so I also choose ahead of time how I am going to spend that time.

For me, it’s important not to spend every spare moment I have checking Twitter, email, or watching TV. Having a few pre-chosen activities for how I’m going to spend my down time goes a long way in helping make sure my down time actually leaves me feeling more rested and re-charged.

(This is what I was getting at when I wrote about some alternatives to the just checks.)

For example, during the week of February 1, my down time was spent reading 4DX.

  • Other: Of course, you don’t have to stop at work and rest. You could also define a family and relationships focus, a health focus, and a personal inner-life focus. (For those who’ve gone through The Focus Course, this is exactly what we address in Modules Three and Five)

* * *

Being proactive with your time and focus is liberating.

Trying to plan ahead like this can be difficult at first. We are so used to being reactive and responding to the tyranny of the urgent. Or we are afraid of “boxing ourselves in” by making a choice ahead of time.

But the effort is worth it. In no time you’ll be able to whip up a plan in just a few minutes. And the freedom it will bring to your day-to-day life is awesome.

* * *

P.S. You may be interested to know that I’ve put together a time management class that is as relevant to those who thrive on spontaneity as it is to those who love to nerd out over administrativia.

Everything I know and practice about time management, scheduling, and prioritization is in this class.

Find out more right here »

Work Focus; Rest Focus

Deep Work and Focus — With Special Guest, Cal Newport

 

In today’s episode of Shawn Today I have the honor of talking with Cal Newport.

Cal Newport is one of my favorite writers and thinkers. His book, So Good They Can’t Ignore You, was one of the most impactful books I read in 2015. And his brand new book, Deep Work, is equally fantastic.

The hypothesis behind Deep Work is this:

The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive.

In our conversation, Cal and I talk about time management, how to develop a lifestyle where you are consistently able to spend time in your day on the things that matter most, how it’s a skill to be able to do deep work and focus and how to develop that skill, and more.

This podcast continues in the series on Margin that I’ve been writing about for the past month. Check out this page for the central repository with I’m keeping updated with links to each article and podcast.

* * *

There are so many components to doing your best creative work, but the very foundational one is the creative work itself. If you’re not showing up every day and practicing, then you’ll never reach your potential — you’ll never do your absolute best.

Deep Work, Deliberate/Intentional Practice, The Craftsman Mindset, Finding Flow — all of these are synonyms for showing up every day.

But they go beyond just showing up. Showing up and working hard isn’t enough. You need to make sure that the time you spend in deep work is productive time.

In So Good They Can’t Ignore You, Cal writes that people will hit a performance plateau beyond which they fail to get any better. And his newest book, Deep Work is all about how to push through that plateau. Deep Work is about what to do when you do show up, and how to turn all of it into a part of your lifestyle.

In short, to do your best creative work, you need to hone the skill of being able to focus.

And that is exactly what we talk about on this podcast.

Key Takeaways, Etc.

  • Deep work and focus are skills; not personality types. To develop the “skill” of deep work you have to: (1) control and protect your time; (2) slowly spend time training yourself to focus without giving in to distractions; and (3) make lifestyle changes so that even in your down time you aren’t

  • To have an effective deep work session, you need to: (1) schedule the time; (2) have an expected outcome that you are aiming to accomplish during that time; (3) realize that you’re working the “focus muscle” and that it takes practice and time.

  • Deep work is not a natural activity. When it comes to doing important work and improving our skills, our mind and instincts can’t be trusted.

  • Schedule every minute of your day. This takes the guesswork out of where you should be focusing on, and all you have left to do is show up and do what you’ve planned to do.

  • If you work with your head, then rest with your hands. For the knowledge worker, a good down-time hobby could be woodworking, gardening, yard work, etc.

  • Reduce the amount of “novel stimuli” that you let in to your day-to-day life. When you have a strong baseline level of noise in all the little moments of your life, it makes it more difficult to focus on the task at hand when you’re doing deep work. Because you’re training your brain that boredom is bad.

By reducing the baseline level of noise, it helps us to focus for extended periods of time. It also helps your mind to rest as it should during your down time.

  • Quote from Deep Work: “To succeed with deep work you must rewire your brain to be comfortable resisting distracting stimuli.”

  • There are four styles of deep work:

  1. Monastic: “This philosophy attempts to maximize deep efforts by eliminating or radically minimizing shallow obligations.” (Think seclusion somewhere)
  2. Bimodal: “This philosophy asks that you divide your time, dedicating some clearly defined stretches to deep pursuits and leaving the rest open to everything else.”
  3. Rhythmic: “This philosophy argues that the easiest way to consistently start deep work sessions is to transform them into a simple regular habit.”
  4. Journalistic: “in which you fit deep work wherever you can into your schedule.”
  • Don’t let busyness be a proxy for productivity. For many of us, we put an emphasis on efficiency rather than effectiveness. We see time spent as being more valuable than the results themselves.

We can change that mindset and change our paradigm about what it means to be effective. First we have to challenge the culture that values “crushing it” — that says only those who are super busy are the ones who are super hungry. Realize that you can work effectively, and you can be focused without overworking yourself. There is a division between being out-of-control busy and being a hard worker.

  • Doing deep work in our everyday lives is important for several reasons: It increases our happiness, it helps us to learn new skills, it gives us a focus on effectiveness, it’s where we do our best creative work, it’s how we make progress.

  • If you want to do more deep work, but you’re not sure where to start, do this: (1) look at your calendar and block out 5 hours on your schedule over the next two weeks; (2) put your phone away when you get home so that you don’t get distracted; (3) find a balanced ratio of shallow work and deep work.

  • Shallow work and deep work are both necessary. The former is doing the things that need to be done for the sake of today. The latter is doing the things that need to be done for the sake of the future. Put another way: Shallow work keeps you from getting fired; deep work gets you promoted.

Further Reading

 

Download here. (01:15:32)

Deep Work and Focus — With Special Guest, Cal Newport

Margin Enables Intentional Living

As announced on Monday, for the next couple weeks we are diving deep on a specific topic: Margin.

What is margin?

Margin is breathing room.

It’s the opposite of overwhelm, overload, and overtime.

Margin means having some cash in the bank at the end of the month. It means having time during your day to spend on the things that are most important.

When we have this breathing room, it opens up a world of possibilities. Because when you have margin, you have the space to choose to be proactive instead of reactive.

We all need margin in our lives. From the stay-at-home parent, to the retiree, the 9-5 store clerk, the business executive, the pizza delivery guy, and the independent entrepreneur.

The reason we all need margin is because margin equals health.

Breathing room is good for our finances, our physical energy, our mental energy, and more. (Which, by the way, I dive into this topic much more in the free video presentation I put together. You can get it here.)

Today what I want to talk about is how Margin enables Intentional Living. You’re probably already putting the pieces together, so let’s continue…

What is Intentional Living?

Intentional living means being proactive in all areas of your life.

Jim Rohn said that “your level of success will rarely exceed your level of personal development, because success is something you attract by the person you become.”

I would also add that success comes about through diligence, hard work, and skill development.

Over the coming days and weeks we’ll continue to talk more about diligence, hard work, and skill development. But, in short, it takes intentional practice in order to be “successful” in each area of your life.

We know this is true for the athlete or the musician. Each day, the best athletes in the world train their hardest. Each day, the best musicians in the world practice and grow their skills.

The same principle of intentional practice holds true for every area of our life and any skill we wish to develop.

To reach the levels of success that are important to us (in our health, marriage, finances, vocation, side-projects, etc.) it takes intentional practice and development.

For a thriving marriage, you need to do something each day to strengthen your relationship with your spouse. The best writers in the world write every single day. One of the most sound financial investment strategies is to invest early and often.

Thus, intentional living is simply dedicating time each day to strengthen the most important areas of your life.

If you are doing that, then you’ll see success in those areas. If you’re not, then you won’t see success. It’s as simple as that.

So many of us “know” this truth. But so few of us do anything about it. Because it’s not microwaveable. It’s not easy to get started. It’s not easy to keep it up.

To be intentional — to live a focused life — takes a few things:

  1. Knowing which areas of your life are most important to you (at least in this season).
  2. Knowing what your goals are in those areas of life.
  3. Knowing what needs to be done to accomplish those goals.
  4. And then having the space to do the work. You need time, energy, and motivation to walk out your action plan. And that, my friend, is where margin comes in. Margin gives you that much-needed space.

These things boil down to simply having honesty, clarity, and a bias toward action. And it all gets just a little bit easier when you have breathing room in your life. Which is why margin enables intentional living. Margin enables you to live a focused life.

Margin Enables a Focused Life

In The Focus Course, the whole first module is focused on restoring margin to your life. We take 7 days and touch on topics such as personal integrity, relationships, creative imagination, finances, simplicity, and more.

The reason is because when you have a little bit of breathing room, it makes everything else that much easier.

  • Margin in your schedule keeps you free enough to have the time to do what’s important.

  • Margin with your thoughts keeps your mental energy strong enough to have the momentum you need to do the work when the time comes.

  • Margin in your emotions helps you with the motivation you need to do what’s important.

Start Here

We’ll continue to dive deep on each of the aforementioned areas of margin in the coming weeks.

But for a start, do this: Unsubscribe from something or unfollow someone.

It could be a news feed, an email newsletter, or a person or brand on Twitter or Facebook.

Doing this will give you just a little bit more space. It’s one less thing to deal with in your day, thus giving you some time. And it’s one less area of “consumption”, thus giving you more mental and emotional energy to focus on doing your best creative work.

Also, this is a way to remind yourself that you are in charge of your information diet. You will never do your best creative work if you’re living in the middle of The Echo Chamber.

* * *

Coming Next

Tomorrow, shawnblanc.net members will be getting a podcast conversation between me and my friend Mike Schmitz where we discuss how margin helps you to show up every day and do your most important work.

And on Monday, I’ve got an article for you about time stewardship and how you can get some breathing room in your crazy schedule.

If you want to keep up with all the articles, podcasts, and more that I’m publishing on the topic of margin, I’ve set up this page just for you. You can also get a free video presentation I made that shares an overview of what Margin is, why it’s so valuable, some quick wins for how to regain Margin in your life, and what I do to help maintain Margin in my own life.

Margin Enables Intentional Living

Margin Month

Today I’m kicking off something a bit different than I’ve done before on shawnblanc.net.

We’re going to take the rest of January and go deep on one specific topic. I’ve also got February, March, and April planned out as well. Each one with its own topic.

The big picture is that I want to hit on ideas that are especially relevant to the creative entrepreneur. From work-life balance, to tools, to audience building and revenue generation, to building a successful creative business.

This summer we’re on track to have something put together for those who are building a business and/or working to gain traction in their side project. But more on that later.

January’s Theme: Margin

A few months ago I wrote a 2-part introduction to Margin (part I, part II). In those articles I shared about what Margin in your life looks like and why it’s so important.

In short, Margin equates to breathing room.

Having breathing room in our schedule, finances, emotional energy, and mental energy is paramount. When you’re at capacity, there is no room for anything else. But when there is space left over — when there is margin — that space enables us to breath.

The feedback I received from those articles was extremely positive.

This is a topic that is so relevant to so many areas of our life. Over the past few months, I’ve received hundreds of emails from readers who’s biggest challenges are related to time, clarity, and their business or side-project.

Regarding time and clarity, I heard from many people who feel that they don’t have enough time in the day to do everything they want (or need) to do. I also heard from folks who aren’t sure how best to manage and schedule their time. As well as from people who aren’t sure where they should be focusing their energy.

When we have margin in our schedule, margin in our emotional energy, and margin in our creative energy, it can help tremendously. Moreover, when we lack margin in these areas, it leaves us feeling stressed out, anxious, and overloaded. No fun.

Which is why we’re going to take the next few weeks and dive deep on these topics:

  • How Margin Enables Intentional Living
  • Time Stewardship
  • Regaining mental energy
  • Margin in your finances
  • Emotional energy and motivation
  • Why margin helps you hustle and focus (do more in less time)
  • Understanding overwhelm and how to move to the other side of complexity
  • Overcoming distractions to do deep work and intentional practice

I’ve also got a few podcasts and interviews in the pipe with some good friends and surprise heroes of mine that have so much wisdom to share on this topic.

Keep tabs on everything-margin at this page we’ve set up:

shawnblanc.net/margin

That’s going to be the central repository, so to speak, with links to all the articles, podcasts, and other resources we put out over the coming weeks.

Free Video Presentation

To start things off today, I made a video presentation.

I thought it’d be fun to try something new. And so we put together this short video presentation.


video-screenshot

In the video I introduce the idea of Margin, I give you some quick wins for how to restore Margin to your life, and I share some specific things I do in order to keep margin in my life as well as how I stay sane when life gets extra busy.

To get the video, just punch in your email below and you’ll get a link to the page where you can stream or download the presentation.




Margin Month

The Focus Course: Updated for 2016

Version 2 of The Focus Course is now available.

I’ve been working on this version for the past several months, and there are some awesome updates.

On the nerdy side, The Focus Course has received several updates to the custom plugins and the membership management.

On the less-nerdy side, the Focus Course now offers (1) group and team licensing and (2) a slew of new videos. Sweet!

Group Licensing and Registration

Since launching the Course, I’ve spoken with a handful of companies and schools that have expressed interest in group licensing. This is ideal for offices that want their whole staff to go through the Focus Course.

The Focus Course has a strong emphasis on intentionality, self-governance, doing our best work, making progress on a daily basis, etc. While the course assists people with these areas for their “whole self”, the result has a profound effect on people’s work and their work-life balance.

Having your staff or team go through The Focus Course can greatly impact company culture, as well it being an awesome and valuable asset for leaders to sow into their staff.

You can now purchase licenses in bulk, with discounts are available for those purchasing 25 seats or more.

What’s great about the group licensing is that we custom-built a group admin dashboard. If you purchase for a group, then you can manage the licenses of your whole group and track the progress of each member as they make their way through the Course.

If you think the course is something your team would benefit from, shoot me an email and I’d love to help you get set up.

More Than 50 New Videos

The Focus Course now includes a teaching video for every single day. Plus over a dozen new bonus videos from the Elements of Focus class. You can take the entire course simply by watching the video for each day.

Of course, in addition to each day’s video there is also written content. Which means you can watch or read (or both) your way through the Course. And since The Focus Course was originally created as a written manual, the accompanying text stands on its own.

Early Bird Pricing

Version 2 of The Focus Course is $347. However, for the first few days it’s available at an early bird rate of just $297.

When you sign up for the course, you can start right away, or you can wait to begin until a time that’s best for you. Since you’ll get lifetime access to the website there is no rush to start immediately.

The ideal time to start the course is this week. I hope you’ll join me an hundreds of others who’ll be going through the Focus Course to get 2016 off to a great start.

Ready to get your life — or at the very least, your year — in to focus? Sign up for The Focus Course.

The Focus Course: Updated for 2016

Create Your Own Definition of Success  →

If you’re an entrepreneur (just starting out or seasoned), you’ll love The Fizzle Show podcast.

I’ve long been a fan of the Fizzle Show (they even had me on the show once).

When I was creating The Focus Course earlier this year, I went through a ton of the Fizzle podcasts related creating an online course, building an audience, selling a product. Those shows were instrumental in helping me to build something that was both awesome and profitable. Lately (as in the past few dozen episodes) they’ve just been on fire.

This latest episode of the Fizzle Show is absolutely fantastic. The discussion and advice given by the Fizzle team can literally change your life.

Though the Fizzle Show is usually aimed at the Indie Entrepreneur, this episode on defining success is required listening for just about anybody and everybody.

In the show, Corbett Barr says this:

The more I work on closing that gap between who I am and who I want to be, the more important I realize systems are.

I couldn’t agree more.

If you’ve watched the trailer video I made for The Power of a Focused Life, then you know my stance on the difference between passive living and intentional living. In short, the dreams of our heart (a.k.a. our definition of success) won’t come about by just wishing and wanting. They’re built from the ground up, one day at a time.

And, the best way to make sure you’re making progress, day by day, on the things that are most important to you, is to know what your vision and values are and then keep short accounts with how you’re spending your time and energy.

Create Your Own Definition of Success

Introduction to Margin (Part 2)

A quick note: This is the second of a 2-part series on Margin. You can read Part 1 here.

In January, we’ll be going much more in-depth on this topic. There will be podcast interviews, resource recommendations, articles, and more.

That said, let’s talk about Margin…

* * *

Though they are related, Margin and Stress are not the same thing. A lack of margin can (and usually will) cause stress. Being overloaded and overwhelmed is usually what can lead to the pain of stress.

For example, when our schedule is filled beyond capacity, we feel the pain of our overloaded responsibilities, and we get stressed out trying to manage everything. When we are living beyond our financial means, we feel the pain of an unhealthy financial state, and we get stressed about money.

As I wrote in Part One of this introduction to Margin, when you’re feeling the pain of overwhelm, listen to it.

There can be two reasons for the stress you feel:

  1. It may be that life is telling you you’re margin-less.
  2. Or, sometimes that feeling of overwhelm is because you’re in a season of transition — you’re close to a breakthrough.

When it’s the former, you need to dial down and create some margin. So often, when we are in desperate need of margin in our lives, it has to be explained to us or by us. It’s not instinctual. So, if you’re feeling the pain of a margin-less life, make sure you’ve got some things in place so you can stay sane and healthy.

If, however, it’s the latter — if you’re on your way toward a breakthrough in your skills — you need help and the perseverance to press through.

Today, let’s talk about these two things. How to dial down when you’re overloaded, as well as how to persevere when you’re on the cusp of a breakthrough.

Dial Down and Get Yourself Some Margin

In his book, Margin, Richard Swenson writes that “to be healthy, we require margin in at least four areas: emotional energy, physical energy, time, and finances.”

If you’re feeling overloaded, I bet you could get one or two “quick wins” for your emotional energy, physical energy, time, or finances — little ways to give yourself some breathing room.

Start by taking inventory of where you’re spending the bulk of your time, money, and energy. (Not where you wish you were spending it, but where you’re actually spending it.)

What can be subtracted?

What can you do to give your schedule, your emotions, your mind, your body, and/or your finances some breathing room?

The low-hanging fruit and Quick Wins

Here are some suggestions for quick wins for you. These can help stop the bleeding. And, with a small victory, you can begin to get some momentum going in the direction you need.

Physical Energy

There are some very simple ways to help get your body active if you’re feeling underachieved and not physically strong. Get enough sleep at night (which probably means going to bed on time). Take a 30-minute walk most days. Eat less sugar.

Not to sound like your mother, but these things are easy to give up when life gets crazy. I know that for me, my daily workout is usually the first thing to go when I’m feeling overloaded. So I certainly need the reminder about just how important physical health is to doing my best creative work.

Emotional Energy

You need social support (community). And you probably could do with less Screen Time.

For the former, ask a friend or family member for support. Even if it’s just to let them know you’re feeling overloaded and you need to talk about it. Also, take a moment to give to someone by encouraging, helping, or supporting them.

For the latter, next time you feel the urge to check your Social Network of Choice when you have a down moment, consider opening up your journal or notes app instead and writing down something you’re thankful for.

See also this recent Tim Ferris podcast episode, The Magic of Mindfulness, the EntreLeadership podcast episode with Shawn Achor, and this article I put together on dialing down.

Time

You’re smart enough to know that you’ll never “find” time. You have to make it. If your schedule is full, the only option is to begin saying no to things. I’d start with television if you haven’t already. Then I’d start with taking an hour or two at the beginning of your week to plan how you’ll be spending your time over the next 7 days.

Finances

Cut something small and simple out of your budget. Start making coffee at home; stop ordering drinks and dessert at restaurants; sell your car to get rid of the payments and buy something less fancy for cash. These types of changes aren’t easy to make, but they’re a way of taking charge of your finances and learning to live within your means.

I’d also highly recommend you set up a rainy day fund if you don’t have one already. Save $1,000 as fast as you can. Figure out how to get an extra $34/day and you’ll have that $1,000 in less than a month.

See also this article I wrote last summer about working from home and running a business. In it I talk some more about financial health, physical health, and relational health for the creative entrepreneur.

Staying Sane In the Midst of a Busy or Challenging Season

If you’re in a particularly busy or challenging season of life, what you need is the ability to press through. If you’re on the edge of a breakthrough, keep going and get yourself to the other side of the complexity.

What do I mean by “on the edge of a breakthrough?”

When you’re learning something new or transitioning to a different season of life, you have to “break through” from where you were to get to where you’re going.

Perhaps it’s that you’re starting a new business. Or you’re learning PHP. Or you want to get better at budgeting. Or you’re writing a book. When you’re first starting out and you’re at the very outside of that new skill set, it doesn’t seem quite so scary. But then, once you begin making a little bit of progress, you realize just how much you don’t know, and that state can be overwhelming.

It feels overwhelming because you suddenly begin to see so many open ideas, moving parts, and hazy concepts. You can see everything moving around, but it’s all in a fog and doesn’t make sense yet. You have a ton of unanswered questions, and you don’t even know who to go to for help or what you would even ask them.

Basically, you’re in the midst of a heightened season of “deep work,” and it’s not easy.

Instead of quitting, keep on learning. Keep pushing through. Eventually, the fog will lift, the dots will connect, and you’ll get that breakthrough.

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article on how I stay sane when life is extra busy.

You want to make sure that as you’re persevering in your busy or challenging season, it’s not to the detriment your health and relationships.

Why take out all the fun of learning a new skill or starting a new business? It’s hard enough as it is without letting yourself become habitually sleep deprived and neglecting your closest relationships.

By all means, keep your sanity and your health! This will actually help you. It will give you more energy and strength to learn, and it will expedite the crazy season, and even make it more enjoyable.

Ensure that you are actually making progress every day and not just suffering under the weight of being busy. This will also help ensure that when the busy season is over, you don’t hit a wall and get sick or depressed.

When life is at its busiest, it’s all the more important to be overly diligent and intentional with how you spend your time. 

Here are the ways I stay focused during especially busy or challenging seasons of life (such as the one I’m in right now, as a matter of fact):

  1. Making sure my day is filled with intentional work. Step one is knowing what to do and having a plan of when I’m going to do it. This is so important that I’ve actually been spending more time managing my time. The days can so quickly get away from me that I’m upping my intentionality to make sure my daily and weekly schedule is providing me with the time I need to do the most important work.

If I’m mostly in a reactive state — giving my attention primarily to the incoming inboxes of email and Twitter — then chances are I’m wasting time. This is why I’ve been spending even less time than usual on email and Twitter…

  1. Dialing back on social media. I love Twitter. It’s a great place for conversations, dialog, and finding cool stuff. But it’s not where I do my most important work.

  2. My “Now” Page. This is something I picked up from Derek Sivers, who created a page on his website, simply titled “Now”. On there he listed out the few things he is most focused on. Not just work things, but life, hobbies, etc. It serves as a personal reminder to him about where he wants to be focusing his time as well as a public statement to others about what he’s doing (and what he’s not doing).

I love this idea. I’m a big proponent of what I call meaningful productivity, which just means you’re actually spending your time doing the things that you want to do. The problem is that most of us spend our time doing what we don’t want to do — usually just by default. We forget, we’re tired, or whatever, and so we just default into something (such as mindless email checking) that is not on our “now” list. The Now page can serve as a plumb line for you.

And the other cool thing about having a publicly available “Now” page is that it gives a sense of accountability. You’ve told the world what’s important to you and how you’re spending your time, and now you need to keep that commitment.

  1. Recognizing progress. This is huge. When you’re down in the thick of it, one of the best ways to keep your momentum going is to recognize and celebrate the progress you make each day. I use Day One because it’s awesome. And at the end of the day, I’ll write down the small wins from my day.

  2. Health. This is the one that goes out the window the fastest for me, which is unfortunate because it’s also the one that matters the most. A good night’s sleep, a diet that gives you energy, and some regular out-and-about exercise is so good for you.

  3. Date night, family time, and lunches with friends: Social support is one of the main ways to keep a healthy emotional state. It’s also one of the best ways to increase your baseline level of happiness and to help ensure a successful and satisfying career.

For me, when things get extra busy, the thing that next goes out the window is my time with friends. I’ll find myself wanting to cancel my standing lunches with friends, work late and infringe on family time, and even skip date night with my wife. All so I can work more hours.

While there are occasions here and there when I truly do need to work extra, they need to be the exception to the rule and not the default.

All these things come together to help give space to think, to breath, and to focus on doing what’s most important.

* * *

Thanks for reading! As I said, we’ll be diving more into this topic in January. In the mean time, I hope you’ll sign up for the free class I’m teaching. It starts in just a few days, and it’s going to be awesome!

And, in closing, here’s one more quote from Dr. Swenson:

Let’s stay busy to be sure. But together let’s also develop the necessary theological underpinnings for margin that will allow us to accept its importance without guilt. For just as we need to eat and sleep, so we also need to breathe.

Introduction to Margin (Part 2)

Introduction to Margin (Part 1)

In a word or two, how would you describe your average day?

Busy?
Overwhelming?
Relaxing?
Pointless?
Productive?
Boring?
Stressful?
Fulfilling?

For me, in this season of life, I’d say that my average day is a mixed bag. While most days are productive on paper, they feel a little bit too busy and a little bit too stressed.1

As a small-business owner, sometimes my responsibilities have me pulled in a half-dozen directions. Between Tools & Toys, The Sweet Setup, The Focus Course, shawnblanc.net, my Shawn Today podcast, and The Fight Spot newsletter… well, life can feel frazzled at times.

But I’m not alone here, am I? You’re busy, too. We all are.

From the rising of the sun until long after it sets, how quickly our days get filled with things to do. Important responsibilities. Urgent issues. Helping and serving the people who depend on us.

While my current, average day sometimes feels too busy and too stressed, what would my ideal day look like?

My ideal day would be fulfilling, with times that are both relaxing and productive.

I’m about as “Type A” as they come. I’ve always got more ideas than time and I feel most energized when I’m working on a project. The downside is that means it can be hard for me to stop working and even to stop thinking about work.

* * *

In his book, Margin, Richard Swenson, M.D., starts out with this statement:

The conditions of modern-day living devour margin. If you are homeless, we send you to a shelter. If you are penniless, we offer you food stamps. If you are breathless, we connect you to oxygen. But if you are marginless, we give you yet one more thing to do.

Not only are we given one more thing to do, many of us are even seeking out more to do — perhaps intentionally, but most likely unintentionally — simply because we struggle to say ‘no’ to requests of our time and attention and thus are busy beyond capacity. When we do have a spare moment, we fill it quickly without thinking by checking the news, social media, and email, almost as if by habit.

“No matter how busy life gets,” writes Jessica Turner in her book The Fringe Hours, “I’m here to tell you that you not only can but must make time to do things that matter to you.”

When you think of margin in your life, think of health. Physical health, emotional health, mental health, relational health, financial health, creative health.

  • Margin in your finances means you’re living within your means and even have a rainy day fund.
  • Margin in your schedule means you have time to do the things you need to do as well as the things you want to do.
  • Margin in your emotions means you don’t live constantly on the edge — losing your temper or your patience at the drop of a hat.
  • Margin for your thoughts means you have the wherewithal to make clear decisions and focus on your most important work.

All of these areas overlap with one another — they’re not isolated. Which is why, when a household lacks margin in its finances it can erode at margin in the marriage. Or when we lack margin in our schedule, it can erode the margin in our emotions.

Why is margin important?

We need margin. You need it. And so do I.

Without margin in our finances, we fall deeper in debt every time the car breaks down. Without margin in our schedule, we have no time to rest, recharge, or serve others. And without margin for our thoughts, we lack creative energy to make progress on our most important work.

Though, not always, oftentimes our lack of margin is self-inflicted.

We would love to have a rainy day fund, but when we see a bigger television for a cheaper price, we buy the TV instead of setting that money aside. We would love to have time at the end of the day to read a good book, but when we come home from work we instinctively turn on said television. We would love to make progress on our side-project, but when we have a break, we spend it check our social media timelines.

It’s like Paul wrote in the Bible: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.”

Listening to Overwhelm

Again, Swenson writes:

No one likes pain. We all want to get rid of it as soon as possible. But physical pains are usually there for a reason, to tell us something is wrong and needs to be fixed. Emotional, relational, and societal pains, too, are often indicators that all is not well. As such, they serve a valuable purpose — they help us focus.

Modern-day living, however, opposes focusing. Surrounded by frenzy and interruptions, we have no time for anything…

Do You Need a Change or Are You On the Verge of a Breakthrough?

When you’re feeling the pain of overwhelm, listen to it.

There can be two reasons for the stress you feel:

  • It may be that life is telling you you’re marginless.
  • Or, sometimes that feeling of overwhelm is because you’re in a season of transition — you’re close to a breakthrough.

When it’s the former, you need to dial down and create some margin. Make sure you’ve got some things in place so you can stay sane and healthy.

However, when it’s the latter — when you’re on your way toward a breakthrough in your skills — you need help and the perseverance to press through.

Part Two…

In a couple days, we’ll hit on some of the simple ways you can quickly restore margin in your life.

Also, we’ll be hitting on this topic (and more) in the free Elements of Focus class that begins in less than a week! If you haven’t yet signed up, you definitely should.

Update: Part two has been published. You can read it here.

  1. Over the years, I think I’ve gotten pretty good at making sure my time is spent only on the most important and necessary work. Obviously, there is wiggle in there because I’m just a regular person. But, so far as I can tell, just about as much of my time as I have is spent doing the things I want and need to be doing in order to keep things moving forward. The problem for me, it seems, is not in cutting back and dialing down even more, but that I clearly have things for which it is time to delegate. More on that another day. ↵
Introduction to Margin (Part 1)

Thoughts on Meaningful Productivity

It’s the end of the day.

I work downstairs, so for me, closing up the office is as simple as stepping away from my desk and walking up the half-flight of stairs.

I’ve had this 30-second commute since 2011, which is when I quit my job to focus full-time on writing here at shawnblanc.net.

Despite the complete autonomy for how I spend my time, doing my best creative work is still a daily practice.

There have been seasons in my life when, at the end of my day, I walk up that half-flight of steps with a feeling that my day was a waste. I just spent hours at work, yet feel completely unsatisfied.

Usually this it’s because I got caught up in the seemingly urgent and pressing issues of the day. Things didn’t go as well as I’d hoped they would. I tried to make progress on a meaningful task but just kept hitting a wall.

It’s now been nearly five years since I began working for myself and working from home. And over the years, it has become ever more important to me that spend my time well. I’ve learned a bit about how I work (and how I should best be spending my time) so I have fewer “wasted days”.

For me, spending my time well means spending my time creating.

But that’s easier said than done.

Since I work for myself, I’m also in charge of all the budgeting and bookkeeping, server admin, customer support, marketing, income projections, content strategy, and more. Not to mention, you know, actually doing the work of writing and publishing.

I could spend hours and hours every day on email and other admin tasks. Or, I could spend hours every day making something.

This is not news, of course. You’re in the same position.

It’s the age-old conundrum of “urgent versus important”, right? We want to spend our time on work that’s important, not just work that’s all shiny right now but won’t matter one lick tomorrow.

Where everything changed for me was the day I realized that I alone was in charge of how I spent my time.

It’s I who has to choose how to spend my time. I can spend it on silly things or I can spend it on awesome things.

Sometimes, silly and awesome intersect (such as here).

But usually, when doing my most important work, it’s, well, it’s work.

Which is why it can be so easy to become desensitized to shallow work. All the email and admin tasks are easy to do, and I fool myself into thinking that checking email throughout the day is a totally fine thing to do — I’m being “productive”.

Below are some thoughts on what I call “Meaningful Productivity” — what it is, what it isn’t, and why it matters.

Productivity Isn’t Just for Business-y Stuff

Is the stay-at-home dad who spends most of his day changing diapers and cleaning up messes any less productive than his wife who is the CEO of a charity organization?

Of course not. Each is productive in his or her area of responsibility.

Productivity tends to be defined by how well we use our task management systems, how organized our calendar app is, how fast we can blaze through a pile of emails, and how fluidly we flow from one meeting to the next.

But those metrics skew toward rewarding effective busywork while giving little dignity to meaningful work.

Which is why I want to define productivity differently. With less of a focus on our party trick of balancing many plates at once, and more of a focus on our ability to consistently give our time and attention to the things which are most important.

Productivity is Not Primarily About Efficiency

Productivity, in and of itself, is just a metric for efficiency.

Yes, efficiency is awesome. But what’s more awesome is spending your time on the right things. Things of substance and value.

Besides. Even though productivity measures efficiency, it’s a sliding scale.

How fast you can get something done is not always the proper metric. Sometimes I spend 30 minutes or more on a single email. Because it needs to be worded just right. Sometimes I can fire off a reply in less than a minute.

Speed alone doesn’t matter. What matters was if I communicated the best I could.

While there is obviously no point in spending 30 minutes on a single email that could just as easily be written in 1. It’s equally poor form to spend just 1 minute on an email that requires more time and thought than that.

My point being: rather than concerning ourselves mostly with tips and tricks, we should make sure we’re actually spending our time well in the first place. Tips and tricks can help (and they’re fun), but they aren’t the main topic.

Meaningful Productivity Thrives on Deep Work, Focused Attention, and Relationships

More often than not, our best work is accomplished during times when we are in the zone. Or as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says, when we are in a state of flow.

Focused Work, looks like an hour or more of single tasking. Practicing a musical instrument. Practicing a physical activity. Writing. Painting. Planning and architecting. Coding. Designing. Etc.

Shallow work, looks like “multitasking”. Email correspondence. Checking our social network timelines. Browsing the news. Etc.

We can’t pit deep work and shallow work against one another. Because they’re both important in their own right.

However, neither should we replace the former with the latter.

Sure, there are some people whose most important work is to live in their email inbox — communicating with others. For most of us, if all we did was check email we’d be out of a job.

And yet, when most of us sit down to “work” the first thing we do is open our email program.

Why do we open up our email? Because we don’t know what else to do.

It’s one thing to show up and set aside a few hours for focused work. It’s another thing to know what to work on during that time.

When you realize that you’re in control of your time and attention, you’ll see that you have two roles: boss and worker.

You are both the planner and the executer. The thinker and the doer.

Don’t try to do both of these jobs at the same time. Have planning, thinking, strategizing time. And then, later, have working and doing time.

For example, if you’re going to write something, don’t sit down when it’s time to write and ask yourself, “what shall I write about now?”

Know ahead of time what your writing topic will be. This way, when you sit down to write you have just one task: to write.

Meaningful Productivity is a Byproduct of Clarity

You can’t spend your time doing work that matters if you don’t know what matters in the first place.

Productivity hacks, daily routines, automation tools, and the like are all great. But they are a means for optimizing how you’re already spending your time. They’re just faster horses.

And what good is a faster horse if you’re on the wrong road, headed to the wrong place?

We need clarity about who we are, what our values are, our vision for life, what’s important, and what we can do every day to stay steady in our aim of doing our best creative work.

You Have to Start With Meaning

If true (Meaningful) Productivity is doing that which is most important, then it means that productivity is not ultimately based on efficiency, but rather vision and values.

This is why having a life vision and life goals is so powerful. With them, you can define what it looks like to actually be productive (not just busy).

It is in the area of work that this fight to be meaningfully productive is perhaps the most difficult. Our offices, workflows, managers, reports, and meetings all center around the act of being busy with little in place to recognize or reward meaningful productivity.

Productivity “hacks” and “tricks” that promise real and lasting change apart from a foundation of personal values, vision, and integrity are merely skin deep.

The foundation of meaningful productivity is having values (or purpose), vision (or priorities), and the personal integrity to walk them out.

Ask yourself this:

  • What is most important to you in life?
  • What are your most valuable relationships?
  • What are the values you most want to impart to others?

Answer those questions and you’ve got a strong foundation to direct how you spend your time and energy. Because now you can measure your tasks against your vision and values and use them to define meaningful productivity for your life.

* * *

Speaking of… If this topic interests you, then you should sign up for the free class I’m hosting in a few weeks. You can find out more here.

Thoughts on Meaningful Productivity

On Dialing Down, Saying “No”, and Making Time

In addition to my own efforts to dial down and re-focus on doing the things which are most important and most enjoyable to me, I’ve come across a handful of other folks doing the same.

Below are a few links and quotes I hope you find useful.

CGP Grey, in his article “Dialing Down”:

“I have less to do. Why do I still feel overwhelmed? Why is it taking me longer to get less done?”
I paused and listened and found another kind of background noise in my brain that had been increasing, ever so slowly, since I became self-employed a few years ago.
For lack of a better term, I’ll call it ‘The Internet’ but it’s a broader than that: it’s the rise of all the digital vectors of information delivery pointed at me.

As a result, Grey is taking a month off from podcast listening, RSS, YouTube subscriptions, Hacker News, and more.

I love this line:

I firmly believe that boredom is good for brain health, and I’m banishing podcasts for the month from my phone to bring boredom back into my life.

* * *

Tim Ferriss is on a similar “attention vacation”. He is giving up VC investing so he can focus more on writing. Just like with Grey’s article above, it’s encouraging to learn about the “why” behind the choice.

There are a lot of nuggets of wisdom in Ferriss’ article. Such as:

Are you fooling yourself with a plan for moderation?

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.
– Richard P. Feynman

Where in your life are you good at moderation? Where are you an all-or-nothing type? Where do you lack a shut-off switch? It pays to know thyself.

And:

If you’re suffering from a feeling of overwhelm, it might be useful to ask yourself two questions:

  • In the midst of overwhelm, is life not showing me exactly what I should subtract?
  • Am I having a breakdown or a breakthrough?

* * *

Third, is Cal Newport — always the advocate for being intentional about doing work that matters. In Newport’s article, he simply shares about how he spends a few hours per week organizing the rest of his week:

It’s hard work figuring out how to make a productive schedule come together: a goal that requires protecting long stretches of speculative deep thinking while keeping progress alive on long term projects and dispatching the small things fast enough to avoid trouble (but not so fast that the deep stretches fragment).

It’s true that many people approach their days with flexibility, perhaps hunkering down when an immediate deadline looms, but otherwise letting their reactions to input drive the agenda. But I want to emphasize that there’s another group of us who take our time really seriously, and aren’t afraid to spend hours figuring out how best to invest it.

* * *

One last thought on the importance of dialing down. Below is an adapted excerpt from part of Day 37 of The focus Course where we talk about finding boredom and creating margin for thought.

I’ve had an iPhone since the beginning. It’s my favorite gadget of all time. And for the past 8 years this thing has pretty much never been more than an arm’s distance away.

It’s not so easy to be bored anymore. You have to choose to be bored. It used to be that boredom chose you — you were somewhere and you were waiting and there was nothing to do and you were bored. Now, you’re never bored. You can see pictures of some stranger surfing on the other side of the world, or get a live video stream of someone’s hike over Tokyo. This stuff is amazing.

But it means we have to be proactive about our boredom and down time. It means we have to be intentional about creating margin for thought. If 100% of our down time is filled with passive entertainment and bits of information, then when does our mind have a chance to be calm? When do we have a moment to think without needing to think?

As we talked about during Day 5, the little moments of mental down time can do wonders for our long-term ability to create, problem solve, and do great work. Yet, so often we run from boredom at every turn and fill up every spare moment with some sort of pacifier. We need chunks of time where our minds can rest.

In my day, when I’m feeling restless or I find myself bouncing around between inboxes, I just stop and decide that it’s time for a break. I get up and go walk around for a bit. Or I lay down on my couch and listen to what my mind and imagination have to say.

My mind needs space. Your mind needs space, too. This space to think and breath could also be called margin.

In his book, Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives, Richard Swenson M.D., describes margin as this:

Margin is the space between our load and our limits. It is the amount allowed beyond that which is needed. It is something held in reserve for contingencies or unanticipated situations. Margin is the gap between rest and exhaustion, the space between breathing freely and suffocating.

Margin is the opposite of overload. If we are overloaded we have no margin. Most people are not quite sure when they pass from margin to overload. Threshold points are not easily measurable and are also different for different people in different circumstances. We don’t want to be under-achievers (heaven forbid!), so we fill our schedules uncritically. Options are as attractive as they are numerous, and we overbook.

Swenson is mostly talking about time-management. However, the idea of margin for our thoughts is prevalent as well — our minds need space to breathe and room to think.

* * *

As I mentioned in yesterday’s article: take ownership of your time and attention. When you do, so much changes for the better.

On Dialing Down, Saying “No”, and Making Time

How I Stay Sane When Life Feels Extra Busy

Fall is by far and away my favorite time of year. There’s awesome about the combination of crisp weather, a lit candle, a hot drink, and a blank page to write on.

And here we are. It’s November! Except I’m not ready for it.

I feel as if I’m standing at the entrance to a tunnel and I can see 2016 coming down the track. But it’s moving too quickly for me and I feel unprepared and, honestly, a little bit anxious.

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the holiday season is busy enough in its own right. My wife and I will be hosting family here in Kansas City for the former, and we’ll be driving to Colorado for the latter. I can’t wait.

But, in addition to the holidays and family time, November and December are the two biggest months of the year for Tools & Toys and The Sweet Setup. Our website traffic and revenue during these months will be roughly 3 times that of any other month of the year. And we’re doing all we can to make the most of it. Over on Tools & Toys we just put up our annual Christmas Catalog post, and we also have a massive photography guide that is coming out soon. And over on The Sweet Setup we’re just finishing up a new ebook that we expect to publish in a week from now.

On top of that, I am making some huge improvements to The Focus Course for a “re-launch” of the course that will go live on January 1. Later this month I’m going back to the studio to record 50 new videos. 40 of them are for the Focus Course and 10 of them will be for a new training series I’m working on — kind of like an introduction to the Focus Course.

I’m sharing all this because you probably feel in a similar situation.

  • You’ve got several work-related projects (all of which are important).
  • You’ve got some personal projects (all of which you really want to make progress on).
  • You’ve got several books you want to read (all of which look awesome).
  • And you want to spend as much time with your spouse and kids as possible (especially with the holidays coming up).

You feel the tug of wanting to work on too many things at once and not knowing which to choose. This in and of itself can be stressful. It also can lead to procrastination and paralysis due to uncertainty and indecisiveness, which just compounds the issue even further.

“How am I supposed to get all this done?” You’re asking.

That is a great question. And you’re not the only one asking it.

By far and away, one of the most common challenges I hear from people is their challenge of having too much to do. Too many spinning plates. Too many important tasks. Too many areas of responsibility.

For me, I know that this current November and December are going to be an intense couple of months. It’s a perfect storm of holidays, family, and business opportunities. I don’t mind putting in extra hours to get all the work done now, because I know that this is not the norm for me. Come January and February, my workload will return to normal. This is the ebb and flow of work.

Sometimes, however, the overwhelming business is a sign that something’s broken. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, ask yourself if it’s because you’re on the edge of doing something awesome or is it life showing you that something needs to be cut out.

  • If the latter — you’re overwhelmed and you know something’s got to give — then do this: Take inventory of where you’re spending the bulk of your time and energy (not where you wish you were spending it, but where you’re actually spending it). Now ask yourself what can be subtracted to give your calendar, your mind, and your emotions some breathing room.

  • If the former — if you’re on the edge of breakthrough in a project — then sometimes the answer is to keep working and just hold on and persevere for the season. But don’t persevere to the detriment your health and relationships.

When you’re in an intense and busy season, what’s important is to keep your sanity and health. This way you ensure that you are actually making progress every day and not just suffering under the weight of being busy. This will also help ensure that when the busy season is over, you don’t hit a wall and get sick or depressed.

When life is at its busiest, is when it’s all the more important to be overly diligent and intentional with how you spend your time.

That said, here’s how I’m staying focused in my busy season of life:

  1. Making sure my day is filled with intentional work. Step one is knowing what to do and having a plan of when I’m going to do it. This is so important, that I’ve actually been spending more time managing my time. The days can so quickly get away from me that I’m upping my intentionality to make sure my daily and weekly schedule is providing me with the time I need to do the most important work.

If I’m mostly in a reactive state — giving my attention primarily to the incoming inboxes of email and Twitter — then chances are I’m wasting time. Which is why I’ve been spending even less time than usual on email and Twitter…

  1. Dialing back on Twitter usage. I love Twitter. It’s a great place for conversations, dialog, and finding cool stuff. But it’s not where I do my aforementioned most important work.

Which is why, for the past month, I’ve been using Buffer and Edgar as tools to help me post to Twitter. And then I’ve been setting aside time to jump in and reply to any conversations or questions. So far it’s been working out well as a way for me to stay engaged and active on Twitter while not getting too easily sucked in to the Black hole of the real time web and YouTube fail compilations.

For me, this is just about the only “noisy and distracting area” that I have left to dial back. I don’t read the news. I don’t have Facebook. And I’ve hit pause on my RSS reading while I work my way through my current stack of books (which now includes 3 more since I took that picture).

  1. My “Now” Page. This is something I picked up from Derek Sivers, who created a page on his website, simply titled “Now”. On there he listed out the few things he is most focused on. Not just work-things, but life, hobbies, etc. It serves as a personal reminder to him about where he wants to be focusing his time as well as a public statement to others about what he’s doing (and what he’s not doing).

I love this idea. I’m a big proponent of what I call meaningful productivity. Which just means you’re actually spending your time doing the things that you want to do. The problem is that most of us spend our time doing what we don’t want to do — usually just by default. We forget, we’re tired, or whatever, and so we just default into something (such as mindless email checking) that is not on our “now” list. The Now page can serve as a plumb line for you.

And the other cool thing about having a publicly available “Now” page is that it gives a sense of accountability. You’ve told the world what’s important to you and how you’re spending your time, and now you need to keep that commitment.

  1. Recognizing progress. This is huge. When you’re down in the thick of it, one of the best ways to keep your momentum going is to recognize and celebrate the progress you make each day. I use Day One because it’s awesome. And at the end of the day I’ll write down the small wins from my day.

  2. Health. This is the one that goes out the window the fastest for me. Which is unfortunate, because it’s also the one that matters the most. A good night sleep, a diet that gives you energy, and some regular out-and-about exercise is so good for you.

All these things come together to help give space to think, to breath, and to focus on doing what’s most important.

But there’s more to it than just another listicle of tips and tricks and hacks for being awesome.

It ultimately comes down to taking ownership of your time and attention.

If you regularly find that you’re not able to do your best work in this season of life, ask yourself whose fault that is. Sometimes things are outside of our control. But more often than not, there is something we can do about it.

The person who is frustrated at how long it’s taking to write their book, yet is watching a few hours of television every day, may want to reconsider how they’re spending their evening.

When you take ownership of your time and attention, everything changes. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it.

* * *

And I would be remiss if I didn’t take a chance to mention just how helpful and powerful The Focus Course can be in this area.

I designed the Focus Course to guide you along a simple path that starts out fun and easy and then builds into something resulting in deep and lasting change. The course enables you to experience deep satisfaction in work and in life by making meaningful progress every day to accomplish that which is most important.

If what I’ve written about today hits home for you, but you don’t know where to start… then start here.

How I Stay Sane When Life Feels Extra Busy

Relevancy vs. Recency

My friend, Sean McCabe, recently published a podcast episode talking about how to send valuable and relevant emails.

But the show was about much more than just email.

For me, the most valuable takeaway from Sean’s podcast was this:

“Relevancy is more important than recency.”

The context was that with email, what makes it so powerful is not the ability to send a recent message to 1,000 people right now. Rather, that you can send one single relevant message to one person at just the right time.

Sean posted his show almost a month ago, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

It pairs perfectly with another idea I’ve been chewing on: a business model that (surprise!) is based on providing the most amount of value to the most amount of people.

Which begs the question: What’s more valuable for your content: relevancy or recency?

Put another way, is the relevance of your content based on the content itself or the timestamp?

The Bias Toward “Fresh”

Be careful when you presuppose that the newer something is, the more relevant it is. While it’s true for many news sources, it’s not true of all content. Not even all the content published on the Web.

Our bias toward fresh content is a huge part of why we prefer Twitter over books, and TL;DR over long-form.

The real-time web is awesome, but it’s not the only source of information. Especially not so if we’re seeking to gain a deep understanding of a topic and expand our knowledge in an area.

Twitter is fine in its own right, but it’s a mighty bloodless substitute for learning.

Relevancy vs Recency for you, the reader

Last month I read Cal Newport’s book, So Good They Can’t Ignore You.

The book is not new — it’s three years old. But the contents in it were exactly what I needed to hear right now.

There were two huge takeaways from the book that gave me some clarity and insight into the exact challenges I’m facing right now in my business. Despite the fact that the contents of the book were not new, they were still very relevant.

For a book, we don’t really think too much about new-ness equating to relevancy. In fact, a three-year-old book is still pretty new. But for the (real-time) web, three years sounds like an eternity. When we go to a website, we want to know what is fresh and new — we assume that the newer it is the more relevant it is.

Obviously for a news website such as CNN, et al., the newest content is almost always the most relevant. But what about for the millions of other sites that don’t publish news? That are writing and publishing things without a shelf life?

hen you recommend a book, you don’t say “it’s old, but still good”. Yet, if you recommend an old website article (and by old I mean anything not written in the pas 12 months), it’s not uncommon to mention that it wasn’t written in the past 24 hours.

We have so many people writing incredible things on the web — it’s time to stop using the time stamp as the primary qualifier for relevancy.

And, for those of us who are creating great content for the web, it’s time to think more about how we can keep that content relevant for months and years to come.

Relevancy vs Recency for you, the writer

Long-time readers of shawnblanc.net will know that my pattern for writing has long been about “recency.”

The long-form software and hardware reviews I used to write were primarily valuable because of how “fresh” they were. And while many of those reviews still stand today, it’s only because they’re interesting and they can serve as a point of reference. They are’t exactly helping solve any problems or challenges you’re facing right now (that is, unless you’re considering buying a used G4 PowerBook.)

One down side to a Recency-Over-Relevancy mindset when it comes to content production is that it means much of what you create has a very short shelf life.

Consider if the content model you’re building on is focused on “new-ness.” If so, then it means that if you don’t have something recent, you don’t have anything at all.

I know this because it’s exactly how I approached the writing here on shawnblanc.net for the first six years. This website started in 2007 as a place where I could write about technology news.

But I’ve realized that “new-ness” is not the long-term game I want to play here. Even on Tools & Toys and The Sweet Setup, we are working to build a content strategy that’s not primarily dependent on “new-ness”. (But I’ll share more bout that another day.)

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The question I continue to re-visit is this: What can I do that will be the most helpful and provide the most value to you, the reader?

To peel the curtain back just al little bit, I know that the answer to that question is something far beyond some weekly emails, podcast episodes, and blog posts.

While the regular writing and podcasting I’m doing here is a critical component that keeps things moving, there are a LOT of past articles I’ve written and podcast episodes I’ve recorded that are still immensely valuable. Yet they’re buried underneath that reverse waterfall.

Someone new to this site is probably interested in what’s happening right now, but they are also likely to find immense value in the articles I’ve already written. Such as the those from earlier this summer regarding productivity and diligence, or the ones from last year about sweating the details in our work.

While I don’t have anything firmly in the works, yet, I do have a few ideas about what I could do to improve the relevancy of my content in a way that doesn’t put recency as the primary metric.

Some ideas include:

  • A redesign of the shawnblanc.net website that puts less emphasis on the reverse-waterfall blog and more emphasis on the most valuable content I’ve produced, regardless of when it was published.
  • Going through the archives here on shawnblanc.net and putting together certain posts and articles into a series around specific topics (such as writing, creativity, productivity, entrepreneurship, workflows, etc.)
  • Using the awesomeness of Active Campaign to offer training and relevant content on-boarding via email.

Basically, I’m looking at better ways of packaging and presenting all of my writing and podcasting into products and training materials (both free and paid) that can be as valuable as possible to you regardless of if you’ve been a long-time reader or this is the first article you’ve read of mine.

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To wrap this up, I want to thank all of you who support this site, show up to read, listen to the podcast, and share your thoughts and feedback. Many of you are brand new. (Welcome!) And many more of you have been around for months and years.

Thanks for reading. And thanks for letting me learn and iterate in public. I think it’s more fun that way, and I hope you do, too.

You are awesome.

— Shawn

P.S. If you want to stay in the loop with what I’m working on, you should join newsletter.

Just punch in your info below to get on the list. Every week I send out a short list of links to the best articles related to creativity, entrepreneurship, and the internet.

Relevancy vs. Recency

The Awareness Building Class

Awareness Building Class

My friend Mike Vardy and I just released a new product we’ve been working on for the past several weeks: The Awareness Building Class

In short, The Awareness Building Class is a 5-part series of audio teachings filled with real-life stories and actionable advice to help you stop guessing and start going.

Mike and I designed the class to go hand-in-hand with The Focus Course. All 5 of the Class modules fit in line with the key themes of The Focus Course, such as clarity, action, integrity, productivity, and meaning.

Listening to the Awareness Building Class and going through its workbook will complement the work you do in The Focus Course by giving you an additional layer of context and real-life examples from Mike and I related to the content and the assignments found within the Focus Course.

The Awareness Building Class includes

  • 5 Audio sessions (each between 30–45 minutes) on the topics of Clarity, Confidence, Integrity, Self-Awareness, and Harmony.
  • A PDF workbook for each session with highlights, key takeaways, and action items.
  • Professionally edited transcriptions of all the audio.

The Class Topics

Clarity: What it is, how it relates to your work, your personal life, your hobbies, your time, your finances, and more.

Confidence: How Confidence relates to productivity, why it’s critical for doing your best work, how a lack of confidence is a form of Resistance, and more.

Integrity: A personal favorite, for this session we discuss Integrity’s vital role related to motivation and procrastination.

Self-Awareness: Self-Awareness is about understanding our Vision, Values, Most important relationships, Priorities, Goals (the why behind them), our Capacity, and our Default behaviors.

Harmony: Re-defining the idea of “work/life balance” and bringing all the areas of our life together into something where the sum is greater than the individual parts.

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Because the Awareness Building Class has been designed to go hand-in-hand with The Focus Course, the class is available for FREE to everyone who signs up for The Focus Course between now and October 26. (Afterward, the class will only be available as a $79 stand-alone product.)

P.S. For those of you who are already Focus Course members: check your email. I believe in treating new customers and past customers equally awesome-ly. So everyone who is already a Focus Course member gets the class for free as well.

The Awareness Building Class