KURT FROST psychotherapy

Category: ✅ Productivity

  • Getting to Completion with “Topic Lock”

    Getting to Completion with “Topic Lock”

    Reading Time: < 1 minute

    Choices are hard, yet seductive. I like to “keep my options open”, but this usually ends up with me procrastinating and not getting things done. There are many things that get in the way of completing work, but usually committing to too much is pretty high on the list.

    In his podcast, Cortex, CGP Grey talks about his yearly theme of “clearing the decks” and this intriguing idea of “topic lock”. It is not complex, mostly that he commits to doing 3 projects at a time and all offshoot ideas that come from these projects need to “go back below decks”.

    It is really just having good boundaries.

    I am working to compartmentalize my multitude of projects and, worse, ideas for projects, but my plan is to focus on fewer projects, with an emphasis on completion. My getting this post out of my head/Evernote and in a public space is a good start!

    You can listen to the full podcast in the player below or just the segment that I am referring to.

    172: David Pierce – State of the Workflow – Cortex

    Myke talks to The Verge’s David Pierce about the workflow behind his Humane AI Pin review, how he collaborates to make podcasts like The Vergecast, and how his Installer newsletter helps him highlight the positive side of the internet each week.

  • Living Inside of the Circle

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    It is a productivity/personal development cliche by now to talk about focusing on the things that matter most and not to get caught up in the busyness of life. This does not make it any less important or needed though. It is rare to not meet someone and have them lament how crazy busy they are. It is even expected these days; like being part of a stressed out club. People are looking for relief…while frantically running on their hamster wheel.

    Seth Godin was really on point when he said that it is not about “making time” for things that matter; we need to make the things we want to do not optional and put them on the inside of the circle of our time and life. “Inside of the circle” is such a great way to put it. Viktor Frankl once said that it is not the size of the circle of our life that matters, but how well we fill it in. Both are pretty much saying the same thing: fill your day/life with what matters most.

    Like practicing meditation, this may be a simple concept, but not necessarily easy to keep up. It is really just about making a choice when faced with our daily options. Seth noted that we only have to choose once. Only need to decide once that Thursdays at 1 pm is time for lunch with our friend (instead of sitting at our desk) or Mondays at 6 pm is the time to walk (instead of just going home to “do what I always do”). Once this is scheduled, treat it as sacredly as you would a doctor’s appointment or a staff meeting. Inform the people that matter in your life that you are doing it (and possibly to leave you alone while you do “your thing”) and it gets easier after that.

    Living this way is not only less stressful, it is also far more meaningful. It is less stressful, because when the important things are taken care of, the other stuff just seems to matter less. It is more meaningful, because, just like happiness, meaning is a by product of doing the things that matter most to us.

    All sorts of good things happen when we live in ways that create more meaning for ourselves. Research points to things like improved physical and mental health, but because we are focusing on the “big rocks” we will find we move forward in our life more quickly. The point of this is not about “getting ahead” (that route is climbing back on the hamster wheel), it is that when we really focus in on doing what matters to us most – and adding it to inside of the circle of our attention and scheduled life – we become more of who we want to be.

    Think about that the next time you find yourself 30 min deep in scrolling Facebook posts or deciding to watch the next Netflix episode or not….

  • Analog(ue) vs Digital Living

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    I don’t know if you are regular/avid listeners of the Focused podcast, but the last episode was utter gold in my books. It was all about their use of calendars and really simplifying and personalizing organization and productivity stuff.

    I especially liked how they are using a mixture of analog wall calendars and paper journals with digital calendars and to do lists. I think that is more of the direction I want to go in as I have found the depths of digital productivity hell and it makes me sad.

    I can expand upon this later (maybe this is a blog post?), But the conclusion that I’m coming to is that the analogue in the digital are used differently. Really big picture things can go on a wall calendar (like for a year) and the few, small daily tasks can be put into a paper journal. all of the “digital brain“ stuff can and should be stored in the digital to do list and all appointments and time blocking needs to be on a digital calendar. They all serve very different goals.

    A part of the show that I forgot to mention before but I really liked was they quoted Sean Blanc with his digital system being “the brain” and his analog system being “the boss”. The digital system does the heavy lifting of storing, finding and organizing things, but the more nuanced and smaller day-to-day stuff can be done in an analog fashion. I like that. I certainly haven’t really done this yet, but I think it could work.