I let work pile up thinking “I’ll get to it later”. But we never do, do we? One of things I learned these two weeks is that this is a common pattern, that makes us both stressed and tired.

Productivity and stress

Sam Matla shared a wonderful short video on how to stop being stuck and it seems he’s come up with the same strategy that I’ve experimented with:

“Most often when you’re stuck in a rut, the answer is to speed up, to experiment and finish, to work anyway”

— Sam Matla

The reason this works is that having unfinished tasks hanging around consumes mental energy. So simply closing them, or having neat deadlines to eliminate scope creep from the start, frees up energy for more interesting use.

Later that same day I heard Nick Huber rammed home that idea on the My First Million podcast:

“stress is a decision that hasn’t yet been made”

Nick Huber

I’ve been feeling overwhelmed by simply keeping decisions lying around. Projects unfinished. Tasks 90% done. No wonder the work stacks up, when all my energy is spent worrying about unfinished tasks instead of finishing them?

Timestripe, a productivity software I’ve been checking out, had this apt quote in their onboarding:

“Small wins boost your motivation. Which gives you the power to achieve more. More results = more motivation = more results. Set simple goals for today, achieve them, celebrate, and come back tomorrow.”

Timestripe

Project updates

I also had some people ask me about where they could reach out to very specific niches based on interest. Which is exactly what Sponsorpost is trying to automate. Always interesting when the market pulls you, instead of you pushing.

I’ve also started up BlankPage again! Not the full writing service. But rather the daily inspiration email. When I closed blankpage in 2019 a lot of users reached out and asked me to keep the email running. At the time I was so burned out I didn’t realise that was a great idea.. So I missed out on 4 years of a wonderful email newsletter. Needless to say, I’m really psyched about trying this out!

Comparison for growth instead of unhappiness

Mark Manson shared the simple reason for most unhappiness, which might be worth thinking extra hard about.

“Comparison is inevitable. Instead of trying to stop comparing yourself to others, compare yourself to better people and for better reasons.”

— Mark Manson

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