Why We ♥ It: I (hey! It’s Matt…) have a hard time focusing when people are talking around me or there is lyrical music playing in the background—Brain.fm solved this for me. Designed from the bottom up to affect your brain and optimize your performance, brain.fm is a subscription service that I use more than any other (not even Netflix comes close). It’ll help you focus, relax, sleep, and meditate—and it’s all backed by science.
“Productivity is most important for things you don’t want to be doing. Most people want to increase productivity so they can spend less time on the task. But before you worry about being more productive, think about being more selective. Rather than focusing on increasing productivity, it may be worth asking, ‘What would I be delighted to spend time on, even if it went slowly?’ Direct your energy toward figuring out how to start what you want to do rather than thinking about how to shorten what you don’t want to do.”
James Clear
“Station your physical body in the spot where your dream-work will and must happen. Want to write? Sit down at the keyboard. Wanna paint? Step up before the easel. Dance? Get your butt into the rehearsal studio. Dumb and obvious as it sounds, tremendous power lies in this simple physical action.”
Steven Pressfield, Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants To Be (Page 11)
Book Overview: Are you losing your “war of art”? Are you being defeated by a tendency to procrastination, self-doubt, fear, distraction, and perfectionism? Are you self-sabotaging your loftiest artistic entrepreneurial dreams? The antidote is in nine words: Put your ass where your heart wants to be. Can you shift your artistic identity—your “ass”—from the shallow, fearful, superficial ego to the wise, loving, fearless self? Can you commit to your dream for the long haul and for keeps? In this book, best-selling author Steven Pressfield delivers the tough-love inspiration to help you make this life-altering transformation.
Excerpt: These quotes from Essentialism present a hard-to-argue-with case for a better life via less. Maybe “more” isn’t what we need more of after all…
“The way of the Essentialist means living by design, not by default. Instead of making choices reactively, the Essentialist deliberately distinguishes the vital few from the trivial many, eliminates the nonessentials, and then removes obstacles so the essential things have clear, smooth passage. In other words, Essentialism is a disciplined, systemic approach for determining where our highest point of contribution lies, then making execution of those things almost effortless.”
Greg McKeown, Essentialism (Page 7)
“Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.”
Greg McKeown, Essentialism (Page 5)
Book Overview: Essentialism is more than a time-management strategy or a productivity technique. It is a systematic discipline for discerning what is absolutely essential, then eliminating everything that is not, so we can make the highest possible contribution toward the things that really matter. By forcing us to apply more selective criteria for what is Essential, the disciplined pursuit of less empowers us to reclaim control of our own choices about where to spend our precious time and energy—instead of giving others the implicit permission to choose for us. Essentialism is not one more thing—it’s a whole new way of doing everything. It’s about doing less, but better, in every area of our lives. Essentialism is a movement whose time has come.
Post(s) Inspired by this Book:
23 Greg McKeown Quotes from Essentialism and How To Live Better Via Less
Excerpt: Meditating is the act of, essentially, doing nothing. Which can feel totally counterproductive in our world. But, what if the opposite was true?
“You’re more likely to unlock a big leap in performance by trying differently than by trying harder. You might be able to work 10% harder, but a different approach might work 10x better. Remain focused on the core problem, but explore a new line of attack. Persistence is not just about effort, but also strategy. Don’t merely try harder, try differently.”
James Clear
“Getting a bad haircut is usually worse than missing an appointment with your stylist. A large portion of a tasteless dish is rarely better than a smaller portion of a delicious meal. There are many times in life when the outcome is more important than the output. In the same vein, your workflow shouldn’t just work; the system should create value for you and everyone else involved. Quality beats quantity.”
Aytekin Tank, Automate Your Busywork (Page 113)
“It will feel great to check off each item [of your to-do list], they say. When you reach the end, you’ll be free, they say. But the truth is there is no end.”
Aytekin Tank, Automate Your Busywork (Page 17)
“Of course, trimming ones’ to-do list reduces stress. But for some the idea of automation adds stress, since many people worry that humans will be replaced by an army of robots. But automation isn’t necessarily about replacing humans—it’s about handing off mindless, time-consuming tasks so that we can focus on the work machines can’t do.”
Aytekin Tank, Automate Your Busywork (Page 10)
“Your productivity is not the problem. Many of us have absorbed the message of productivity culture that says success requires a superhuman work ethic. When exhaustion and overwork are normalized, it’s easy to drive yourself into the ground and think it’s your fault you haven’t yet created the optimal morning routine or applied enough time hacks to tame your to-do list. But your productivity is not the problem; the problem is thinking you need to personally do every iota of work that lands on your plate.”
Aytekin Tank, Automate Your Busywork (Page 5)
“The ‘if I had time’ lie is a convenient way to ignore the fact that novels require being written and that writing happens a sentence at a time. Sentences can happen in a moment. Enough stolen moments, enough stolen sentences, and a novel is born — without the luxury of time.”
Julia Cameron, The Right To Write
“Top performers get back on track faster than most. This is the skill to develop. You will be interrupted, but you can choose to keep it brief.”
James Clear, Blog
