Routines
The shutdown note: five lines that stop work following you home
Ending the day well is a smaller problem than starting it well, and it is solved almost entirely by writing things down before you…
Daily Clarity
Notes on attention, working hours and the plans that survive contact with a Tuesday.
Attention · This week
The first hour decides the day, and most of us give it away
Between waking up and the first real task there is a stretch of time that almost nobody plans. What happens in it tends to set the tone for the next eight hours.
Methods
Planning
Task lists that survive Tuesday
Most lists are written on a good day for a good day. Then Tuesday arrives with a broken deploy and the list becomes decoration.…
Working hours
Meetings that earn their slot
A meeting costs the number of people in the room multiplied by its length, plus the fragments of time on either side that nobody c…
Attention
The real cost of switching tabs
Switching is cheap in the moment and expensive in aggregate, which is exactly the shape of a habit nobody notices forming.…
Planning
Planning a week in thirty minutes
A weekly plan is not a schedule. It is a short argument with yourself about what the week is for, and it takes half an hour.…
Notes
Reading notes you actually reuse
Most notes are written once and never opened again. A few simple constraints change that ratio more than any app ever will.…
Longer reads
Working hours
Deep work in an open office
Advice about long, silent blocks of concentration usually assumes a door. Here is the version for a room with forty desks and no walls.
Attention
What to do on the days focus will not come
Some days the usual routine simply does not take. The useful response is procedural rather than motivational.
The Thursday letter
One short piece a week — usually a method someone on the desk tried and either kept or dropped. No attachments, no course, no schedule creep.