What Quiet Mornings and Productivity Have in Common

One word

Yesterday evening, I was sitting on my roof (for no apparent reason), getting nothing whatsoever important done on my laptop.

Checking email

Responding to Substack comments

Web surfing

I find myself gravitating towards these things when I know I should be doing something more important, so instead of feeling like a total slump, I work on something with a much lower return on investment. Somehow, because it keeps me busy, I feel productive.

Around 6:43 pm, I remembered something I read in a book by Chris Baily. He said that if you’re working on something, you should set limits on your time. Otherwise, the work will expand to fill however much time you give it.

I decided to give it a shot.

After all, I wasn’t enjoying myself because I was sloshing between work and goofing off but not really choosing either.

So I opened Substack and started writing. I decided to give myself until 7 pm, about 17 minutes, to see how much I could write. Almost immediately, I noticed a difference.

As soon as there were constraints placed, my focus narrowed significantly. I zoned out the world around me and dropped into flow. Words flew onto the page. I ended up working a little bit past 7 pm because I was on a roll, but needless to say, I wrote a whole newsletter (over 1,000 words) in about 20-22 minutes. That’s a first. Here’s the newsletter I wrote. One of my favorites to date.

So what happened? Is this some magical productivity hack that overhalls distractions? As I thought about it, I don’t think so. I think it’s valuable in certain situations and can help people, but really, I think it comes down to intentionality. As I thought about it, an enormous number of strategies for focus, productivity, goals, relationships, you name it, come back to increasing intentionality.

Intentionality defines the outcome

Something I’m learning as I pursue the balance between a calm life and a productive life. In my experience, if I lean toward only productivity, I run myself ragged. If I lean only on the calm side, I slowly melt into a puddle of procrastination. It might sound counterintuitive, but I’ve found the best approach is to have times set aside to do each of these intentionally.

Let’s say you want to have a great, relaxing morning. Despite what you may think, waking up whenever you want and wandering around doing anything that comes to your mind actually isn’t very enjoyable. There needs to be structure, like guard rails, aiming you at the desired outcome. You need to be intentional.

When it comes to productivity and focus, the same thing applies, although we rarely take advantage of it. Perhaps you resemble me on the roof, waffling between multiple things but unable to gain traction on any. If you find yourself here, take a second to define what you want to be intentional about. You can do it the way I did, by putting constraints on yourself, eliminating distractions, or any other method you choose. The system is less important as long as it zeros you in on your desired outcome.

The important thing I learned during this experience was that whether you are trying to write a newsletter about dominating distractions or watching a movie with friends, always be intentional about it. We rob ourselves of so much rejuvenation and productivity by slipping and sliding between desired outcomes. Mark out a time for something and do it fully. Even if it’s doing nothing at all.

If you want to learn my personal strategy for daily intentionality, read this post.