I love variety. I thrive in a little chaos. (I’m a Pisces with ADHD 🙋♂️)
For years, I tried to focus the way productivity books told me to.
Plan your day the night before. Stick to the schedule. Stay on one thing until it’s done.
It never lasted. By mid-morning I’d have 14 tabs open, 3 half-finished emails, and nothing done.
I thought something was wrong with me.
What I finally figured out is that the advice was written for a different kind of brain.
So I stopped trying to force myself into a rigid schedule. I set up my day around how my brain actually works.
Two ideas made the difference.
Short deadlines get me started
In 1955, British historian C. Northcote Parkinson wrote a funny little essay for The Economist. It opens with one line: work expands to fill the time you give it.
To prove it, he describes an older woman with a free day and one postcard to send to her niece.
She spends an hour finding the postcard. Another hour hunting for her glasses. Half an hour looking for the address.
Then an hour and 15 minutes writing it. And 20 minutes deciding whether to bring an umbrella for the walk to the mailbox down the street.
A busy person would get the same postcard out in about 3 minutes.
That’s me with a long deadline.
If I give myself 6 hours to write a newsletter, it takes 6 hours. If I give myself 30 minutes, it takes 30 minutes. The result is usually just as good.
A short deadline gives my brain the urgency it’s looking for. I stop wandering and start.
My focus runs out after about 90 minutes
In their new book Ultraproductive, my friends Eric Partaker and Dr. Christian Poensgen explain why focus comes in waves.
Your sleep moves in cycles of about 90 minutes. Sleep researcher Nathaniel Kleitman believed that rhythm keeps going while you’re awake.
You get about 90 minutes of sharp focus. Then your energy dips and your mind looks for something new.
I used to struggle through that dip. Now I plan for it.
How I put them together
I call it sprint, then switch.
1. Pick your sharpest 90 minutes.
Mine used to be early morning. Then my toddler son started waking up really early. Now I take care of him before work, so I moved my focus time to the afternoon.
That’s when I do my most important work. Nothing else goes there.
2. Split it into three 30-minute sprints.
One task per sprint. Set a timer. When it goes off, take 5 minutes, then start the next one.
3. Give the chaos its own block.
After the sprints, I switch on purpose. Email, new ideas, all those tabs. My brain gets the variety it wants, and the important work is already done.
The 3rd step is the one that made the biggest difference for me. I stopped feeling guilty about loving variety. I just gave it a time slot.
Try this today
Look at tomorrow and find your sharpest 90 minutes.
Write down 3 tasks, one for each 30-minute sprint.
Then block the hour after it for everything else.
I still open 14 tabs most days. They just wait until my sprints are done.
Talk soon,
Justin
P.S. I’m testing a cleaner, simpler look for the newsletter. Do you like it, or did you like the old one better? Tell me what you think. I read every reply.
