OG Tuesday Issue #185

⚡ Productivity Inspo: Learn how the 19th News editor-at-large gets it done.

🗣️ Communication: CEO of Avanade shares her advice on how to get ahead at work.

🚀 Entrepreneurship: Female founders say the entrepreneurial landscape is changing.

💪 Resilience: 3 women share how losing their jobs fed their entrepreneurial ambitions.

💡 Teamwork: Transform your company by fostering intrapreneurship.

It seems like an oxymoron, right?

To be more productive, you have to produce more, so slowing down seems like the last thing you’d want to do.

And yet, Cal Newport, author of Deep Work — a productivity classic — dropped his latest insightful guide on March 5.

It has a surprising title: Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout.

Instead of perpetuating the widely accepted notion that productivity revolves around quantity, Newport’s book suggests a new philosophy focused on quality.

Embodying his new philosophy involves three core practices that sound simpler than they are:

• Do fewer things.
• Work at a natural pace.
• Obsess over quality.

Newport acknowledges a core limitation of his idea: No matter how much it resonates, most people must still abide by the productivity norms set by their industry or workplace culture.

Breaking down what he calls a contemporary bias toward activity would require systemic change in addition to individual choice.

“This lesson, that doing less can enable better results, defies our contemporary bias toward activity, based on the belief that doing more keeps our options open and generates more opportunities for reward.”

While many of us can’t neglect established expectations in favor of Newport’s advice to do fewer things, we can follow his guidance to evaluate our own performance and value in terms of how we do the things most significant to us instead of how many things we do.

“The key to meaningful work is in the decision to keep returning to the efforts you find important. Not in getting everything right every time.”

In this way, we can look at Newport’s guidance as a kind of prioritization technique.

Instead of helping us determine how to order the things on our to-do list, this technique helps us recognize which items we’ve scratched off our to-do lists reflect our true accomplishments.

At my the last company I worked, we used Bonusly — it was a simple platform but it got everyone pumped.

People felt a sense of pride whenever they got points and recognition, so they went above and beyond.

Using Bonusly in a nutshell: You get a set amount of points each month (in my case it was 100 pts) that you can award to anyone in the company accompanied with a message.

What I personally loved about Bonusly:

• Your points don’t roll over so it encourages you to use them before they expire; you celebrate your team’s wins, big and small
• The feed is public so everyone (including C-suite) can see how awesome you are
• Points can be redeemed for rewards (I always redeemed mine for cash and bought flights to Cabo once!)
• Set up is a breeze & easily scalable; our company grew to 1,000+ employees, and the plans were easy to switch as we grew.

Plus — Bonusly just started offering free trial so you can try it out yourself with all the bells & whistles for 14 days.

Joanna (Co-Founder of TA)

One of our readers wants to know how to start things that stretch her mental resources:

The biggest challenge that I’m facing? Starting things that I have planned to do. For example I have started some courses, some of them I even bought, but I haven’t done anything because it’s too much to take and requires mental resources that I don’t have.

You are not alone.

The tendency to avoid things we truly want to do but are also a little intimidated by is totally common and totally natural, like in a psychological sense.

Clinical psychologist Ellen Hendriksen explains that we often react to a challenging task the same way we might react to a threat.

Instead of boldly confronting it, we freeze.

We don’t start the hard thing because that would be, quite frankly, dangerous.

One study even found that most people prefer experiencing actual physical pain to engaging in a mentally taxing activity.

Starting hard things doesn’t require more willpower or motivation. It requires knowing how to trick your “overprotective” brain into letting you.

Find ways to enjoy the effort as much as the result.

You want the big thing to be done. You can clearly visualize the rewards of the big thing being done.

But to enjoy the “done” part, you must first get through the “doing” part, which will be much easier if you actually enjoy it or appreciate its rewarding aspects.

(Some studies suggest this mental framing is key to finishing and continuously seeking difficult tasks.)

Do this exercise: Write down, and keep on your desk, a list of things you find enjoyable, engaging, fulfilling, stimulating, and/or rewarding about the journey toward your goal.

If you find it hard to see any intrinsic rewards in the “journey,” then create your own.

Set an initial achievable benchmark and plan how you’ll celebrate meeting it.

Set the bar low. This first milestone doesn’t have to be big; it only has to get you started.

Split the rest of the project into benchmarks paired with bigger and better celebrations.

If you’re still struggling to make progress, break those benchmarks in half. If necessary, you can make them even smaller.

The goal is identifying how you can best make progress. Taking a tiny incremental step is better than avoiding any step.

Picture the costs and benefits of the hard task in relation to things you might do instead.

Imagine you’ve found yourself with a few free hours.

Part of you knows you could use this time to get started on the hard task. Another part of you thinks you should tend to your inbox instead.

Decide what to do by listing the benefits and the costs/cons of each task.

Everyone is different, but most people automatically lean toward easier tasks with more immediate but less substantial benefits.

Taking a moment to reflect can put everything into perspective.

If your brain proves resistant no matter what you do, then try this. (It’s not actually a brain trick but it gets the job done.)

Choose a time block at least one day a week you can dedicate to the difficult task.

Ask your most organized, trustworthy friend to do accountability checks.

Just because it’s March, doesn’t mean it’s too late to create your own year at a glance calendar — there are still ~9 months left of the year.

Seize the opportunity to get organized and make the most of the remaining months.

Whether you’re planning personal goals, business milestones, or family events, this intuitive calendar will keep you on track and focused on what matters most.

Take control of your time with this free calendar template

*Powered by Notion.

P.S. New to Notion? Select “For my team” when you sign up.

🔢 Play conference call bingo with your work bestie to make meetings more fun.

📓 Self-Love Workbook to help you build confidence and self-love.

🖍️ Level up your highlighter game with this pastel colored Sharpie set.

🧊 If you have a meeting or team building event coming up, here are some icebreaker questions to kick it off.