The Science Of Productive Output

This year, I wanted to review the literature on how to stay focused and on task for as long as possible with the least effort (e.g., not ice-bathing or completing 9 hours of meditation).

AM BLOCK:

1. On waking, get outside within the first 90 minutes of the day for at least 10 minutes
   

2. Consume caffeine only 90 minutes after waking, and consume it with food
   

3. Supplement with magnesium, which is a big precursor for a ton of other biochemical functions, and roughly 58% of the population isn’t getting adequate intake (I was one of those people).

   
   I use Rest & Rise, but I also own part of the company.
   

4. In your working area, have your lights turned on, and if possible, sit next to an open window
   

5. Ensure your phone is in another room
   

6. Work in 45-minute blocks and take a 2- 5-minute break where you stare out at the sky with no phone (I’ve got a physical timer on my desk for this)
   

7. Single task, so just focus on one activity - do not multi-task. There is literally no literature supporting the ability to do two cognitively difficult tasks concurrently without a drop in performance in both
   

   • BONUS: Add in a cold shower or meditation if you want, but not necessary

PM BLOCK:

1. Do not consume caffeine within 8 hours of your sleep

2. In the afternoon, 3 PM onwards, turn off all overhead lighting

3. Aim for 7 hours of sleep each night

GENERAL RULES:

• Add in 30 minutes of exercise 3 - 4 times a week (2 x weights and 2 x cardio) > if you do this, magnesium is needed

• Eat a healthy diet

• Don’t drink alcohol on working days

• Do your hardest tasks first and write them out the night before

Notes:

• Maintaining focus without checking social media or task switching is difficult - the pull you get to check LinkedIn or IG is something you get better at avoiding, and that urge is something you train

• Consistency compounds

• Link to the literature here

Toyota’s 5 Why’s

Kale shared an article with me today that mentioned “Toyota’s 5 Why’s”.

It’s a simple method to get to the root cause of issues.

When a problem occurs, ask "why" five times.

• Why did the page crash? An undefined value was accessed.

• Why was it undefined? The database query returned nothing.

• Why did we access it without checking? We assumed data would exist.

• Why did we assume that? There's no enforced pattern for handling empty results.

• Why is there no enforced pattern? We never built one.

Lots of people I work with stop at the first “Why”.

But stopping at the first why is “band-aiding” and creates more work, not less. You end up having to fix the same problem 3,4,5,6 times.

The insights is: if issues are recurring in your business it’s because you haven’t solved the root cause.