This Week’s BIG Idea
I’ve been avoiding email for the past few days. As an experiment, I’d like to deal with all of my emails in a batch. This is called task batching and it involves grouping similar activities together so that you deal with them all at the same time. So instead of dealing with email as soon as I get a notification, I deal with all of my emails at the same time. As simple as it is, task batching allows me to focus on my most important activities throughout the day so that I can deal with email when it’s more convenient.
Interestingly, most of the emails I get are from newsletters I’m subscribed to, so I get a lot of value out of those emails. I receive book recommendations from top performers, I get to read some amazing quotes, and I receive updates from some of my favorite authors. But I get to choose when I deal with email, not an app on my phone. So far, I’ve been avoiding email for around a week and I intend to read all of them as soon as I can. This is the power of task batching.
What I’m Working on
I don’t have a lot to share in this department this week. Essentially, I’ve been reading books so that I can post summaries of them for the site. Finding the “right” books has been difficult and I just realized that my job isn’t to just summarize books, but also to curate content. This means that the books that make it to summaries on the site should meet some basic standards. Ideally, the content on the site (and this mainly applies to summaries) should be amazing. A problem I see with most sites that offer summaries is that they are all over the place. Although I want to cover a lot of topics through my summaries, I don’t want to feel the need to cover everything.
What I’m Listening to
Ever since I can remember, I listen to something as soon as I wake up. First, it was music, then podcasts, and for the past few months, I’ve been listening to guided meditations on my phone. But for the past few days, I resisted the impulse of turning on my phone and listening to something as soon as I woke up. I’ve been chasing mental clarity for a while now and there’s nothing like moments of quiet, especially when you wake up.
What I’m Reading
The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz: More and more books come up as I read. This never-ending virtuous circle of recommendations is a great way to find the best next read. One book I constantly hear about is The Paradox of Choice, where Barry Schwartz discusses the consequences of having too many options.
What I’m Watching
I’m not subscribed to many YouTube channels, so one of the few channels I follow decides to do something different, it resonates with me. Mark Manson has been teasing something new for a while. For the past few months, the popular author has been working on social experiments and the first video is now out. I like this new direction for the channel and I can’t wait for more videos to come out.
This Week’s Quote
“Don’t “scratch” unless there’s an “itch”.”
Barry Schwartz
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