Threats to Your Time and Attention

What is it that holds you back from being efficient and intentional with your time? What obstacles do you face to doing focused, deep work?

Previously, I shared about the three “waves” of productivity: Efficiency, Intentionality, and Meaning.

Now, let’s dive in and find out what it is that threatens these three areas of productive. In short, what is it that threatens your time, attention, and focus…?

Your Efficiency Is Threatened by Your Inefficiency

It’s obvious, but it’s also true. Your efficiency is threatened by inefficiency.

The first wave of productivity focused on improving efficiency through the implementation of productivity workflows, systems, and tools.

You don’t have to go full-on GTD, nor do you have to start using expensive and complicated software. I get by just fine using a physical paper notebook to manage 90% of my task and time management needs.

The tools and systems you use in and of themselves are not what’s important. But if you have an inefficient system — or perhaps even no system at all — then you won’t be able to reap the benefits and freedom that come with efficiently managing your day to day life. Instead, you’ll be spending a significant amount of your time just juggling and wrangling things that you could easily be managing well.

Your Intentionality Is Threatened by Your Lack of Boundaries

Without protecting the margin in your day, then the free time you create will be swallowed up by other demands and responsibilities on your schedule. This most commonly occurs by giving in to the tyranny of the urgent.

Boundaries are important. You must be able to say no to the non-essential demands on your time and attention, and you must maintain margin and breathing room within your schedule so emergencies don’t arise every time there is a little unexpected thing that pops into your day.

Your Meaningful Work Is Threatened by Your Lack of Clarity and Inability to Focus

Many people do not have clarity about what it means to be productive and valuable in their work. From a high-level, they cannot define what important, deep work is. And from a granular level, they lack the clarity to know what their next steps are and what they should aim to do on a regular basis.

As a result, that lack of clarity leads to unfocused busy work such as checking email, social media, news, etc. And this is super-bad-news because many people substitute busyness as a proxy for productivity.

As I mentioned last week, clarity cures busywork.

But clarity alone is not enough. You also need the skill to focus and do the work, rather than procrastinate and give in to distractions.

If you’re struggling to find clarity about your focused, deep work, you’re not alone. Ditto if you’re a master procrastinator.

(Side Note: I put together all my book notes from Deep Work and also combined those notes with all the key takeaways and highlights from my interview with Cal Newport. You can download the in-depth notes here.

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Up next in this series, we’ll be hitting on the most common pitfalls to productivity and how your time and attention are crucial in protecting your margin.

The pitfalls differ from the above threats in that the former are habits and mindsets you have that you may not even know about. They’re things that are found in your own individual productivity systems as well as within the teams you work with, and even within your whole company.

Third-Wave Productivity

Productivity training has matured significantly over the past 15 years.

We began with an emphasis on efficiency. Then, we began to ask the question about how to use that efficiency to free up time in our day. Now we are realizing that using that extra time to do meaningful work is a skill in and of itself.

In short, third-wave productivity has nothing to do with artisanal to-do list apps.

A little while back, I had the honor of interviewing Cal Newport about his book, Deep Work. While there is a lot in our conversation that I’d love to get into, it will have to wait for another time. Today, I wanted to pull out one segment where Cal and I talked about the Three Waves of Productivity.

Side Note: I put together all my book notes from Deep Work and also combined those notes with all the key takeaways and highlights from my interview with Cal Newport. You can download the in-depth notes here.

Productivity Wave One: “Efficiency”

This first wave focused heavily on systems, methodologies, and tools. It touted efficiency as the ultimate form of productivity, stating that you need to capture and organize all your tasks and projects and other areas of responsibility. To do this you need smarter lists and more powerful tools.

(Note that there are many ways to be efficient with your time and your tasks beyond a specific or complex methodology. I for one am a huge fan of the Ivy Lee method.)

Productivity Wave Two: “Intentionality”

This second wave built on the first. Saying that organizing your tasks is not the height of productivity. Rather, it’s about making room to do the real work. This second wave was more of a mindset shift than a skill.

In other words, it was the realization that when you are efficient with all the incoming stuff and your ideas and time, then you are able to create space in your day to do the important work. (Note that another way to create space in your day is to say ‘no’ to certain incoming things and create some margin for yourself.)

This intentionality of choosing to do meaningful work exposed a truth that to merely free up your time isn’t enough.

Once people had time available to do the “real work,” they often didn’t even know what it was — nor did they have the skills needed to take advantage of that time.

Doing the real work is, in itself, a craft that takes time and practice, and this is what the third wave is all about…

Productivity Wave Three: “Meaning”

Wave three is about defining what to do in the time that you’re fighting to clear out and taking advantage of that “real work” time.

We have had to reengage with what it means to concentrate and do focused, meaningful work. We are now giving our attention to what it means to do deep work.

These three waves serve one another. You need all three to get the true benefits, and it’s not until you get to the third wave that you start to see all the benefits.

It is in the third wave where you start to produce more valuable work and you find your work more meaningful.

However, the challenge here is that many people do not have clarity about what it means to be productive and valuable. They cannot define what important, deep work is. As a result, that lack of clarity leads to unfocused busy work such as checking email, social media, news, etc.

In his book, Deep Work, Cal warns against using busyness as a proxy for productivity:

In the absence of clear indicators of what it means to be productive and valuable in their jobs, many knowledge workers turn back toward an industrial indicator of productivity: doing lots of stuff in a visible manner.

Clarity cures busywork.

Clarity about what matters also gives clarity about what does not. Clarity is vital if you want to do deep work on a regular basis over the long run.

Next, we’ll talk about the most common issues that will threaten your efficiency, intentionality, and deep work. We’ll also get into the most common pitfalls to productivity.

In the meantime, I’ve put together all my book notes from Deep Work and combined it with all the key takeaways and highlights from my interview with Cal Newport. You can download the in-depth notes here.

Why not do less?

As a chronic maximizer, here are a few reminders that I need from time to time.

• You don’t have to take action on every idea.
• There’s no need to push every project to the max; ship when things are useful.
• You can make a decision without knowing every last detail and option; action will bring clarity.
• It’s okay if you don’t finish every book you start; some books are turds.
• You don’t have to respond to every email you receive.
• Sometimes good enough is good enough.

Having breathing room — a little bit left over — is perfectly acceptable. In fact, it’s preferred.

In a nut, I’d rather go big on a few really special things by doing less on everything else.

Three Signs You Need Margin

How would you describe your average day?

Here are some common answers I see to this question. People often describe their day as being:

• Busy
• Overwhelming
• Stressful
• Crazy
• Full

In contrast, how would you describe your ideal day? How do you WISH your average day was?

For me, my average day is generally fulfilling, fun, and productive.

As much as I love a good vacation in the Colorado mountains, I would get a bit stir crazy if I didn’t ever have something to put my hand to. And, of course, if all I ever did was work, I’d burn myself out — which is what I used to do.

I used to work 70 hours a week. In 2015 I only took about 10 days off the whole year. I even worked over my Christmas vacation! Yikes.

It took me years to become comfortable with taking time off. Evenings, weekends, long lunches, even vacations… I would feel guilty if I wasn’t cramming every minute of my day with something productive and important.

Dr. Richard Swenson writes, in his book on Margin, that we must “develop the necessary underpinnings for margin that will allow us to accept its importance without guilt. For just as we need to eat and sleep, so we also need to breathe.”

When you’re at capacity, there is no room for anything else. But when there is space left over — when there is margin — that space enables you to breath.

3 signs you may need some margin in your day:

1. You feel fatigued, hurried, and anxious rather than excited, calm, and secure.

2. You have little or no time for your own projects and passions because your day is filled up having to respond to so many other urgent issues.

3. You often wake up to your day, rather than waking up for your day.

If that sounds too familiar, good news: We’ve developed some simple frameworks and systems that help you create your ideal day — one with margin, flexibility, and freedom.

Margin Means Options, Flexibility, and Freedom

When you have margin in your life, you have more flexibility.

Flexibility that allows for breathing room in your life for things such as…

• A calendar that isn’t overflowing with obligations
• The flexibility to adjust your schedule when you want or need, without consequences
• Freedom to spend time with the people who matter most to you
• Plenty of time to think and work without urgency and looming deadlines

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I just taught an intro class on margin, and here was some of the feedback…

Join us for the Margin Booster (hands-on, in-depth training)

Starting this month (March 2023) we are kicking off an in-depth, live training for folks who want to get back margin in their life.

This is only for members of our community. And if you’d like to join, you can learn more and sign up here and you’ll get instant access.

Create More Focus and Margin by Reducing Inputs

You need input, advice, and inspiration in order to make decisions, come up with new ideas, or take action on something.

But with too many inputs (especially too many non-essential inputs), your ability to think clearly and make decisions is hindered. It leads to less progress, dual focus, and, ultimately, very little traction.

Left-to-right:

1. A plethora of inputs, opinions, and opportunities coming your way;
2. As they all mingle together, there is too much noise and not enough margin to think clearly;
3. As a result, you end up with dual focus and unclear action.

However…

By removing non-essential inputs, you will have more space to think, find clarity, and organize your thoughts. Thus enabling you to take focused action and see progress.

Left-to-right:

1. Reduce to only the intentional, essential input;
2. This creates space to think, decide, and find connections;
3. Clear thoughts lead to focused action and more margin.

If you’re struggling to find clarity and gain traction, consider cutting back on anything that is distracting you from being able to focus and find clarity.

Everything is always busy (RSVP for free workshop)

Join us next week for our next free workshop.

Our March, live class is all about how to get your time back . . . even when it feels like everything is always busy.

If you want to get your time (and your life) back, I’ll show you how.

Even if things feel overwhelming, you’re not sure where to start, and you’ve already “been there, tried that, and bought the darn t-shirt.”

The truth is, what I’ll show you next week is very simple and straightforward. (Stuff that works always is.)

But, as you know, it’s easy to get stuck by overthinking and overcomplicating things.

Or maybe you find yourself trapped inside of too much momentum of a life that is too busy and you’re not sure how to slow it down.

But…

When you have more breathing room, it means more possibilities, more rest, and more fun.

👉 Join me (Shawn) to find out how you can free yourself from overwhelm and restore margin to your week. RSVP here.

• My simple, 2-part framework to restore margin

• The 5 Areas of Margin

• How (and why) we use this approach to take off 9 weeks per year in our company

• Why people struggle to maintain breathing room in their life

• How to get more breathing room in your own life (starting now)

RSVP HERE »

There will also be time for live Q&A to talk about any questions you may have around time management, how to say “no”, decision making, and more.

Want to know how to get more breathing room?

Register for the Everything is Busy webinar

What: Everything is Always Busy: (Live Webinar) — The only two ways to restore breathing room to your life

When: Wednesday 8 March 2023 — 3pm Eastern / Noon Pacific / 8pm GMT

Where: RSVP Here (this way we can email you a link to join us live).

Plus, live Q&A to talk about any questions you may have around margin, time management, how to say “no”, and more.

SAVE MY SPOT »

Bonus: The Margin Assessment tool (shows you exactly where you should focus first).