WORK LESS WEDNESDAY
WLW #71
This week’s issue of Work Less Wednesday is sponsored by:
đ Demand Curve: Advanced growth insights. By email. đ
69,500 people read Demand Curve each week, including me. I often feature stories I saw in Demand Curve in Work Less Wednesday. If you’re a growing a company or startup, Demand Curve gives you the playbook.
đ 1. How To Be More Productive (While Working Less) – Article By Mark Manson
Productivity is not linear.
Most people think about work like this:
More hours in, more work out.
That would be nice, but itâs just not true.
If youâre running a factory, maybe.
But when your work relies on your brain, nope.
Ever notice how your first hour of work is much more productive than your tenth hour of work?
Yeah, itâs a thing.
Productivity is not linear.
By the time you hit 10 hours, youâre useless.
In reality, productivity has diminishing returns.
It looks like this:
That means once you reach a certain point, for each hour you put in, you only get 1/2 hour’s worth of work out.
Hereâs why:
Like a muscle, your brain tires out. And if youâre exercising your brain by doing any sort of problem-solving, or important decision-making, then youâre limited in how much you can effectively accomplish in a day.
But it getâs even crazier than that:
You can actually get to a point of working too many hours, where you start to experience negative returns.
Think about the last time you pulled an all nighter and then how totally useless the next day.
Your brain stops working.
You need sleep.
The next day is ruined.
Those are negative returns.
It turns out there is a sweet spot when it comes to knowledge work:
Right when diminishing returns set in (and way before negative returns become a problem).
If you want to optimize productivity & rest, stop working after 5-6 hours.
Hate to break it to you:Â âhustlingâ doesnât work if you want to work smart.
đ±Â 2. Build Better Habits By Gamifying Your Life – Habitica
Iâve been using the habit tracking app Productive for over 5 years.
Itâs help me to build many of the cornerstone habits I still do to this day: Morning routines, evening routines, etc.
I really like it and it gets the job done.
Recently my wife was ready for a change.
She downloaded Habitica – another habit tracking app.
And I gotta say, itâs pretty cool.
Habitica turns your habits into a video game.
Every time you complete a habit or a goal, you literally level up.
- You can participate in quests with other people, which gives you accountability and pushes you to do more.
- You get rewards for doing your habits, including outfits, equipment, and pets.
- It also allows you to create habits, do your daily routine, and track your to-do list in one place.
While Productive is all about maintaining your habit streak and being perfect, it’s all or nothing.
My wife liked Habitica’s approach better.
When you miss a habit in Habitica, it decreases the health of your character.
But the difference is, in order to regain your health, you have to resume your habits, which encourages you to get back on track.
Itâs a totally unique take on the habit-tracking app, and itâs worth checking out if you’ve found that you need something more motivating than a simple tracker.
P.S. Hereâs my wifeâs character:
đ 3. I Got Câs In English Class, But Generated Millions With Copy –Â Copywriting Process Master Guide By Tej Dosa
I see a lot of freebies get shared on social media.
Most are terrible.
This is not.
In fact, this one is REALLY good.
This is the stuff most people charge for.
Copywriter Tej Dosaâs 19 page copywriting guide reveals the un-sexy truth about copywriting that few talk aboutâŠ
The secret to writing high-converting copy is itâs not so much about the writing.
It’s about what you do BEFORE you write.
Itâs about nailing the research, elements, positioning, structure, answering objections, and flow.
And he breaks down each step in the guide.
âCheck it out here (& bookmark it).
đ„ 4. The Next Step Up From Loom – Tella
Weâve been using Loom for years at both of my companies.
We use Loom videos for internal communication, client communication, and even for recording course content.
And while I love it, and will keep using it because itâs so easy, Iâve always had an issue with Loom.
I felt like the quality wasnât quite polished enough when I needed to record course content.
All you get is your head in a circle.
Enter Tella.
ella is like Loom, but better.
It has:
- Higher quality video recording
- Multiple screen layouts
- Custom background graphics
- Easy in-app editing
If you need to make a high-quality course video, tutorial, or demo, check out Tella next time.
I’m using it for some upcoming projects. đ
đ 5. Book I Finished This Week – No Boundary by Ken Wilber
Went down the philosophy rabbit hole with this one.
While only 140 pages long, No Boundary is not a quick read.
It takes time to digest.
Author & philosopher Ken Wilberâs work combines spirituality, psychology, and cognitive science.
Written in 1971, No Boundary feels as relevant today as ever.
No Boundary is about how the boundaries we impose on ourself in life are really creations of our mind.
But one sentence doesn’t really do it justice.
I’ve copied in a quick preview passage from the book below:
Have you ever wondered why life comes in opposites?
Why all decisions are between opposites?
Why all desires are based on opposites?
Notice that all spatial and directional dimensions are opposites: up vs. down, inside vs. outside, high vs. low, long vs. short, North vs. South, big vs. small, here vs. there, top vs. bottom, left vs. right.
And notice that all things we consider serious and important are one pole of a pair of opposites: good vs. evil, life vs. death, pleasure vs. pain, God vs. Satan, freedom vs. bondage.
This fact is so commonplace as to hardly need mentioning, but the more one ponders it the more it is strikingly peculiar.
For nature, it seems, knows nothing of this world of opposites in which people live.
Nature doesnât grow true frogs and false frogs, nor moral trees and immoral trees, nor right oceans and wrong oceans.
There is no trace in nature of ethical mountains and unethical mountains.
Nor are there even such things as beautiful species and ugly speciesâat least not to Nature, for it is pleased to produce all kinds.
Thoreau said Nature never apologizes, and apparently itâs because Nature doesnât know the opposites of right and wrong and thus doesnât recognize what humans imagine to be âerrors.â
âIf this speaks to you, I suggest you check it out.
đ P.S. I’m Launching A New (FREE) Course!
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In it, I break down the exact systems I used to scale my business to $500k/year while working less than 15 hours/week.
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