Lenny Rachitsky: commitment

Transcript context

…Yes, exactly. It's like a chat roulette without the dirty bits. So, I love this company so much, I actually invested in it. So basically, what you do is you go online, you look at this calendar and you pick a time when you want to do focused work. So, one of my issues used to be getting started. Once I got started, I was good, but getting started 8:00 A.M., I kind of like what you were saying with this cold start problem. So, what it does is it gives you this pact, again, this pre-commitment you're making with another person, "Okay, 8:00 A.M., I'm going to be there. And if you don't show up, you're going to get a bad review." So, it binds you to another person to build this effort pact to say, "I will be here at that time." You say, "Okay, what are you working on? What am I working on? All right, go." And for that entire time box, you work without distraction. And just seeing that other person who's also working without distraction is a wonderful way to bind you into what you said you were going to do. So, those are just a few tools. There's many, many others. Amazing. Okay, so let me actually try to just list out all the things you've shared so far and it's going to be across all the four steps and then I'm going to follow up on a couple things here. So, here's my notes. One is this idea of just set a ten-minute timer and just tell yourself, "I am going to work on something that I really want to work on right now for 10 minutes and that's all I'm going to do. " And while you're doing that, surf the urge, you're going to feel like you don't, but just surf it and feel it and be aware that this is difficult. The calendaring of your day, that feels like a fundamental part of your approach is just figure out what you want to do during the day. Ahead of time, put it on the calendar. So, your to-do list is your calendar, essentially. There's this whole idea of pacts. You shared a bunch of different pact ideas, there's like I'll pay you a lot of money if I don't do this. There's this Wi-Fi. Okay. And then I guess that translates into some of these other things. The Wi-Fi killer device, the Forest app, the Focusmate app and product. And then there's a few other things you shared. Just do not disturb, like set a timer so that during the day, you have do-not-disturb on during set times. For you, it's all the time, which I try to do, too. And then obviously, let your wife through important contacts and then make your family aware of when you're going to be working so that they know not to bother you. Maybe this concentration crown. Yeah.…

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