Jake Knapp: preference

Transcript context

…Record a great podcast episode. Excellent, excellent. Okay. Yeah. And if you're not watching on video, Lenny had a sticky note and he wrote it down. So, that's actually literally the best way to do this is write it down on a sticky note, put it somewhere where you can see it. And so, you've got highlight, laser during the time of the highlight, energize, make sure you have the energy you need when the time comes. And these are just tactics around sleep and food and exercise, and just things that help with your mental energy, not crazy stuff. And then the final thing is reflect, and this is where we think about this as the scientific method. Did it work? Did what I tried today work out? And if not, just being curious about it, what didn't? And adjusting and trying to think, "Okay, maybe there's another tactic I can try." So, the book is like... What are there like 87 tactics in the book? There's a lot of different approaches, but the expectation is not you're going to use all of them. And the expectation is not that- ... expectation is not you're going to use all of them. And the expectation is not that all of them will work for each person. I use different tactics than John does, and some of his don't work for me, and vice versa. But that idea of centering on a thing, focusing on it, having tactics for that, having tactics for energy, and then having some tactics to reflect and reframe and be curious. That taken together, we find, just can reframe the way it feels. It's not really about productivity. It's not about time management. It's really just about, look, in any given day, we're lucky if we can have one great moment where we have our peak attention, and we use it well. And it's not going to happen every day, but if we have some intention around it, it can happen more often than not. I think that last point is so important and why the highlight works so well for me is usually there's... You don't get anything amazingly done in a day, often. And usually, you're just distracted by all these things, and you're doing all the easy stuff. You talked about this idea of Project A, like here's the thing I really want to get done, but the dopamine hit us so far in the future, and it's so hard. And so, the reason I think the highlight is so powerful is, you get one thing done you're proud of, that is a great day. And it may sound crazy that that's true, but it's so true.…

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