Lenny Rachitsky: belief

Transcript context

…And having a framework for it gives you a path back. If you're just stuck and you're looking... You're sort of grasping for hacks. You're sort of like, "Oh, I read this blog post about this thing, I'll try it." That might have some short-term effect, but ultimately, you're probably not going to stick to it. You're probably going to fall back into that place of overwhelm and disappointment and burnout. But we find that if you have a system, that you can use the system and you can return to it and continue to build on and experiment, that you can make more sustainable progress on these things. I think a really important takeaway from these two stories you guys just shared is you don't have to do all of these things. You don't even have to do most of them. If you just do one or two, if you find one or two things that can make you a little bit more productive every day, that makes a huge dent. And so, I think it's okay to feel like, "Oh, I tried this stuff. It didn't work." I think as long as you take a couple of things away today that might be useful to you, and then just try them again in the future. If they end up not working out. Like you delete an app and then you reinstall it, I think that's okay. So, I think that's an important takeaway from this is don't feel like you're failing if you're not doing all of the things that we're talking about today. But let's get into it. There's this kind of four-part framework for how to help yourself be more productive. Basically, if you could just give an overview and then we'll just talk about each of these steps one by one. So, the four parts are create a highlight, laser, energize, and reflect. So, I'll turn it over to you guys just broadly, and then let's go through each of these one by one. It all starts with this notion of a highlight. And highlight is, I hate to say this, it's the most powerful best part, I think of the whole process. And I hate to say that because John came up with it. It wasn't even me. But I have to admit, it's really good. And I think as folks have read the book and shared it, that's the thing we hear back from people. If you could just do one thing from this book and try this out, it's a big deal. The notion what the highlight is, start your day out and you imagine it's the end of the day, you're looking back on the day. If someone asked you, "What was the highlight of your day," what would you say? What do you want to say at the end of today was the highlight of today? And you start there, just like, "Okay, what would I like to say the highlight of the day was?" And you might think about what's urgent. Sometimes the highlight is this thing that really has to happen today. Today is the day there's a big meeting, or there's this thing I absolutely have to get done for work for tomorrow. That could be your highlight and getting that done well, having good attention to that will be very satisfying. But a lot of times the highlight comes from joy or satisfaction, projects that wouldn't otherwise get attention. And it also doesn't have to just be something at work. It could be people in your life that you want to spend time with, a hobby that you want to spend time on. If you want to get better at Mario Kart, having a good session at Mario Kart, whatever might be the highlight of your day. The notion is just in the morning to think, "What is it and what is that highlight going to be?" And then, try to find a block that's 60 to 90 minutes. That's just usually the rough time we think it takes to really get in the zone on something, do a really excellent job, be totally focused on it. So, that highlight, that's the anchor of everything. That's the core, that's the foundation. And you start that way, you're now trying to shape your time around that highlight, and making sure that you have your peak energy, your peak attention when the time for that highlight comes around. So, laser is about the tactics you might need to actually focus on that thing. In highlight, we have a set of tactics for how to create and think about and frame that highlight. Laser, we have a set of tactics for how do you pay attention when that time comes? Then for energize, it's about having the right amount of energy to do the thing, to pay attention. My highlight for today is trying to be coherent in this podcast, so this morning I need to think about what's the best way for me to have peak energy when a podcast starts.…

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