Tag: TDL

At this point in my career, I’ve been working remotely more than I have ever been in an office. I don’t ever want to have to return into an office unless it’s absolutely necessary.

Part of working like this, though, is maintaining a sense of self-discipline for the backlog of tasks required for work and doing so in such a way that makes it easy for me to focus on what I’m working on, what’s next, and what’s in the backlog. (If you’re a developer and you’re reading this, then you’re probably thinking kanban and you’re not wrong – but what I’m getting at is slightly different).

Before getting too much into the rest of the article, I do want to share that the majority of work I do right now is captured in Asana and organized by quarter. We have very little email and very little thrashing between emails, DMs, and other behavior commonly associated with the hyperactive hive mind.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to take a little further to not only help my day-to-day (especially during periods of increased business) but also to help give visibility to other people with whom I work so they know where a given task stands in my queue.

And don’t think this is me elevating my day-to-day any more important than yours. On the contrary. I’m sharing this to help give insight on what I’ve found that works so it may help you, too.

Back in June, I wrote an article called Living Deeply, Writing Broadly and tagged it under TDL. I haven’t done much with that particular tag since writing that post, though.

Earlier this week, a close friend sent me the following text (with some context removed for the sake of keeping it concise):

Clear writing gives poor thinking nowhere to hide. A lack of understanding, which was previously invisible, becomes suddenly visible. You can’t simply take a few minutes here and there, get the gist of the problem, and expect to have clear writing. It doesn’t work that way.

How to Think Better: The Skill You’ve Never Been Taught

Not so long ago I used to write daily even if it wasn’t for this site. I’d write in a journal or in a notebook or a field guide just to get some thoughts done.

Not everything worth writing is necessarily worth publishing, but perhaps nearly everything deserving of serious consideration is worth putting into writing. At least in terms of working on or working out an idea.

Couple that with a recent podcast from Cal Newport in which he breaks down what he calls The Deep Life Stack along with many of the things I’ve been working to practice in my day-to-day for the last couple of years and you have somewhat of a structure for how I’ve been trying to organize this particular phase – or season, as some say – of my life.

If you listen to any of Newport’s podcasts or any others that talk about this type of stuff, they often cite a case study or multiple case studies throughout their episodes or book. So why not take the material I’m learning and turn myself into my own case study?