1/ Productivity tip: when I keep procrastinating on something I often trick myself by saying, "ok just work on it for the next 20 minutes" or some short period of time, "and then you can chill/relax guilt free" and give myself some treat (sugar, netflix, etc)

Reducing the Pain of Context-Switching 🔀

Context switching is a huge pain as both a dev & dev advocate and makes it hard to be creative!

Three things that help:

📥 Centralize your capture
🤔 Review regularly
🤖 Automate where you can

Let's dig into each of these!

📥 Centralize your capture

"Cognitive setup" is the big drain of context-switching. Try @fortelabs' "slow burns 🔥 vs heavy lifts 🏋️‍♂️".

Trade 1 big block of cognitive setup + creative work for short sessions that keep the project context fresh. More:

First "slow burn" strategy: centralize where you capture ideas, take notes, & track project status. You might gather:

- Links to relevant docs or websites
- Ideas
- Notes or caveats
- Dated status updates

You can put these in physical journals, 1 app, or multiple apps.

For me, no 1 app can do everything so I use:

- @NotionHQ for status updates
- @draftsapp for jotting down ideas/notes to categorize later (not having to think about where to put an idea as you're having it is 💯)
- @obsdmd for archives/notes/research ("knowledge management")

You can go really deep into knowledge management; just google "Zettelkasten" and you'll see what I mean. If you want to check out Obsidian for yourself, here's a great intro tutorial:

You know how having too many open Chrome tabs bogs your computer down?

The same happens to your brain.

Unfinished tasks keep "running" in the background.

It's called the Zeigarnik Effect.

Here's how it works and what to do about it:

🧵

Quick History:

Named after Dr. Bluma Zeigarnik.

While sitting in a busy restaurant in Vienna, she noticed the waiters had better memories of unpaid orders vs. paid ones.

Once the bill was paid, they struggled to remember the exact details of the orders.

But why?

1/ Our brains are wired to remember unfinished tasks better than completed ones.

Like a to-do list, once we finish a task, our brain checks it off the list to free up mental bandwidth.

The more unfinished tasks, the more resources our brain dedicates to keeping track of them.

2/ Storytellers leverage the Zeigarnik Effect with cliffhangers.

We keep reading/watching to find out what happens next because our brains are driven to seek closure.

Once resolved, we can forget and move on.

Until then, we lean in with rapt attention.

3/ It's another reason blocking uninterrupted time for deep work is important.

What most call "multi-tasking" is actually task-switching.

The ZE is one reason we suck at it.

When we're doing something and get interrupted, our brain keeps that "tab" open—draining our CPU.

I decided to stop lurking & take Twitter seriously around 6 months ago.

Grateful for a place to share ideas & to have grown from 900s to 7.1k since then.

Learned a lot about Twitter's algorithms over this period.

Sharing 1 tip to grow your Twitter per every 2 likes 📈 🐦

All your reach on social media is dependent on Network effects.

If you're below < 2k followers most of your tweets should be helpful replies to other larger accounts.

Don't be a "reply guy" tho. The audience of a large account can tell & the large account holder my block u.

When you borrow reach from a large account & someone clicks on your profile you should ->

Specify why people should follow you in your bio.
Give people a reason to follow you.

Titles & Social proof do help, unfortunately.

Good Format:
I Tweet About / Explore X
I Do Y
I Am Z

Your Pinned Tweet is the next possible point of converting someone into a follower.

Ideally, your pinned tweet should have a lot of social proof (likes) & summarize the essence of your bio & expand as a thread.

This is where you start to have an umbrella for your brand.

Each tweet you make should add value.

It should either:
1. Educate
2. Inspire
3. Entertain
4. Connect
5. Dispute

A 2-minute read that'll help you 10x your potential;

Do hard shit

It doesn’t matter what it is. A cold shower, a difficult workout, writing etc. force yourself to face and work through adversity.

Discipline is a muscle you train with experience.

Stop chasing happiness

Happiness is a response to an outcome—a fleeting feeling in the moment.

When you get it you get it, you immediately raise the bar. What you have isn’t good enough for long.

Aim for joy instead.

Find joy in the process—the outcome doesn’t matter.

Define success for yourself

Don’t get caught up chasing money, fame, or job titles that society celebrates as success.

Figure out what’s important to you—define what success looks like, it'll change over time.

Avoid people and things that don’t help reach your goals.

Don't dwell on the past

Everyone makes mistakes—own them and move on.

Don’t let guilt or regret steal from your future.

Turn the page and get busy writing the next chapter of your life.

10 Excel Formulas To 10x Your Productivity:

You have a table of cookie sales and have to answer:

• Who sold least / most cookies by month
• Who are the top 25% / bottom 25%
• Who has the most winning months
• Who has the most losing months
• Who sold the most cookies
• How is each girl trending

Let's dive in.

• Format & shortcuts

Before you start, format your worksheet and lay out what you want to build.

Shortcuts used:

• Ctrl + space bar = Insert Column
• Shift + space bar = Insert Row
• Ctrl + shift + + = Insert
• Ctrl + R = Fill Right
• =Sum(G8:G17)

• Min and Max

Min and Max are helpful when working with large data sets.

Min returns the lowest value in a series of data.

Max returns the highest value in a series of data.

Min Formula: =Min(number1, number2...)

Max Formula: =Max(number1, number2...)

• Concatenate

Concatenate will bring strings of data together.

When you want to combine a first and last name into a single cell, it's your tool.

The formula is:

=concatenate(text1, text2, text3)

Remember to add a " " between the first and second name as text2