“So what did you learn today?”
My ex (still living together) was sitting on the couch, arms crossed, looking at me sternly.
“Err…” I said, my eyes darting around as I tried to remember some new fact. “Today I learned that… supposedly you’ll be twice as productive if you block off your time for specific tasks.”
Background:
Last week, I was listening to an interview with Codie Sanchez. Codie is a newsletter operator and boring business investor. But at this point in the interview, Codie was not talking about either of those topics.
Rather, she was talking about how she makes her marriage work.
One of Codie’s tricks is that, each day, she and her husband share one thing that they’ve learned that day.
I mentioned this to my ex (still living together). She liked the idea so much that now she grills me at unexpected times about what I’ve learned during the day. I then have to think up something in a panic.
Yesterday, when she asked me this, I had been watching a video by Cal Newport of Deep Work fame. Newport now sells a notebook for planning your workday and blocking off time for various tasks.
Newport says — and he’s an authority so why question him — that if you block off your time for specific work tasks, you’ll be twice as productive.
I told my ex this. She again liked the idea. And it developed into a conversation about day planners and productivity and places in Barcelona to go shopping for notebooks.
Here’s the point of all this:
That thing about [time blocking = 2x productivity] is a small, trivial bit of information. I’m not even sure if it’s true. But it was enough of a kernel to start a natural and free-flowing conversation there on the couch. I guess that’s why Codie Sanchez recommends the practice.
It’s not just marriages or exes that this works with.
If you’re ever struggling for daily email ideas, then just ask yourself, “What did I learn today?” Pick something small, concrete, even trivial. Then secrete a bit of personal context or opinion around that, like an oyster around a grain of sand, and within a few minutes, you’ll have something that your audience will enjoy reading and might even get value from.
That’s kind of a micro class in influential email writing.
For the macro version, you’ll have to get my Influential Emails training, which I’ll make available later this week, starting Thursday.
You’ll have to be on my email list to have a chance to get Influential Emails. If you’d like to learn something new on Thursday, click here to get on my list.