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Linking Your Thinking

Why I'm time-blocking everything now

Published about 1 month ago • 4 min read

I'm writing this from my new happy place in Montana...

Setting up a new space is a lot of stress, but on the other side is a sense of what's possible. I didn't realize just how much the tiny LA box that we've lived in the past five years was making it so hard to spread my wings. But here? Space! And with space, creativity...

Timeblocking has helped

In a new environment, you have the opportunity to set up new routines. I've taken that to heart by time-blocking everything for the past two weeks:

It takes 45 minutes to set up my week Monday morning. Throughout the days, I actively adjust events to match reality. Each night, I block out the next day.

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I'm not saying you should be time-blocking. You'll know best. For me, in a new place, it's perfect timing to have personal oversight on my time like this.

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Usually, I'll do something like this for a month, then feel pretty good about not continuing. I'm generally against taking productivity methods this far, but it's been amazing the past two weeks. But part of that are the new routines I've establishing:

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  • Wake up before 6am. Say hello to the sunrise. (Yes, take a cold shower.)
  • Go to kitchen, drink water, start the electric kettle.
  • Learn from how my mom fixed her lower back pain by doing core exercises daily, and do them while listening to some mindset stuff I'll talk about in the coming weeks.
  • Make some coffee that's mostly decaf but with a sprinkling of regular caf.
  • Sit down at the laptop and work on the BIG thing for the day.
    • Monday was planning the week
    • Tuesday was YouTube script
    • Wed/Thu/Fri is book writing
  • Schedule OFF time (very important to give myself permission).
  • Try to nap around 12pm (because this makes my afternoons way more energetic, instead of me dragging), but I haven't actually done it this week (the image needs updating there).
  • Leave to exercise.

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Now, I have 2.5 more hours a day, and I'm still getting around 8 hours of sleep each night. It's wild. Anyways, I could go on explaining what works, and why, and how awesome it's been...if you're interested...

Obsidian Bases

​Learn about it in my video. It is still only available to insiders. It's at version 1.9.2. The Obsidian team has expressed this one will have a longer beta before it's public. I expect 1.9.3 to give us another view. Right now, it's just a table view. But for my movies collection (over 1000 movies now), I'm excited to see card view. Hopefully soon for insiders. I'll let you know when it's out.

Playing with my shorts

Do you watch YouTube shorts? If you've been on the platform in the past year or two, you've definitely noticed "shorts" are everywhere. Here's one:

video preview​

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How might the Stranger Things Method work for you? Watch the whole video »​

video preview​

Are Your Best Ideas Hiding in Plain Sight?

Writing the book

We all feel information overload, but I think grounding it in at least a little research is helpful. Here's an early draft from early in the book.

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We now live in a state of constant cognitive siege. The average person receives 105 notifications daily, with over half of teenagers receiving 237 or more (3.1).
That’s one interruption every 6 minutes of their waking lives (3.2, 4). Knowledge workers whose jobs depend on their mental abilities, are interrupted every 11 minutes.
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Here’s the kicker: it takes an average of 23 minutes to fully refocus on their original task (5). This creates a mathematical impossibility: since it takes longer to recover from an interruption than the time between interruptions, sustained focus is as fleeting as a rainbow. The costs to us are real: 66% of workers report that information overload damages both their job satisfaction and personal relationships (7, 7.1, 7.2).

Can I be honest? This stuff is hard to write because it's obvious—we're overwhelmed—and I just want to get on with the solutions and paradigm shifts and all the good stuff.

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Maybe I'm resistant to it because it's doesn't feel unique; it feels like a generic non-fiction book. But what do you think? Some research-backed numbers are needed, right? I mean, the whole book is not like this. This is just a few paragraphs. I think we can spare a few paragraphs, right?

I'm Freetalking All Over the Place

Okay everyone, what's your favorite AI dictation app? Also, can we all agree that AI-assisted dictation is a good use of AI? I swear, there are like four different "whisper" apps and I've heard ElevenLabs is doing cool things. Now, "Wispr Flow" has just raised $30M in funding.

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​What do you think? Email me with this smart email link I created.​

The Inner Compass

Have you ever stumbled across someone on the internet and thought, "I really like their vibe"? That's how I felt encountering the work of Lawrence Yeo. I'm interviewing him tomorrow about his upcoming book The Inner Compass: Cultivating the Courage to Trust Yourself. The book comes out in just over a week.

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​Learn about The Inner Compass »​

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Stay connected,

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Nick

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P.S... Heads up! Our next live 22-day session, Writing Original Works, begins enrollment around July 18th. Raise your hand for exclusive details 🧤​

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Linking Your Thinking

Nick Milo

🔆 I'll help you...learn faster, manage ideas better, & create inspired work more often. ♻️ Worked for: HBO, Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad, & UCLA. 🤿 Trained employees at: MIT, Team USA, Nike & Harvard. ❓What if you could improve how you did your thinking? What effect would that have on everything else you do?

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