Ambition & Balance

From the makers of Todoist and Twist

In recent years, there’s been debate on precisely what we should be managing to get more done: our time, our tasks, our energy, or our attention. 

With roots in the 1800s, time management is seemingly tried and true. But in 2019, The New York Times suggested that time management is out and attention management is in. Others pontificate that energy management is the personalized answer to doing more in less time. 

As buzzier approaches emerge, promising the solution to our productivity problems, it’s getting harder to differentiate the signal from the noise. 

Here’s our best attempt at sorting out what each of these approaches actually is and what you can gain from each them:
 

Task Management: What you need to get done
 

Having a single source of truth, where we put everything––work tasks, personal to-dos, and family duties –– helps us take stock of our lives and ensure what’s on our to-list reflects our goals and priorities. The Getting Things Done (GTD) Methodology is a classic example of task management.  

But the problem with task management is that to-do lists can be infinitely long. Yet we only ever have 24 hours in a day. Enter time management.
 

Time Management: When you'll get it done

We can set time budgets, allocating our limited hours towards our most important priorities. Time can be elusive: things take longer than we think they will and unexpected events can derail our schedules. However, a realistic approach to time management that acknowledges these truths can help us get closer to our objectives.

Of course, not every hour is created equal. What you can get done when you're fresh and ready is different from what you can accomplish when weary-eyed and tired. 
 

Energy Management: How to sync with your natural biorhythms to work more efficiently

The core idea of energy management is that we should take cues from our personal biology for getting things done. By understanding if we’re early birds or night owls, and knowing when our energy typically peaks and rises, we can manage our energy and craft the perfect daily schedule. 

Early birds, whose energies peak in the morning, can tackle their toughest tasks at 8 AM while still prioritizing fitness, by going for a walk, during a mid-afternoon energy slump. Rather than one-size-fits-all, energy management is a personalized approach to productivity that gets us better in tune with ourselves.  

Yet, you can have all the time and energy in the world and know exactly what you need to work on, but it won't do you any good if you can't stay focused.
 

Attention Management: How you'll stay focused on the task at hand

This method suggests that though we’ll be battling a culture that’s prone to distract us –– apps optimized to hook us, a 24/hour news cycle, and office environments that default to synchronous communication –– we can find focus by blocking out distractions or changing our environments to accomplish our best work. 

So which one is “the best”?
 

The reality is they can all be effective approaches we use on a day-by-by basis, depending on the circumstances. 

On days where we’re tired after a sleepless night spent with a restless child –– energy management might not work, but managing our attention can be effective when we have no choice but to push through. When our time management plans come undone, we can switch over to task management, getting an overview of our top priority to-dos and focusing only on those. 

Perhaps more importantly, these aren’t separate methods that have to be used in isolation: they can be combined.

If you're a night owl using energy management to set out on an evening work spree, use task management to make sure you’re working on the right things. While strategically managing your time and prioritizing project work for two-hours during the afternoon, add an extra layer of insurance with a site-blocker to ensure your attention is where it needs to be. 

Time management, task management, energy management, and attention management are all levers we can pull and push at any given time. Rather than focusing on the “right” method to choose –– based on whatever’s currently in vogue –– consider how to get the most out of all of them.  

Productively, 

Fadeke and the Doist Team

What we're sharing...

Workspaces

One of my favorite newsletters to get in my inbox each week is Workspaces, which takes us into the home-offices of creatives, sharing the setup and tools they use to do their best work. If you want to get inspired to modify your own physical work environment, this is a Substack worth subscribing to!

A few of my favorites workspaces to date:

• 006 –– Paul Stamatiou
• 034 –– Ariel Norling
• 051 –– Molly Mielke
• 056 –– Benjamin Hoppe
• 068 –– James Brooks 

How to Achieve Sustainable Remote Work

At Doist, we’ve been inspired by Cal Newport and the concept he coined, “deep work.” Now, he’s tackling the subject of how to make remote work, well, work:  

“Moving our professional efforts away from in-person surveillance and toward results not only makes remote work sustainable—it can also change the very nature of our jobs into something more enjoyable, and productive, and in tune with the unequal and unpredictable demands of life. 

Assuming that these benefits can be reaped with a simple policy change, however, is naïve. As is the instinct to cast this debate into a high-conflict configuration, with guileless heroes fighting off ego-driven managerial villains—which makes for good tweets but obstructs progress toward better workplace cultures. 

We must be clear about what’s really required to support a new normal in our professional lives and then ask honestly whether the effort required to fundamentally change how we work is worth the energy and attrition required.”

These companies abandoned the 'always-on' culture of apps like Slack 

Doist’s Founder and CEO, Amir Salihefendic, sat down with Business Insider to chat about the costs of notification culture and how we’re pushing back. The article is behind a paywall, so here are some select quotes that might inspire you and your company to consider asynchronous communication:

On distracted work environments: “Notification culture — the pings, beeps, and red pop-up alerts we get on our phones and computers — has created an expectation of synchronous communication, even when the method of communication (like text or email) is designed to be asynchronous.”

On before we switched to Twist: “‘It was a hellish environment mentally; you didn't really produce the best work,’ Salihefendic said, adding that he found it extremely difficult to concentrate because he was constantly bombarded by ‘chit-chats’ throughout the day”

On balancing the playing field with async: “Salihefendic believes moving toward asynchronous communication can introduce more equity in the workplace. He pointed out that an office or real-time environment rewards those who are more extroverted, louder, and take up space in discussions. That doesn't tend to happen in asynchronous environments because visibility and responsiveness are insignificant. What becomes important, he said, is the output and quality of your work.”

If you can, read the article in full for advice from more remote leaders on ditching notification culture in favor of focus.

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