Bernie J Mitchell

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Lacerate Your Brain With Deep Work

Bernie News

First thank you for the feedback on this weekly newsletter, as much as I hate email I secretly look forward to hearing what you are up to that you want to share it. #Blush

I urge you to hit leave a comment and let me know what your goals are and working on this week, it influences the content of this newsletter and also what Nil’s and I blog about on engagingpeople.wpengine.com, see the article below on time tracking.
 
My 12 Week Year / Deep Work Experiment – Week Three
Quite frankly this is fucking painful and I am really glad I did not give up therapy when I felt I’d got over depression.
I urge you to laugh out loud at that line, I find it funny and painful at the same time.
Week Three
Week three had some really agonising points (which I blogged about here) and being able to recognise this as ‘productive tension’ rather than I ‘I hate myself, I am a total C*^T, I’d be better off dead’ was a huge lifetime breakthrough for me.
Most days last week I had at least a few minutes of ‘horror and despair’ as I got to a point in the day when I had not hit publish, ran out of money, forgot to write something down, watched another day go by and had not sent a podcast invite.
Existing
Then I went back to my tracking board called Exist.io which plugs into Rescue Time and I even started using Todoist as this plugs directly in Exist (don’t worry kids I am still using it with Trello via IFTTT) – there is a blog coming next week on this!
I’m Sorry
So another thing snapped in me, how to pace things out?
What do I do now, next, tomorrow?
I feel like a naive child saying this out loud, surely by this stage in life I should know what to do?
Sorry. I don’t, in fact, bollox I don’t even know why I am apologising.
What to do next?
Nil’s and I are always talking about what to do next, and it was a smack in the face not to hit launch day for our Trello course (my fault, not his – he is the academic one).
I thought I knew what to do next, we used the ‘launch a product in 30 days plan from Fizzle‘ and Nil’s had written an ebook called ‘What to do next’ – how could we fail?
Are we there yet? 
So it kind of dawned on me that I was skimming a lot of stuff, I could repeat it but I was not really injecting it into my bone marrow and, even better my lizard brain.
Also, this is part of a journey, a key point in it was last year when Emily and I started our daily stand-ups using Trello after she became a Scrum Master, in this post here Emily shares her outline on how we work.
You can’t teach a kid to rid a bike at a seminar
Like my mate Dave used to say, ‘You can’t teach a kid to ride a bike at a seminar’ you have to go up and down the street until they get their balance and their confidence, the only way they will get there is through learn and do, learn and do, learn and do.
I am starting to get my balance.
It’s Ok. We’re nearly there
So not I feel less of a dick. Being able to drill into where things are not working, is becoming a superpower.
It is painful – not in a depressing way or ‘I am so stupid way’ – it is painful that I slip into auto pilot so much, and sometimes even see myself doing it and still carry on.
This week’s articles
These articles below will give you a decent insight into what is really helping me on the way through my first 12 weeks, scroll to the bottom and come and join me for Write Club @Work Hubs next Thursday – I bet you have to write something next week! (I do).

Have A GREAT GREAT week and let me know what you are working on! 

 
Peace, unity and Love Bernie 😉
p.s. We have some coworking desks @Work Hubs in Euston – give me  a shout! – I can get you an ‘in’ with Phil. 

The Fastest Route To Big Change?

Ask BIG, Uncomfortable Questions

 

Ask BIG, Uncomfortable Questions

The YNAB team recently read a great book (because I made them, because I thought it was so phenomenal) called Deep Work by Cal Newport.

The premise of the book is that Deep Work is meaningful, hard-focused, heady, difficult stuff that takes time and attention, but produces wildly different results than its seductive counterpart, Shallow Work.
Deep Work means you tackle big, tough issues and give them your all. You focus and eliminate distractions for long periods of time.
My Book This Week Is… (Still)
I'm reading the 12 Week Year - Again! 

 

I’m reading the 12 Week Year – Again! 

This book really struck a note with me, instead of year planning you plan for 12 weeks and every week is worth a month, which means every day is worth a week.

Reading Deep Work last week had me go back to this, so far I am FLYING. I will keep you posted of progress and set backs, something has really really clicked in me which makes me put this on my “lovesick fanboy” list.
If you have read this give me a shout! I’d love to compare notes.
There is an app for that
Time tracking in Trello using Toggl

 

Time tracking in Trello using Toggl
Time tracking used to mean complicated spreadsheets and boring time-sheets that you were forced to fill in every Friday afternoon. In recent years this industry has seen a massive online resurgence. The time tracking app Toggl consistently ranks as one of the most popular tools and we decided to take a deeper look at how it integrates with Trello.
Terrible Advice
The Invisible Problem Wrecking Your Productivity

 

The Invisible Problem Wrecking Your Productivity
In all of the myriad articles and advice on productivity, there is one evil lurking in our activities, one activity that when mastered, opens the door to potential productivity paradise. When it comes down to it, distractions (or lack thereof) are the real crux of working better. They’re a big culprit behind one of the worst productivity destroyers of the work day: context switching.
Collaboration and Society
Reinventing Bookkeeping & Accounting (In Search of Certainty)

 

Reinventing Bookkeeping & Accounting 
(In Search of Certainty)
Double-entry bookkeeping was deployed in its modern form in the 1300s. While minor innovations have occurred since then, the fundamental atomic unit of tracking and managing value–our accounting system–is still based on this 700-year-old invention. With today’s computers, networks, and cryptography, we now have the opportunity to create a system of accounting that brings us into the 21st century–a system that looks beyond numbers in ledgers and utilizes machine learning, multiparty computation, and algorithmic representation to redefine “value.” So what’s holding us back?
"Write Club" VERY focused writing Session 

 

“Write Club” VERY focused writing Session 

10am – 12pm by Euston Station London

Bring your laptop or typewriter – chat about what you are writing today and enjoy a quiet and focused writing time with free Tea and gorgeous coffee.
We usually run around the corner to Ravi’s the AMAZING vegetarian Indian restaurant after.
There is no charge but you must book below
coworking post it notes