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💡 The Big Idea: Don't Underestimate the Impact Your Environment Has on Your Productivity & Creativity

I mentioned in the last newsletter how I tend to be more creative when I go to my co-working space, and Joel emailed in asking me to elaborate.

So, in this newsletter, I want to share some tips on how you can leverage your environment to give your productivity and creativity a boost.

To Work From Home or Not to Work From Home?

I’m fortunate that I have a place at home to work with a door that I can close.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t have ANY natural light. It’s in the basement, and it has no windows.

I call it my Focus Cave. It’s great when I really need to minimize distractions, but I can’t stay in there very long.

It’s a great studio, but not a great environment for a creative knowledge worker. Which means that I end up leaving my office and going upstairs fairly frequently. Unfortunately, we don’t have a huge house and that’s also where the rest of the family is (we homeschool our 5 kids).

Not great for avoiding distraction.

So for a long time, I’ve been trying to find the right place to work outside the home.

I’ve tried a lot of different things, but I have finally found a place where 1) I can focus, 2) it’s easy to create, and 3) I tend to be very productive.

My co-working space.

There are a couple of reasons why this works so well for me. Let’s examine each of them.

#1: Context Switching

Context switching is a term that is often used to describe the shifting of our attention between different tasks, apps, or projects.

It’s generally a bad thing. It’s also the reason why multi-tasking really doesn’t work.

Dr. Sophie Leroy, an associate professor of management at the University of Washington, found that minds continue to think about a previous task even when we’ve switched to a new one.

This is called attention residue. In her original paper, Dr. Leroy defines it as, “the persistence of cognitive activity about a Task A even though one stopped working on Task A and currently performs a Task B.”

Unfortunately, this is really easy to do when all your work happens on a computer.

So, for years, I’ve timeboxed my tasks by confining them to short periods in a specific place.

For example:

• I might start a writing project at home and write for about 90 minutes (until I get stuck)
• Then I’d pack up my laptop and head to the local library and get another 90 minutes of focused work in on a different creative task (like editing a video)
• After a workout and a short break for lunch, I’d hit up a coffee shop and get another writing session in

At each step, I’d eliminate distractions and check notifications only when my writing session was done. But each time I got in the car and drove to a new location, I closed the loop on the previous task and primed the pump for the next one.

Now that I have a co-working space, I use that (and the commute there) as an intentional vehicle for context switching:

• Most days, I tend to get up early and head to the co-working space before I make coffee.
• I have a Ratio Four in my office that I use to brew my fancy coffee when I get there.
• Once I have my coffee in hand, I spend the rest of the morning writing or working on other creative projects (no admin!)
• Around 11 am, I’ll go to the gym and get lunch, then head home
• Once I’m home, I’ll do my admin tasks or record video/audio in my home studio (my voice tends to need some time to warm up anyway, so afternoons are naturally better for this)

I can’t follow this 100% (i.e., we record Focused on Tuesday mornings), but I can stick with this for the most part. The context switch of going to and from my co-working space helps me to leverage my natural work rhythms and get more creative work done.

#2: Dedicated Spaces

One of the things that makes it easier to transition tasks is doing specific things in specific places.

Again, my co-working space is great for this.

I’m fortunate to have an office with a door that I can close & lock so I can protect my valuables and get my space set up just the way I want:

• I have a nice big Apple Studio Display that I can plug things into (my favorite monitor I’ve ever owned)
• I have a Mode Sonnet keyboard that is very nice and very clicky, which I find helps to keep the words coming
• I have a couple of Audioengine A2+ speakers that I use to play my focus music

This is my preferred place to write. 95% of my writing happens here, even though it’s about a 20-minute drive to get there from home.

Because this is where I write, I find that my brain starts to think about my current writing project even before I get there. By the time I sit down at the keyboard, the words are ready to flow.

Similarly, my home office has now become my dedicated studio. It’s the place that I record, so I’ve optimized everything for that. It’s a bit of a mess, but I can now walk in, flip a switch, press a few buttons on the Stream Deck, and I’m ready to record (audio or video).

I don’t have to take anything down, so I never have to set anything up. And I don’t have to worry about screwing up settings because that space is only used for one thing, and everything is exactly the way I left it.

#3: Daylight & Nature

The other thing that I find helps immensely (especially with my creativity) is the amount of natural light I’m exposed to and if I can get around some trees or water.

Fortunately, the co-working space checks all those boxes for me.

The space has huge floor-to-ceiling windows that let in a ton of natural light, while also providing views with both trees AND water. There’s even a walking path right outside the door to the space.

It’s basically the exact opposite of my studio at home 😂

I use that path often whenever I need to think through something, and often will dictate video scripts or articles while out for a walk. One of the benefits of getting in nature is that is facilitates innovative thinking, so I try to take advantage of this from time to time.

BTW, if you want to be creative, I believe you NEED to get outside. In her book The Extended Mind, author Annie Murphy Paul shares that over 60% of Americans report spending less than 5 hours outside per week!

Getting in nature helps us in several ways:

• It enhances our focus on what’s in front of us
• It alleviates symptoms of ADHD
• It decreases “future discounting” (where we value the present moment more than the future)

There are so many productivity and creativity benefits that come from being in nature that there’s even a whole approach to architecture called biophylic design dedicated to incorporating nature into our homes, schools, and workplaces.

Simple Ways to Improve YOUR Environment

You don’t need to go nuts or spend a bunch of money to get some of the same benefits I described in this newsletter.

You can optimize your environment right now by:

• Doing some focused work from a coffee shop or library
• Setting aside a specific place for your deep, focused work (i.e., a comfy chair for writing)
• Getting a plant or two for your workspace

And if you want to find a co-working space of your own, I can’t recommend it enough. Many spaces offer a once-in-a-while-type plan where you can come in for a few days a month. Used strategically, those “work outside the home days” can help give your productivity and creativity a major boost.

😎 Something Cool: Vertical Tabs

If you’re someone who tends to have a lot of tabs open at the same time, there's a good chance you'll love the Vertical Tabs plugin. This plugin takes your open tabs and displays them in a list in the left sidebar, making it much easier to read tab titles when you’ve got a bunch of them open at once.

This plugin reminds me a lot of the Arc browser, which also displays tabs in a sidebar. While it never really stuck for me, I know a lot of people who really dig it.

One thing to keep in mind, though: it doesn't automatically hide all those tabs at the top. Fortunately, there is a setting you can toggle on called Show Active Tabs Only that cleans it up quite a bit.

📚 Book Notes: The Extended Mind by Annie Murphy Paul

​The Extended Mind by Annie Murphy Paul is a fascinating book and a great resource for learning to think outside your brain. This book will teach you how to leverage your body, your environment, and your relationships to make better decisions.

I got a ton out of reading this, and the Focused episode where David & I interviewed her is one of my favorites.

If you want to download my notes for this incredible book, click here.

— Mike