The Rundown

• I was earning $300,000 at Google and saving for early retirement — then I quit for a more flexible life. It changed how I view success.

• Translation startup DeepL launches an AI 'agent' in challenge to players like OpenAI

• Impressive Time Management: The Time Diet

• I changed these 12 settings on my Android phone to greatly extend its battery life

• Anthropic launches a Claude AI agent that lives in Chrome

👉Did you miss an issue? Check out previous Productivity Stacks issues anytime here

🔥Quote/Prompt

Use the quote as a writing or thinking prompt to finish your week strong.

A bit from mine:

(posted in our Doer Entrepreneurs Free Community — off social media)

Did someone forward this to you?

📈 Performance

I was earning $300,000 at Google and saving for early retirement — then I quit for a more flexible life. It changed how I view success.

The FIRE movement promises you can grind it out now and retire early to enjoy life later. But what happens when "later" never comes, or when the grind kills your soul before you reach the finish line? This Google engineer was making $326,000 and on track to retire at 40 with $5 million, but realized he was sacrificing his entire present for a future that might never happen. As business owners, we should be building something meaningful now, not just suffering through work we hate for a theoretical payoff.

Key Insights:

1. Despite earning up to $326,000 annually at Google, Tang felt increasingly depressed because the work wasn't meaningful - he was helping Google make money but felt no personal fulfillment.

2. The breaking point came when he realized he'd been living to make his parents proud and "win in society" rather than pursuing work that actually energized him.

3. After quitting, he works more hours on his own business than he did at Google, but feels energized rather than drained because the work has personal meaning.

4. Financial independence is still important, but the FIRE mentality of "sacrifice today for tomorrow" can backfire when tomorrow never comes or you're too burned out to enjoy it.

5. Success shifted from external metrics like salary and company prestige to internal ones like waking up with energy and wanting to work on your projects.

Read the full article for details on Tang's digital nomad journey through Asia, his transition to content creation and coaching, and how his parents reacted to him leaving Google.

⚙️ Optimization

Translation startup DeepL launches an AI 'agent' in challenge to players like OpenAI

DeepL built a $2 billion business on AI translation, but now they’re getting into a new area, AI agents. They just launched DeepL Agent to compete with OpenAI and Microsoft in the enterprise AI space, targeting those mind-numbing tasks where you're copying data from one system and pasting it into another all day long. Instead of switching between multiple tools and tabs, you give it natural language commands and it handles the tedious work across departments from HR to marketing.

Key Insights:

1. DeepL Agent automates repetitive, time-intensive tasks across multiple business functions using natural language commands, eliminating the constant switching between systems.

2. Unlike single-purpose AI tools, this agent works across departments from HR to marketing, handling the mundane data transfer and processing tasks that drain productivity.

3. DeepL combines its own language models with external ones, leveraging its translation expertise to create more versatile business automation than pure-play AI companies.

4. The market for AI agents is still early-stage despite the hype, meaning businesses that adopt these tools now could gain significant competitive advantages before they become standard.

5. This expansion beyond translation shows how specialized AI companies are evolving into broader enterprise solutions, challenging giants like Microsoft's Co-Pilot and Anthropic's Claude.

Read the full article for details on DeepL's $2 billion valuation, CEO insights on the agent market, and why they're not considering an IPO despite the current tech listing boom.

⏲️ Time Management

Impressive Time Management for Translators: The Time Diet

Running a business means wearing all the hats – billable client work, invoicing, marketing, strategy, admin tasks. But where does your time actually go? This brilliant system uses two timers to reveal the shocking truth about your workday. Originally written for translators, this approach works for any business owner juggling "working IN the business" versus "working ON the business." Spoiler: you're probably spending way less time on revenue-generating work than you think.

Key Insights:

1. Use two separate timers: a "project timer" for actual billable/client work and a "work timer" for all business activities including admin, emails, and invoicing.

2. Track for at least one week to establish your baseline - most people discover they're only doing revenue-generating work for 50% or less of their "working" time.

3. The third critical measure is total time from first work activity to last work activity of the day, which reveals how much personal time gets eaten up between work tasks.

4. Different types of client work may have wildly different returns on time investment (ROTI) - what looks like a great rate might actually be terrible once you factor in time spent.

5. Once you know your baseline numbers, you can test productivity strategies and measure whether they actually improve your paid-to-unpaid work ratio.

Read the full article for specific timer tool recommendations (including ClickUp, Toggl, and Hubstaff), detailed setup instructions for tracking categories, and how to analyze your data to identify time-wasting patterns.

💻 Tools & Technology

I changed these 12 settings on my Android phone to greatly extend its battery life

Your phone dying at 2 PM isn't a personality trait—it's a fixable problem. This ZDNET guide walks through 12 Android settings that actually make a difference for battery life, not the usual "turn off everything and pray" advice. From killing the always-on display (which drains way more than the advertised 1-2% per hour) to managing refresh rates and notification overload, these tweaks won't turn your phone into a brick just to save some juice.

Key Insights:

1. Adaptive Battery and Battery Saver modes work in tandem—Adaptive Battery throttles performance when you don't need it, while Battery Saver makes sweeping changes like limiting visual effects and pausing background apps.

2. Dark mode on OLED screens actually saves battery because individual pixels can completely shut off when displaying black, unlike LCD screens with one big backlight.

3. Old, forgotten accounts constantly refresh in the background even if you never use them, silently draining battery throughout the day.

4. The "Hey Google" always-listening feature keeps your microphone actively running all day waiting for those magic words, consuming significant battery for a feature most people rarely use.

5. High refresh rates (90Hz, 120Hz) make scrolling smoother but dramatically increase battery usage—dropping to 60Hz might feel slightly choppier but extends battery life noticeably.

Read the full article for step-by-step instructions for each setting on both Pixel and Samsung phones, plus details on Extreme Battery Saver mode and specific menu locations for different Android versions.

🤖 AI

Anthropic launches a Claude AI agent that lives in Chrome

The AI browser wars just got real. Anthropic is rolling out Claude for Chrome to select users, letting the AI agent see everything in your browser and actually complete tasks for you—not just chat about them. At $100-200/month for early access, this isn't for everyone yet, but it signals where business automation is heading. The twist? Security researchers already found that similar browser agents can be hijacked by hidden code on websites to execute malicious instructions. I am still team Comet, but the browser wars are definitely getting interesting! 

Key Insights:

1. Claude for Chrome maintains context of everything happening in your browser, meaning it can understand complex multi-tab workflows and help with research, data entry, and form filling across sites.

2. The agent asks permission before "high-risk actions like publishing, purchasing, or sharing personal data," and users can block it from accessing financial sites, adult content, or specific domains.

3. Browser-based AI agents are vulnerable to prompt injection attacks where hidden code on websites can trick them into executing malicious instructions—Anthropic reduced success rates from 23.6% to 11.2% but hasn't eliminated the risk.

4. This browser battle is heating up because Google might be forced to sell Chrome due to antitrust rulings, with Perplexity offering $34.5 billion and OpenAI expressing interest.

5. Modern browser agents are reliable for simple tasks but still struggle with complex problems, making them useful assistants rather than complete replacements for human work.

Read the full article for details on Anthropic's safety measures, comparisons with Perplexity's Comet browser and OpenAI's rumored browser plans, and specifics on the waitlist for non-Max subscribers.

🎉 Celebration Corner

Every week Doers Inner Circle members do a weekly review & get help when they need it — check out the progress they made this week!

• A productive week with stricter daily scheduling working well. I felt like I achieved a lot.

• I got 2 new coaching clients.

What did you do this week? We feature non-member successes too. Just post them here!

🔒Inner Circle: Events & Announcements

• Monday: The 90-day Planning Formula Bash Kickoff Party  RSVP here

• Monday: {EU Time} Work ON Business. Theme: 5️⃣ Finances  RSVP here

• Tuesday: Work ON Business. Theme: 5️⃣ Finances RSVP here

• Wednesday: Doers IC Book Club — Feel-Good Productivity  RSVP here

• Monday/Friday: Goal Setting + Plan Your Week Party

• Accelerators: September 19 is your Office Hours  RSVP here

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I hope you found this valuable!

Wishing you much productivity!

- Jenae :)