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- #228: There are five types of sleep – here's what that means for your health
#228: There are five types of sleep – here's what that means for your health
8 YouTube tweaks that completely changed how I watch it
Jenae Spry
October 24, 2025
Productivity Stacks Newsletter
(Formerly Productivity Express)
Issue No. 228
The Best in Evidence-Based Productivity
for Small Business Owners, Freelancers & Founders
Helping You Work Smarter and Live More
The Rundown
There are five types of sleep – here's what that means for your health
Forget SEO. Welcome to the World of Generative Engine Optimization
8 YouTube tweaks that completely changed how I watch it
I made Perplexity's Comet my default browser to automate 4 tasks every day
OpenAI prepares to release Agent Builder
👉Did you miss an issue? Check out previous Productivity Stacks issues anytime here
🔥Quote/Prompt
Every day of our lives we are on the verge of making those slight changes that would make all the difference.
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)
The truth is those "slight changes" aren't waiting for Monday, January 1st, or when Mercury is out of retrograde.
Here's what I've learned from working with small business owners: The difference between […]
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📈 Performance
Sleep quality affects your performance in ways we're only beginning to understand. New research from Concordia University reveals that your sleep patterns directly impact everything from cognitive function to emotional regulation, and most of us fall into one of five distinct sleep profiles that predict our mental performance and brain connectivity patterns.
"The fourth profile was distinguished by getting fewer than 7 hours of sleep a night, the amount recommended as a minimum. This was associated with worse accuracy and longer reaction times on cognitive tests measuring emotional processing, language and social skills. This profile was also associated with more aggressive behaviours and increased connectivity across brain networks. Past studies of sleep deprivation have found similar increases in connectivity, suggesting this is indicative of sleep debt."
Key Insights:
Poor sleep creates measurable brain connectivity issues between networks responsible for self-reflection and attention. For example, people with disrupted sleep patterns show decreased ability to shift focus between internal thoughts and external tasks.
Getting less than 7 hours of sleep consistently leads to worse cognitive accuracy, slower reaction times, and increased aggression, essentially turning you into a less effective version of yourself.
Sleep disturbances affect specific cognitive functions differently. For instance, waking multiple times per night correlates with worse language processing and working memory, while using sleep aids is linked to poorer emotional recognition abilities.
Read the full article for a detailed breakdown of all five sleep profiles and which brain connectivity patterns are associated with each type.
⚙️ Optimization
Your carefully crafted SEO strategy might already be outdated. With retailers expecting a 520% increase in chatbot traffic this holiday season, businesses are scrambling to adapt to "generative engine optimization" (GEO) - and the rules are completely different from what got you ranking on Google.
"Search engines often favor wordiness—think of the long blog posts that appear above recipes on cooking websites. But Marcus says that chatbots tend to favor information presented in simple, structured formats, like bulleted lists and FAQ pages. 'An FAQ can answer a hundred different questions instead of one article that just says how great your entire brand is,' he says. 'You essentially give a hundred different options for the AI engines to choose.'"
Key Insights:
The overlap between top Google results and AI-cited sources has plummeted from 70% to below 20%. For example, that 2,000-word blog post ranking first on Google might be invisible to ChatGPT.
Chatbots prefer structured, granular content over lengthy narratives. Instead of writing one comprehensive brand story, successful GEO means creating FAQs that address specific questions like "Does the Chevy Silverado or Blazer have longer driving range?"
Companies are using AI to create AI-optimized content, creating a feedback loop where machines write for machines - and it's actually working despite early predictions this wouldn't happen.
Read the full article for specific GEO strategies major brands like LG and Estée Lauder are using to capture chatbot traffic.
⏲️ Time Management
YouTube brings incredible value to our businesses - from tutorials that teach new skills to industry insights we'd never find elsewhere. But unlike other social media that can feel mindlessly draining, YouTube's problem is different: it's so useful that we justify spending hours there. This guide shows how to keep all the learning and value without falling into the endless autoplay trap that turns a quick tutorial search into a three-hour session.
"Autoplay is one of YouTube's most sneaky traps. The moment a video ends, the next one queues up and starts playing, and it's often something only loosely related to what you actually wanted to watch. It's great when you're listening to a music playlist, but for most everyday viewing, it turns a five-minute break into a half-hour rabbit hole. I realized that Autoplay was the main reason I'd end up watching hours of unrelated content without noticing."
Key Insights:
Setting break reminders every 45 minutes creates conscious stopping points without locking you out. For example, the timer only counts while videos play, so you can dismiss it if needed but you're forced to make an active choice.
Turning off Autoplay is the single most effective change - when a video ends, the screen stops instead of automatically queuing the next barely-related video that YouTube's algorithm thinks you might watch.
Using the Watch Later list strategically turns random finds into an organized viewing queue. Instead of watching everything immediately, you can save videos and review them weekly, moving keepers to themed playlists like "business tutorials" or "marketing ideas."
Read the full article for all eight settings including playback speed adjustments, notification management, and how to set default video quality to avoid data overages.
💻 Tools & Technology
A lot of people have asked me how I use Comet since I've mentioned I can no longer live without it, and while I'm just scratching the surface of its usefulness, this article perfectly demonstrates some practical ways it can transform your daily workflow. What makes Comet different from other AI tools is that it actually browses the web like we do - no more getting blocked by websites or dealing with outdated pre-trained data.
"Instead of typing the same instructions again and again, I use Comet shortcuts. In Comet, you can assign a prompt to a custom word, which works as a text expander. So, when you need to type a prompt, all you need to do is type a / (forward slash), select the shortcut, and Comet automatically fills in the prompt. For example, if your daily workflow involves finding the latest trending topics on social media, you can create a shortcut /trending-on-social-media for the prompt 'I want to know about the latest trending topics. Scroll through each of my social media websites that I'm logged into, review the posts from the past 24 hours, and summarize the trending events.'"
Key Insights:
Custom shortcuts turn repetitive prompts into single commands. For example, typing "/update-sheet" can automatically navigate to Asana, filter completed tasks, and add them to your Google Sheet without manual copying and pasting.
The @tab feature lets you reference any open tab without switching to it. Instead of clicking through tabs to find information, you can type "@ProductPage" and ask "What's the refund policy?" while staying in your current tab.
Automated tasks run on schedule without supervision. You can set up daily tech news digests, weekly Amazon Subscribe & Save adjustments, or morning Asana task summaries that run automatically at specified times.
Read the full article for detailed setup instructions and four specific automation workflows including spreadsheet updates, tab organization, and content review processes.
🤖 AI
Building AI agents that actually work for your business usually requires either expensive developers or wrestling with code yourself. OpenAI's new Agent Builder, launching at DevDay on October 6, brings drag-and-drop simplicity to creating complex AI workflow, positioning itself as a direct challenger to automation tools like Zapier and n8n.
"The feature introduces a drag-and-drop canvas that allows users to create agent flows from predefined templates, such as customer service bots, data enrichment routines, Q&A agents, and document comparison tools. The canvas supports a range of modular building blocks, nodes for logic (if-else, loops), connectors (like MCP), user approvals, guardrails, file search, and data transformation steps, mirroring the flexibility seen in other agentic workflow platforms."
Key Insights:
Pre-built templates cover common business needs right out of the box. For example, you can start with a customer service bot template and customize it rather than building from scratch.
The visual canvas approach eliminates coding requirements while maintaining professional capabilities. You get logic nodes like if-else statements and loops, plus built-in guardrails and approval workflows that would normally require custom development.
Deep integration with OpenAI's infrastructure sets it apart from generic automation tools. While Zapier connects different services, Agent Builder is purpose-built for AI workflows with native access to OpenAI's models and security features.
Read the full article for details on the deployment process, testing modes, and how this fits into OpenAI's broader ecosystem strategy.
🎉 Celebration Corner
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Delivered job and received glowing reviewer feedback.
Reached my yearly blog publishing goal, with 3 new articles this week.
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Wishing you much productivity!
- Jenae :)
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