The Rundown

• Steve Jobs Swore the 10-Minute Rule Made Him Smarter. Modern Neuroscience Is Discovering He Was Right

• Google recognizes content creators: A breakthrough for E-E-A-T and SEO

• Tracking time on iPhone helped me triple my daily productivity

• How Perplexity’s AI is Reinventing Search

• AI Can (Mostly) Outperform Human CEOs

• Add this book to your reading list

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You take on more hours, juggle more deadlines, and wear more hats. You miss a ball game here and there. Come home late a few more nights. You spend a holiday or two in your inbox. And you tell yourself,

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🔥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

Steve Jobs Swore the 10-Minute Rule Made Him Smarter. Modern Neuroscience Is Discovering He Was Right 

Ever get frustrated when your brain doesn’t cooperate and do what you need it to do right the f*ck now? Well, it turns out here’s a reason for that — and a solution. Excerpt below!

Why the 10-minute rule makes your brain work better.

How does giving up after 10 minutes of mental struggle and going for a walk help put you in the right mental state to find a solution?

How you move your body changes how your mind thinks, Storoni says. (This insight can also help you break out of entrenched conflicts, other neuroscientists claim.)

Taking a walk “keeps you in the right alert mental state, so you don’t just drift off, you don’t just fall asleep, or feel lethargic, or [look] at your phone. But at the same time, it keeps your attention moving, because your surroundings are moving while you walk, so your attention can’t really fix on anything. So it drifts into your head and explores your problems and tries to solve them from different avenues,” she says.

Walking nudges you to think about many new things. But it also blocks you from thinking obsessively about any single idea.

“You can’t ruminate, because your attention can’t stick to one problem for too long because you also have to pay attention to where you’re walking,” Storoni continues.

When you go for a walk, you physically move through the landscape, paying light attention to your surroundings so you don’t crash into a streetlight or fall in a pothole. Which encourages your mind to pay light attention to various thoughts and ideas passing through it, too. And that, it turns out, is the ideal mental state for coming up with new ideas.

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⚙️ Optimization

Google recognizes content creators: A breakthrough for E-E-A-T and SEO

We are all frustrated with Google these days but they have made at least one step in the right (ok, a better?) direction.

If you write a blog of any kind and expect to rank, this article is a must-read. I didn’t want to pull an excerpt from this article because you really need to read it in full and go step by step to understand the full significance here. I have chosen a short one to give you an idea, but just read the article!

How to optimize content creator/author for SEO

To achieve optimal SEO results, you need to focus on optimizing both the content creator and website publisher entities. However, if you have to prioritize one, choose the content creator.

Google is increasingly focusing on individuals and optimizing content creators will likely provide the most value to your clients right now.

Optimization passes through three phases:

• Understandability.

• Credibility.

• Deliverability.

⏲️ Time Management

Tracking time on iPhone helped me triple my daily productivity

Fair warning, it's a Medium article so you will need a free account. But if you have an iPhone, you’ll get the most use out of it as she mentions specific apps. If you are an Android user, it’s still worth the read as finding similar apps when they are iPhone specific should not be a problem. Excerpt below:

2. Timemator to track productivity per project

If you prefer to track time automatically on your iPhone, Timemator is the perfect alternative. The app integrates with iOS like a dream, with interactive notifications on your lock screen to control your timer and Siri shortcut compatibility.

You can check out your tracked time within the app, either in a daily view or on a chart, and you can also group your tracked time by projects, clients, or both.

Also, it’s possible to set your hourly rate and get comprehensive revenue reports for any time period, which is super handy for freelancers like me. This means you don’t have to use separate apps for work and personal tasks. And if a client asks for more details on your hourly breakdown, you can easily export a ready-to-print PDF report.

The reason I’m hooked on this app

No matter if you’re juggling one project or a bunch, the app puts everything in one timeline without you lifting a finger. When you want to see where your time’s been going, just check the timeline. And with just a few clicks, you can assign that time to your projects.

When I use it

I let Timemator know which programs and files I’m using for a project, and the app takes care of tracking tasks automatically.

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💻 Tools & Technology

How Perplexity’s AI is Reinventing Search

If you have been reading this newsletter for a while, you already know how much I love Perplexity (unsponsored!). Excerpt below:

Perplexity is this year’s best new search tool. It uses AI to answer your questions based on online sources. You get concise, relevant summaries with specific citations. These source links allow you to verify information and dig deeper. Read on for examples, limitations, and alternatives.

Pricing: Free for unlimited quick searches and five Pro searches per day. Or $20/month for 300+ Pro searches and to upload and analyze unlimited files. See the feature comparison. Works on the Web as well as iOS and Android.

🤖 AI

AI Can (Mostly) Outperform Human CEOs

Wait, what? This article is WILD. It’s published by the Harvard Business Review and you should be able to access this one free. This is definitely not on the list of jobs I ever would have thought would be taken over by AI but…CEOs do spend a lot of their time making decisions and AI is very good at weighing data so…I kind of get it. But…still! If you don’t love being the CEO of your business, maybe you can get a little AI help!

If you are worried that this is yet another way AI is taking over, there’s some good news and it’s not all that surprising. The AI struggled with black swan events (e.g., market collapses during the Covid-19 pandemic) — because it’s not human in the end. Excerpt below:

Is AI the New Boss?

Despite its limitations, GPT-4o delivered an impressive performance. While it was fired more often than the top human players, it still held its own against the best and brightest among our 344-participant global cohort. So, what are the real-world implications for meta-strategy formulation based on this experiment? Here are some initial thoughts:

Generative AI is a key strategic resource.

Ignoring generative AI in corporate strategy is no longer viable. This experiment demonstrates that even untuned models can offer unique and creative approaches to strategy when properly prompted, generating strong results. If generative AI can help companies maximize shareholder value more effectively, why resist? After all, maximizing shareholder value is the raison d’etre for the role of the CEO.

👀 Read, Watch, Listen

This week’s awesome books, YouTube videos, newsletters, etc. to add to your list!

Atomic Habits (Book)

"Atomic Habits" by James Clear is a bestselling guide to personal improvement through small, consistent changes. Clear presents a framework for building good habits and breaking bad ones, emphasizing the importance of systems over goals. Drawing from scientific research and real-life examples, he offers practical strategies for habit formation, including ways to stay motivated, design supportive environments, and recover from setbacks. The book argues that tiny, regular adjustments can lead to significant long-term results, providing readers with tools to transform their habits and achieve various personal and professional goals.

👥 Doers Inner Circle Member? Watch our book club replay, and get our notes here.

🎉 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!

• Started using bookkeeping software, did the maths about yearly cost for [new business]

• Overall, managed to get my work done!

• Interview with Silvia (got some useful insights for SEO that I'll use)

• Worked on finances overview which is really helpful

• Created 2 posts and noted down ideas for further posts

• Worked on the Bash, did monthly planning

• Worked on site with Eva and it's ready now!

• On Friday I finally recalibrated because I realized it was too much. But I still got a lost done, made a lot of progress, and I'm excited and motivated for my business, it's fun right now.

• In my last newsletter, I linked to my Calendly booking page. I also upped my package of 4 sessions for people in my facebook group, and a new client bought a package yesterday.

• I got all of the billable done on time + also most of the monthly admin during the first week of September

• I made progress with my new service page and new blog article and I conduced my first market research interview, which was very insightful.

• Good catching up at the weekend

• After the call with Jenae, I got more clarity on how to conduct my coaching and how to qualify leads. I already implemented the new workflow on my website. I think this is going to work and I can hopefully stick to this for the rest of this year.

• Work ON business call, Finances, Bash

• I could do everything I established as a goal: the billable work, the Bash, and even the MIG

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

🔒Inner Circle: Events & Announcements

• DEADLINE: 90-Day Planning Formula deadline is Monday.  Join here

• New!: Book Club is Posted RSVP here

• Monday: {EU Time} Work ON Business. Theme: 1️⃣ Strategy & Mission RSVP here

• Tuesday: Work ON Business. Theme: 1️⃣ Strategy & Mission RSVP here

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

• Accelerators: October 11 is your Office Hours RSVP here

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I hope you found this valuable!

Wishing you much productivity!

- Jenae :)