The Rundown

• Melinda French Gates Has 2 Words for People Who Don’t Get Enough Sleep. Science Agrees

• How to structure your day for brain efficiency, according to a neuroscientist

• How To Master Time Management In The Age Of Distraction

• Claude's "Projects" Is a User-Friendly Version of Custom GPTs. Here's How to Use It

• OpenAI bets on AI agents becoming mainstream by 2025

• Add this book to your reading list

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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

Melinda French Gates Has 2 Words for People Who Don’t Get Enough Sleep. Science Agrees

Oh sleep, our trusty, frustrating, friend. I want to start this by saying, this article is included for anyone who thinks sleep is optional or at least that you sometimes priorize work over sleep — NOT insomniacs. If you are an insomniac or struggle with sleep, read this one instead. Excerpt below:

I guess you could argue that if you aren’t sleeping you could be using that time to be productive. The problem is, that’s almost never how it works.

Working excessive hours is not a virtue. It might feel like a badge of honor, but it rarely amounts to better outcomes. Sleeping less doesn’t make you stronger or more productive, it just makes you more tired. And, tired people almost never perform as well as they could with a good night’s sleep.

Look, I am definitely a morning person. I prefer to get up pretty early because it’s when I’m most productive, but that doesn’t mean I don’t need any sleep. It means I need to plan accordingly and go to bed early enough to get seven hours of sleep.

In fact, I’ve argued on a number of occasions that the single best thing you can do to be more productive is to get enough sleep. It turns out, science agrees with me, and with French Gates.

The Centers for Disease Control has said that most adults need at least seven hours of sleep. In fact, some scientific studies have suggested that sleeping for only four hours a night is just as bad for your body and your mind as not sleeping at all.

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⚙️ Optimization

How to structure your day for brain efficiency, according to a neuroscientist

This article is a great breakdown of why we seem to have a default mode that says to work long hours = productive and fewer hours = not productive. Do yourself a favor and read the full article here! Excerpt below:

The problem is that we still follow a psychological and physical infrastructure of work that resembles the era of assembly lines, which doesn’t foster or facilitate the type of work needed today.

“Instead of generating 100 bad ideas, we have to come up with that one single good one,” says Storoni. “In order to enhance the quality of mental output and not just keep the mind working continuously, producing large amounts of output of mediocre quality, the mind has to work in a very different way.”

Start by Rethinking Working Hours

Leaders previously measured productivity in terms of how many hours an employee spent at work or the number of abstract targets they reached. As a result, people worked in a way where the quantity of work mattered most.

⏲️ Time Management

How To Master Time Management In The Age Of Distraction

The article starts off with the illusion of multitasking which I hope you all accept but, if you don’t, definitely don’t miss that section. More importantly though are the other sections such as this excerpt below:

The Emotional Side of Time Management

Time management isn’t just a logistical problem—it’s an emotional one. Many people struggle with procrastination, not because they lack discipline, but because they feel overwhelmed by the size or difficulty of their tasks. This emotional resistance can lead to avoidance behaviors—like mindlessly checking social media—that provide temporary relief but worsen stress in the long run.

The solution lies in breaking down large tasks into manageable steps. By dividing a daunting project into smaller, actionable tasks, you reduce the emotional burden and create a clear path forward. This technique, often referred to as "chunking," makes even the most overwhelming projects feel more achievable.

Another emotional factor is perfectionism, which often leads to paralysis. The fear of not doing something perfectly can stop people from starting at all. Overcoming perfectionism requires a mindset shift. Instead of focusing on getting things perfect, focus on making progress. Set smaller, more attainable goals, and remind yourself that progress is better than perfection. This shift in perspective can help you move forward without getting stuck in the anxiety of doing things flawlessly.

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💻 Tools & Technology

Claude's "Projects" Is a User-Friendly Version of Custom GPTs. Here's How to Use It

Folks this is a game changer if you are a Claude user! This article gives detailed instructions. Excerpt below:

Ever found yourself repeatedly uploading the same documents or using similar prompts when using AI chatbots? If so, Claude projects offers an elegant solution! Claude projects is similar to ChatGPT's custom GPTs but more intuitive and user-friendly. Here’s a quick overview of how to use it.

What Is Claude "Projects"?

Claude projects is a powerful yet intuitive feature available on Claude’s paid plans that allow you to create specific, self-contained workspaces with “Custom Instructions” and “Project Knowledge”. The custom instructions specify what the project is about, whereas the project knowledge provides additional context and information. You can upload a collection of files—text, code, PDFs, etc., as the project knowledge.

For example, I have a Claude project for cleaning up audio transcriptions for errors and properly formatting them. The custom instruction is the prompt that tells the project how to clean up and format the transcriptions I provide. The project knowledge includes the names of tools I use and people I know who often get mistranscribed. This allows Claude to catch those transcription errors better and correct them.

Like the very name “Claude” usually gets mistranscribed as “Cloud” because of my accent. So, having “Claude” mentioned as a tool I use allows the project to become contextually aware of when I meant to say “Claude” and when I meant to say “cloud” and correct those instances accordingly.

🤖 AI

OpenAI bets on AI agents becoming mainstream by 2025

The concept of AI agents is something we have covered before as the likely future of AI. If you missed it, basically AI entities talking to each other and thus able to manage things more autonomously (that is a gross oversimplification of course). Excerpt below:

OpenAI is betting that artificial intelligence-powered assistants will “hit the mainstream” by next year as tech groups, including Google and Apple, race to bring so-called AI agents to consumers.

AI agents, which can reason and complete complex tasks for people, have become the newest front in the battle between tech companies as they look to drive revenues from the fast-developing technology.

“We want to make it possible to interact with AI in all of the ways that you interact with another human being,” said Kevin Weil, chief product officer at OpenAI.

“These more agentic systems are going to become possible, and it is why I think 2025 is gonna be the year that agentic systems finally hit the mainstream,” he added.

👀 Read, Watch, Listen

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

The Inner Game of Stress: Outsmart Life's Challenges and Fulfill Your Potential (Book)

"The Inner Game of Stress" by W. Timothy Gallwey and two physicians applies sports psychology principles to stress management. It teaches readers to access inner resources for stability and success amidst various stressors. The book argues that negative self-talk and perceived external pressures contribute to stress, but we can combat this by embracing learning, proper rest, and trusting our judgment. It offers practical tools like the STOP technique, attitude adjustment, intuition development, empathy exercises, and redefining success. The goal is to help readers maintain perspective and peak performance in all aspects of life.

🎉 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!

• Made good progress on my landing page, I hope I will have it ready for review next week

• I have worked on my landingpage every day.

• MIG - Done more than MVP (more than 3 days and usually more than minimum)

• Some videos seen and some materials studied

• I nevertheless managed to get through most of the Bbash steps!

• I did 4 days of court interpreting with a conference interpreter who told me I was really good at it and that boosted my self-confidence! The court clerks were really nice and I landed a new, unforeseen job.

• Finished the bash.

• I got another new client and now I have 5 paying clients.

• I worked out more and started paying attention to what I was eating.

• Did most of my morning routine Mon, Tues and Wed.

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

🔒Inner Circle: Events & Announcements

• Announcement: Congratulations to everyone who completed the 90-day planning formula! Our winners are.... click HERE to see! 

• New! Book Club is Posted RSVP here

• Monday: Doers Mastermind. 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 18 is your Office Hours RSVP here

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I hope you found this valuable!

Wishing you much productivity!

- Jenae :)