The Rundown

• Bill Gates 'didn't believe in vacations' and worked on the weekends while building Microsoft—but regretted it. Here are his 3 tips for success

• 10 Best Productivity Enhancing Gear Of November 2024

• 10 Habits To Prevent 'Brain Rot' And Create A Smart Brain In 2025

• Here's What OpenAI's $200 Monthly ChatGPT Pro Subscription Includes

• AI Thinks Differently Than People Do. Here's Why That Matters.

• Add this book to your reading list

3 Days LEFT! What’s ONE thing you’d LOVE to check off in the next 90 days?

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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)

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📈 Performance

Bill Gates 'didn't believe in vacations' and worked on the weekends while building Microsoft—but regretted it. Here are his 3 tips for success

Those long hours building your business might feel necessary right now, but even Bill Gates regrets taking that approach. His reflection on Microsoft's early days offers a powerful lesson about sustainable success that many entrepreneurs learn too late.

Key Insights:

1. Intense work periods aren't sustainable long-term. Gates even monitored employee parking lots but later realized this level of scrutiny wasn't effective.

2. Taking breaks makes you better at solving problems. Gates now emphasizes asking "Who has dealt with this well?" rather than pushing through exhaustion.

3. Being "easy on yourself" isn't being lazy. Gates explicitly states "You are not a slacker if you've cut yourself some slack".

Read the full article for Gates' complete transformation story and specific strategies for balancing ambition with sustainability.

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⚙️ Optimization

10 Best Productivity Enhancing Gear Of November 2024

Those productivity tools eating up your budget without actually making work easier? Let's fix that. Here's a carefully curated guide to gear that actually delivers on its promises to help you work smarter. Personally, I’ll be ditching the aroma infuser but the card holder would be great for my “white paper method” of handling high anxiety times by having just one focus in front of you at a time and the flat mouse is a game-changer for those of us traveling carry-on only!

Below is an excerpt of my favorite! I’ll definitely be buying one and seeing how it compares to my bulky ergonomic one.

Read the full article for detailed reviews of all 10 tools, including pros, cons and real-world applications for each item.

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This isn’t traditional business news

Welcome to Morning Brew—the free newsletter designed to keep you in the know on the business news impacting your career, company, and life—in a way you didn’t know you needed.

Note: this isn’t traditional business news. Morning Brew’s approach cuts through the noise and bore of classic business media, opting for short writeups, witty jokes, and above all—presenting the facts.

Save time, actually enjoy business news, and join over 4 million professionals reading daily.

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⏲️ Time Management

10 Habits To Prevent 'Brain Rot' And Create A Smart Brain In 2025

Those endless hours of mindless scrolling aren't just killing time - they're actually changing your brain. Here's what neuroscientists have discovered about protecting your most valuable productivity asset: your mind.

Key Insights:

1. Multitasking reduces productivity by up to 40%. Bouncing between tasks actually forces constant mental refocusing, leading to brain fatigue.

2. Natural breaks boost performance more than pushing through. For example, spending 120 minutes in nature per week (no, you don’t have to drive to the mountains, just get outside!) significantly improves cognitive function.

3. Sleep quality directly impacts work quality. Note it doesn’t necessarily say length. Check out our ‘Right Sleep’ article here for more on this topic. In general, poor sleep hygiene leads to clouded thinking and reactive responses to work stress.

Read the full article for all 10 science-backed habits to protect your brain's productivity, plus specific implementation strategies for each technique.

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💻 Tools & Technology

Here's What OpenAI's $200 Monthly ChatGPT Pro Subscription Includes

When I saw that number I couldn’t believe it. What on earth could be worth $200 a month? Let’s take a look.

Key Insights:

1. Clear market segmentation is emerging. The gap between $20 Plus and $200 Pro tiers shows AI tools maturing into distinct consumer vs power-user markets.

2. Computing power is the new premium feature. Access to the o1 pro mode model demonstrates how raw processing capability drives value.

3. Terms and limitations still apply so don’t get your hopes up too high when you see ‘unlimited.’ Account sharing and commercial use restrictions remain in place.

Read the full article for a detailed breakdown of all features, comparison with the Plus tier, and upcoming developments including potential video AI capabilities and AI agents.

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🤖 AI

AI Thinks Differently Than People Do. Here's Why That Matters.

Before rushing to replace your strategic planning with AI, here's some critical perspective on what AI can (and more importantly, can't) do for your business strategy.

Key Insights:

1. AI excels at patterns, not innovation. In other words, it can crunch data on past business models but couldn't have predicted (or helped you create) disruptors like Airbnb.

2. To get the most out of AI as your business strategy sidekick, break complex decisions into smaller parts. For example, instead of asking AI about a full strategy, focus on specific market segments or scenarios and examples.

3. Use AI as a sounding board, not an oracle. Test ideas against AI's pattern recognition and ultimately be prepared to use it to help you, the human, make final decisions. It is, after all, a robot.

Read the full article for more on the ways you can leverage AI effectively while avoiding its limitations, including detailed scenarios and implementation guidelines.

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👀 Read, Watch, Listen

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

Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard (Book)

"Switch" by Chip and Dan Heath explores why making lasting changes is difficult, focusing on the conflict between our rational and emotional minds. The book demonstrates how understanding and aligning these two mental systems can lead to successful change. Through real-world examples—from medical practice improvements to customer service transformations—the authors reveal a consistent pattern for achieving change. They argue that when both the rational and emotional minds work together, significant personal, professional, and organizational transformations become possible.

🎉 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!

• Progress on the recalibration/planning

• I was able to make progress on all the goals on my list.

• I'm slowly gaining back some sense of control and confidence.

• I updated my [business] tools
  
  What did you do this week? We feature non-member successes too. Just post them here!

🔒Inner Circle: Events & Announcements

• Important: 90-day planning formula event details Link

• Monday: The 90-day planning Formula Bash Kickoff (1 of 2) Link

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

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

• Wednesday: {Different Day} Doers Ic Mastermind RSVP here

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

• Accelerators: December 20 is your Office Hours RSVP here

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As a reminder, you’re getting this twice-weekly newsletter because you opted in to receive awesome productivity and systems tips through one of these methods:

Doer Entrepreneurs, Doers Express Newsletter, Productivity Stacks, Success by Rx, ClickUp Facebook Group, Productive & Successful Translators Facebook Group.

If you’re not interested in improving your and your business’s productivity so you’d like to break up, that’s definitely a bummer. But, you can always use the unsubscribe link at the bottom if you do not want to get these tips — but keep in mind I am hyper-focused on making these twice-weekly emails as valuable as possible.

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I hope you found this valuable!

Wishing you much productivity!

- Jenae :)