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- Issue No. 152: "Time Management" is the wrong focus for productivity -- what to do instead.
Issue No. 152: "Time Management" is the wrong focus for productivity -- what to do instead.
Understanding The DeepSeek Moment and What's Next for AI
Jenae Spry
January 31, 2025
In partnership with
Productivity Express
Issue No. 152
The Best in Evidenced-Based Productivity
for Small Business Owners, Freelancers & Founders
Helping You Work Smarter and Live More
The Rundown
Unlocking the Flow State: The Science Behind Peak Performance and How to Achieve It
The Neuroscience Of Filler Words And How They Can Erode Credibility
Time management is the wrong focus for productivity: Forget time management—here's how I stay productive while running 3 companies
Perplexity now has a mobile assistant on Android
OpenAI launches Operator, an AI agent that performs tasks autonomously
Understanding The DeepSeek Moment and What's Next for AI (Video)
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🔥Quote/Prompt
When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It’s to enjoy each step along the way.
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)
Let's talk productivity paralysis.
When we fixate on hitting specific metrics or matching someone else's process, we often freeze up.
Here's the truth:
Your most effective system is […]
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📈 Performance
We are all juggling multiple complex tasks - from client work to trying to carve out time to market, create strategy and stay up to date on the latest (probably AI-related) tool. Sometimes it all clicks, and you're "in the zone." Other times, it feels like wading through mud. This research reveals exactly what's happening in our brains during those peak performance moments, with some useful takeaways for those of us who wish we could activate that flow state whenever we want.
During high-flow states, participants (both novice and expert) showed reduced activity in frontal brain areas responsible for executive control and decision-making [and] increased activity in regions handling sensory processing like sound and movement. This supports the idea that flow involves letting go of conscious control and allowing well-practiced skills to run automatically.
Key Insights:
Flow requires the right balance between skill level and challenge - tasks should stretch your abilities without overwhelming them.
Expert performance looks effortless because it literally uses less brain power, with reduced activity in areas responsible for conscious control.
Feeling "in the zone" doesn't guarantee quality output - objective feedback and metrics remain crucial for evaluating performance.
Building expertise is the key to accessing flow states more reliably, as mastery allows skills to become automatic.
Read the full article for detailed brain activity patterns, practical examples across different business contexts, and specific techniques to cultivate your own flow states.
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⚙️ Optimization
Think your high school teacher was just being ridiculous when correcting your “ums” and "uhs"? Well, they might actually be undermining your credibility as an adult more than you realize. This research reveals exactly how filler words impact your listeners' brains - and what you can do about it.
When listeners detect excessive filler words, the brain's amygdala activates a subtle "threat" response, signaling uncertainty or unreliability in the speaker. Meanwhile, the prefrontal cortex must work harder to process disfluent speech, leading to listener fatigue and disengagement.
Key Insights:
Your brain processes filler words differently in formal versus casual settings - while 1-2 fillers per minute might be fine in conversation, even minimal use can damage credibility in professional contexts.
Strategic pausing isn't just about sounding authoritative - it actually reduces cognitive load for both speaker and listener, making your message more memorable.
The path to eliminating filler words starts with awareness - having someone signal when you use them creates immediate feedback loops that help rewire speaking habits.
Thoughtful pacing and deliberate pauses signal confidence to your audience's brain, even though many speakers fear silence will make them appear hesitant.
Read the full article for a three-step neuroscience-backed method to reduce filler words and specific thresholds for acceptable filler word frequency across different communication contexts.
⏲️ Time Management
We are all in a constant battle with the clock. But what if your biggest time management challenges aren't about what you need to do, but what you need to stop doing? Fortune’s article discusses the counterproductive habits holding us back. This CEO runs three companies with thousands of employees, yet stays remarkably focused and productive. His secret isn't another complicated time-tracking system or those thousands of employees - it's a complete mindset shift around how we structure our work.
By being strategic about what I do—and the order I do it in—I'm able to turn what could be an impossible to-do list into something manageable. It doesn't involve any special apps—or any biohacking.
Key Insights:
The "30/70 Rule" creates space for what matters - limit items that drain your energy to 30% of your time, keeping 70% flexible for strategic work and customer/employee connections.
Focus on "impact management" rather than time management by identifying the few projects that will genuinely move your business forward.
Practice "monotasking" in 30-minute blocks - research shows task-switching can reduce productivity by up to 40% and requires 23 minutes to refocus.
Strategic delegation means focusing on your unique strengths - if someone else is managing a project well, redirect your energy elsewhere.
Read the full article for detailed examples of implementing the 30/70 rule, a framework for identifying truly impactful work, and specific strategies for breaking big goals into manageable quarterly chunks.
💻 Tools & Technology
Most of us have been using our phone’s built in assistant for a while whether you’re a “Hey Google” or “Hey Siri” person. But there’s a new player in that market and it can do…well…a LOT. Not only can it do the standard tasks like create a reminder, this one can even book you an Uber.
Right now, the assistant supports Spotify, YouTube, and Uber, along with email, messaging, and clock apps," according to Perplexity spokesperson Sara Platick. "We're continuing to add support for more apps and more functionality though, so this is just the starting point.
Key Insights:
The assistant can handle common business tasks like writing emails, setting reminders, and booking transportation services through natural language commands.
It has visual understanding capabilities, allowing it to analyze what's on your screen or through your camera to provide context-aware assistance.
Currently works with major apps like Spotify, YouTube, and Uber, along with core phone functions like email, messaging, and scheduling, with more integrations planned.
While powerful, it has limitations - it can't yet access certain popular business tools like Slack or Reddit, showing there's still room for growth.
Read the full article for a hands-on review of the assistant's capabilities, supported apps, and installation instructions for Android users.
🤖 AI
Those repetitive tasks eating up your valuable business hours? OpenAI's new Operator tool promises to take them off your plate. This groundbreaking AI agent can handle everything from booking travel to making restaurant reservations, all while you focus on work that actually grows your business.
“The CUA model is trained to ask for user confirmation before finalizing tasks with external side effects, for example before submitting an order, sending an email, etc., so that the user can double-check the model's work before it becomes permanent," OpenAI writes in materials provided to TechCrunch. "[It] has already proven useful in a variety of cases, and we aim to extend that reliability across a wider range of tasks
Key Insights:
Operator works through its own dedicated browser window, showing you exactly what actions it's taking while letting you maintain control of your main screen.
The system requires user confirmation before finalizing any tasks with external effects, providing a safety check before committing to purchases or reservations.
OpenAI has partnered with major platforms like DoorDash, eBay, and Uber to ensure the tool respects their terms of service while automating interactions.
For sensitive tasks like banking transactions, Operator maintains security by requiring human input for critical information like credit card details.
Read the full article for detailed capabilities and limitations of the Operator preview, current task categories available, and OpenAI's rollout plans beyond the initial U.S. release.
Need help making sense of the latest AI breakthrough? A power user breaks down the DeepSeek phenomenon from a practical perspective, cutting through the hype to explain what it really means for everyday users and businesses.
The release of DeepSeek's AI model marks a pivotal moment - it matches the capabilities of OpenAI's "01" (considered state-of-the-art until now), while charging just 14 cents vs $7.50 per million tokens for input processing. Released under an MIT license as fully open source, users concerned about the company's data storage in China can run the model locally through tools like Llama or LM Studio, bypassing privacy concerns entirely. [Note: This is a combination of quotes from the video.]
Key Insights:
DeepSeek's emergence has forced rapid responses from competitors - OpenAI quickly announced free access to GPT-4 mini and rushed out their Operator tool, showing how this disruption is benefiting consumers through increased competition.
For developers and businesses, the cost implications are dramatic - DeepSeek's API pricing is 30x cheaper than OpenAI's services, potentially transforming the economics of building AI applications.
The model offers unprecedented transparency in its thinking process, showing detailed reasoning steps compared to OpenAI's more opaque responses, which could be valuable for fine-tuning and understanding outputs.
This shift hints at the next frontier in AI - tools like OpenAI's Operator that don't just save time but effectively multiply human capabilities by autonomously handling complex tasks.
Watch the full video for detailed comparisons between DeepSeek and other AI models, insights on privacy considerations, and specific examples of how these tools are evolving beyond simple automation into true productivity multipliers.
👀 Read, Watch, Listen
This week’s awesome books, YouTube videos, newsletters, etc. to add to your list!
"Four Thousand Weeks" challenges conventional time management wisdom by confronting a stark reality: the average human has only 4,000 weeks to live. Author Oliver Burkeman argues that traditional productivity techniques often increase our anxiety without helping us live more meaningfully. Instead of trying to "get everything done," he draws on philosophy, psychology, and spiritual teachings to offer a practical guide for embracing our finite time and making intentional choices about how we spend it. The book suggests that many of our time-related struggles stem from societal choices rather than unchangeable truths. Full disclosure: I haven’t read this book but it is already downloaded on Audible!
🎉 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!
I managed to finish all my billable work
Spent time on the Bash, did monthly planning + attended session
Reorganized Admin to do invoicing and payments I wrote a long review article and published it
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I hope you found this valuable!
Wishing you much productivity!
- Jenae :)
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