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- Issue No. 156: 3 Ways To Fight 'Time Sickness'—By A Psychologist
Issue No. 156: 3 Ways To Fight 'Time Sickness'—By A Psychologist
How to Reduce Overthinking
Jenae Spry
February 14, 2025
In partnership with
Productivity Express
Issue No. 156
The Best in Evidenced-Based Productivity
for Small Business Owners, Freelancers & Founders
Helping You Work Smarter and Live More
The Rundown
How to Reduce Overthinking by Reasoning Like a Mathematician (no calculations required!)
Write LinkedIn Comments That Become High-Ticket Leads: 5 Proven Steps
3 Ways To Fight 'Time Sickness'—By A Psychologist
I Just Tested the World's First Mindful Browser — It's Calmly Convinced Me to Ditch Google Chrome
AI Means the End of Internet Search as We've Known It
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Before we dive in, for the next 3 weeks ONLY, I’m offering forever access to an important course that is currently members-only.
Sign up now and you get FOREVER access to this course that WILL get your time back. — Offer Expires in 3 weeks! 👇— Jenae
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🔥Quote/Prompt
Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start.
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 about something I see holding back too many talented business owners - the myth of perfect circumstances.
Successful businesses aren't built on […]
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📈 Performance
Is your “what if” flowchart 873 layers deep? I get it. So when I came across this article I thought it would help a lot of you! In it, a psychologist discusses how thinking like a mathematician (no calculations required) can break through mental gridlock and get you unstuck.
When mathematicians solve problems, they don't just dive in all at once. Instead, they focus on understanding the problem deeply and asking themselves questions like these: What do I already know? What are the facts? What parts of this problem are easy? What parts seem tricky? What can I do to simplify it?
Key Insights:
Complex problems become manageable when broken into known facts, easy parts, and tricky elements, rather than trying to solve everything at once.
The framework works best when started on smaller decisions, like daily operational choices, before applying it to bigger strategic challenges.
The key to breaking free from overthinking is asking structured questions that force you to separate facts from assumptions.
Read the full article for the complete four-question framework and detailed examples of applying it to both business and personal decisions.
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⚙️ Optimization
Commenting “great post!” on someone’s LinkedIn post isn’t doing your business any favors. While most of us struggle to stand out in an endless feed of AI-generated responses, there's a systematic way to turn commenting into a real lead-generation engine.
Write comments that showcase your expertise without selling. Share a quick story about overcoming the same challenge. Give actionable advice that works right now. Make readers curious about the person behind the wisdom. Treat every comment like a mini post.
Key Insights:
Strategic preparation matters more than volume - identify 20 key accounts that share your target audience and learn their posting patterns for maximum visibility.
Comments should provide standalone value - approach each one as a micro-piece of content that demonstrates expertise while making readers curious enough to click your profile.
Move beyond surface engagement - track which comments spark real discussions and create a proven playbook of approaches that consistently convert to meaningful connections.
Read the full article for a detailed 5-step system to turn LinkedIn comments into qualified leads, plus templates for creating engaging conversations.
⏲️ Time Management
That constant feeling of racing against the clock isn't just in your head - it's a real phenomenon called "time sickness" and it's wreaking havoc on our productivity and wellbeing. But there's a research-backed way to break free from this endless rush.
Time sickness is a term coined by Dr. Larry Dossey in his 1982 book Space, Time & Medicine to describe the distress and potential health consequences arising from the belief that time is constantly slipping away and that one can never accomplish enough.
Key Insights:
Time itself isn't the enemy - research shows that shifting our mindset from competing against time to working with it as a resource can transform our daily experience.
Managing attention beats managing time - studies reveal "attention residue" from task-switching costs more productivity than we realize, making single-tasking more efficient than constant multitasking. Note: Sign up for the Time Vampire Cure here for a step-by-step minutes-per-day course on this.
Building in intentional pauses - even brief 5-minute buffers between tasks can prevent the frantic "back-to-back" feeling and help maintain clearer focus throughout the day.
Read the full article for specific techniques to combat time sickness, including a research-backed mindfulness assessment to measure your current relationship with time.
💻 Tools & Technology
If your browser is part of what's making you feel overwhelmed and scattered all day, there's finally a thoughtful alternative. Opera's new Air browser is bringing mindfulness to web browsing in a way that could transform how we work online.
Well, binaural beats are built directly into Opera Air and I really felt each of the many options have a different impact on my state. For example, when hitting some admin tasks, the 'Energized Focus' track with a 12Hz bass tone really helped me zone in and become a one-man production line. And when the day ends, entering 'Deep Relaxation' with a 5Hz tone prompted a relaxed state over the 30-minute duration to the point that I ended up falling asleep!
Key Insights:
Browser design can actively support wellbeing - Opera Air integrates mindfulness features like binaural beats and guided exercises directly into the browsing experience.
Intentional interruptions improve focus - Unlike traditional browsers designed to keep you engaged, Air actively encourages taking breaks with meditation and movement prompts.
Clean interface reduces mental load - By stripping away visual clutter while keeping productive features like VPN and ad blocking, the browser helps maintain clarity without sacrificing functionality.
Read the full article for an in-depth look at all four built-in mindfulness exercises and how they integrate into your workflow.
🤖 AI
For 25 years, we've relied on keyword searches and blue links. But AI is fundamentally changing how we'll access and interact with the world's knowledge, offering a more natural and powerful way to find what we need.
The search results we see from generative AI are best understood as a waypoint rather than a destination. What's most important may not be search in itself; rather, it's that search has given AI model developers a path to incorporating real-time information into their inputs and outputs. And that opens up all sorts of possibilities.
Key Insights:
Traditional search is being replaced by conversational AI that can understand natural language questions and provide direct answers synthesized from multiple sources.
AI models can now blend real-time data with their training to deliver more current and personalized results, moving beyond static information retrieval.
The future points toward AI agents that don't just search but take action - booking travel, diagnosing problems, and completing tasks based on what they find online.
Read the full article for a deep dive into how Google, OpenAI, and others are reinventing search with AI, including the challenges of accuracy and the impact on publishers.
👀 Read, Watch, Listen
This week’s awesome books, YouTube videos, newsletters, etc. to add to your list!
Four Thousand Weeks (Book)
Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman explores how to meaningfully use our limited lifespan (approximately 4,000 weeks if we live to 80). Instead of focusing on productivity hacks and time management techniques that often increase our anxiety, Burkeman draws on philosophy, psychology, and spiritual wisdom to help readers embrace life's finite nature. He argues that our struggles with time management reflect deeper questions about how to best use our brief existence.
I just started reading this book and am already finding its perspective on embracing our time limitations, rather than fighting against them, to be incredibly refreshing and insightful.
🎉 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 completed a lot of my weekly goals and definitely started moving the needle on the marketing front.
An old client reached out for an ongoing content strategy service, the kind of role I'm after going forward.
I created a lot of content for the [business].
What did you do this week? We feature non-member successes too. Just post them here!
🔒Inner Circle: Events & Announcements
Announcement: Brand new section — Build Your Baseline Click here
Monday: {EU Time} Work ON Business. Theme: 5️⃣ Finances RSVP here
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Monday/Friday: Goal Setting + Plan Your Week Party
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I hope you found this valuable!
Wishing you much productivity!
- Jenae :)
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