Hey there!

I hope you've had a productive week! If you are new here, welcome to our Friday Roundup.
What is the Friday Roundup?

A roundup of the best in evidence-based productivity for freelancers, small business owners & founders to help you work smarter and live more.

Be on the lookout for our Tuesday Swipe file & Case study! Every Tuesday a free behind-the-scenes swipe file from an entrepreneur with the systems, tools, and hires that helped them build sustainable success.

-Jenae :)

The Rundown

• Want Better Mental Focus? Neuroscience Just Found This Simple, Joyful Activity Helps Your Brain Concentrate

• The Art of the Power Nap — How to Sleep Your Way to Maximum Productivity

• Systems-Based Productivity: Achieve More & Stress Less With Ben Meer

• Canva acquires Affinity: Welcome to Canva, Affinity!

• Add this to your shopping 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

👉Want Better Mental Focus? Neuroscience Just Found This Simple, Joyful Activity Helps Your Brain Concentrate

Good news for pet parents and if you don’t have a pet, not to worry, this can still work for you! I always love a good science-backed excuse to love on an animal so I had to include this one. This new study is out of South Korea and found increased beta waves (i.e., greater calm concentration) and strengthening of alpha waves (per the article) indicating relaxation.

Check out this excerpt from the article then click the link above to dive into the other studies linked and further deets on how you can leverage this in your life and business!

[…] There is perhaps a deeper lesson here too about the nature of concentration and how to improve yours, whether or not you're a dog lover. 

It's natural to think of concentration as an exercise in sheer mental willpower. But psychologists say that improving focus is often less about forcing yourself to endure and more about working with your brain's natural needs for stimulation and variety. 

"Researchers have found that our brains tend to ignore sources of constant stimulation," explains performance coaching startup BetterUp, for example. "Taking very small breaks by refocusing your attention elsewhere can dramatically improve mental concentration after that."

"The next time you are working on a project, take a break when you begin to feel stuck. Move around, talk to someone, or even switch to a different type of task. You will come back with a more focused mind to keep your performance high," suggests BetterUp. 

Similarly, time-log studies show that the most productive workers are actually the ones who take regular short breaks, not the ones who plough ahead for unbroken hours. 

⚙️ Optimization

👉The Art of the Power Nap — How to Sleep Your Way to Maximum Productivity

A while back we wrote this article about a study indicating that it’s not always about how much you sleep but instead the quality and when you sleep play parts too, even if you don’t get enough and also discusses naps as a way to improve overall sleep.

This article from Entrepreneur.com dives into the details around napping strategies. In particular, we really liked this one — flexibility. Sometimes we need to work a little late or our bodies wake us up earlier than normal and a nap can help us get the right amount for a 24-hour period without needing a time machine to fix last night’s sleep. Below is how that works!

Be flexible

Sure, some prolific people have gotten by on scant sleep. Margaret Thatcher famously slept less than five hours a night, along with Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, Thomas Jefferson and Marie Curie. For Thomas Edison, the sweet spot was around five hours. (Then again, maybe they would have been even more successful had they made the time for more shuteye. We'll never know.) But if the vast majority of sleep experts and health experts broadly have anything to say about it, these are success rarities, and you should aim for seven-and-a-half to eight hours per night.

Nick Littlehales is an elite sports sleep coach who's worked with Manchester United, Real Madrid and the British cycling team, and told The Guardian that we ought to aim for seven-and-a-half hours in each 24-hour cycle, divvied up between night and daytime shuteye. So, if you sleep just six hours one night, allow yourself a longer daytime snooze. If you manage to get seven hours, plan for a quick power nap. Flexibility is key.

⏲️ Time Management

👉Systems-Based Productivity: Achieve More & Stress Less With Ben Meer

We love systems of course but even better is when that system can be adjusted to you and in Meer’s system he includes “Energy Management” which we are a huge proponent of. Telling everyone to get up at 5am doesn’t work because not everyone has the same energy patterns. Check out his view in this article — excerpt below.

Finding your TEMPO for exponentially better performance

The acronym TEMPO refers to five dimensions of productivity: T (Time Management), E (Energy Management), M (Mindset), P (Proficiency) and O (Organization).

In other words, T is about allocating time to do the right things; E is about having the energy to do them; M is having the state of mind and motivation to the right things and conquer procrastination; P is about doing those right things well; and O is about quickly finding the right things when you need them.

According to Ben, our productivity is a product of five dimensions of TEMPO, not the sum. A low score in any of these categories will derail your productive output. “The rule of Multiplying by Zero,” he shared, “tells the result of system neglect.

“Any number, no matter how large, multiplied by zero is zero. Similarly, any person, no matter how strong a particular system (like proficiency/skill), when multiplied by a zero in another system (like mindset), results in zero.”

For this reason, a holistic systems-based approach to productivity ensures that our actions work together harmoniously. Ben told me, “Maybe you timeboxed your morning calendar for deep work (time management) but only got three hours of sleep the night before because you binge-watched the third season of Succession (lack of energy management).

“While that’s undoubtedly entertaining, your lack of sleep is a recipe for low productivity. In other words, what good is TIME if you don’t have the ENERGY to do what you want to do and be who you want to be?”

💻 Tools & Technology

👉Canva acquires Affinity: Welcome to Canva, Affinity!

Some good news for Canva subscribers this week! Canva was mostly happy to cater to a different audience from those using the Adobe suite of tools but it looks like Canva subscribers (we’re on the list!) are about to get an upgrade! If you’ve never heard of Affinity, below are the tools that are mentioned in Canva’s press release and you can click the link above to view images and video to see what you’re in for! Excerpt below!

Available across Windows, Mac and iPad, Affinity’s creative suite includes:

Affinity Designer: The top choice for thousands of illustrators, designers, and game developers, Designer is Affinity’s vector-based graphics software for everything from creating digital illustrations to concept art, unique graphics, logos, brand designs, web mock-ups, and more.

Affinity Photo: The only fully-loaded photo editor available across MacOS, Windows, and iPad. Perfect for everything from basic editing to advanced retouching and creating multilayer photo compositions, Affinity Photo is quickly becoming the industry standard for image editing.

Affinity Publisher: The next generation of professional page layout software, this smooth, intuitive app lets you combine images, graphics, and text to make beautiful layouts ready for publication, from books, magazines, and marketing materials to social media templates, website mock-ups, and more.

👀 Read, Watch, Listen, or Buy

This week’s awesome item to add to your list!

Microsoft Surface Pro 9 (2022), 13" 2-in-1 Tablet & Laptop, Thin & Lightweight, Intel 12th Gen i7 Fast Processor for Multi-Tasking, 16GB RAM, 256GB Storage with Windows 11, Graphite Microsoft Copilot (Item)

Alright — I don’t know what’s going on because the sale was supposed to have ended but as of the writing of this newsletter, this product is still $500 off. I have a surface pro and absolutely love it. In fact, I have a small one and a large one and just adore them. Being able to detatch the keyboard is a gamechanger. I bought an ergonomic keyboard for home and for travel so I can have my screen at the correct height in any hotel room vs being cramped up on a laptop. If you travel and work or even just like to have a more ergonomic setup at your local coffee shop, this style of computer is truly a game-changer. - Jenae

🎉 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 started going through the link that Jenae sent me when she replied to my comment so I put together my company values and mission statement.

• I did start a business plan.

• I survived a rough assignment and part of it was REALLY cool!

• Almost finished listening to the book and added new affirmations. I remind myself regularly of them.

• I did a mini-series with 4 posts on LI.

• Made some progress in terms of rebranding/business strategy with the help of Doers (attended Mastermind + Office hours).

• YES! I finally started to tackle working on my new product.

• My habits experiment continues. From what I can see, I can be in the office earlier if I don't use my phone in the morning. I also have the feeling that my overall productivity is better on those days.

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

🔒Inner Circle: Events & Announcements

• Announcement: Schedule changes for April 1-16 Read here

• THIS MONDAY: Doers Mastermind RSVP here

• Monday: {EU Time} Work ON Business. Theme: 2️⃣ Process & Productivity RSVP here

• Tuesday: Work ON Business. Theme: 2️⃣ Process & Productivity RSVP here

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

• Accelerators: April 5 is your Office Hours (note: via TEXT this week) RSVP & info here

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I hope you found this valuable!

Wishing you much productivity!

- Jenae :)