Hi – I feel like a bit of a fraud sending you an email giving you productivity tips this week.

Truth is, I've wasted a ton of time myself.

On Monday I got obsessed with a little technical website problem.

I was trying to get some extra details in the tracking I do so I could trace back subscribers to the original web page they signed up from. I got things working on my site, then installed the exact same changes on Kathy's site (which has an almost identical setup to mine) and it just wouldn't work.

I spent literally hours trying everything I could think of to get it to work, but to no avail.

And the truth is, that extra little bit of information will hardly make any difference at all. But I got obsessed with the problem. I couldn't stop until I solved it.

I was a classic case of “throwing good money after bad”. Except it was “throwing good time after bad”. And time is in much shorter supply than money.

They say persistence is an important trait for entrepreneurs. But sometimes it's even more important to realise when what you're chasing isn't actually worth it and to give up.

So that was the Down.

The Up for me this week was something I mentioned last week: using pen and paper (or in my case my iPad and Apple Pencil).

I got so much good thinking work done by hand writing, drawing and doodling that I've almost stopped using my little Macbook. There's something about writing or drawing things by hand that seems to stimulate the little grey cells and enable you to concentrate for longer periods. I'd recommend it.

The other thing I've found really speeds up my thinking and creative work is to try to explain what I'm thinking to others. It seems to force me to either clarify my thoughts or realise they're not as solid as they should be.

This week I did a short Facebook Live broadcast for Momentum Club members on “The Expert Myth and the Power of a Disruptive Point of View”. By the end of the broadcast I had a couple of additional good ideas to help me take this project further.

I also had a number of calls with my “idea buddy” Lee during the week to bounce ideas backwards and forwards on things we were working on. 

If you haven't got someone yourself who you can do this kind of 2-person brainstorming with it's well worth finding someone. You learn when you have to explain your idea to them, and you learn when you get feedback from them. It gets you much further, faster, than trying to figure it all out by yourself.

That's it for this week. Apologies for the slightly late email: Kathy and I have been doing a bit of “off-peak living”: we went to see the 2pm showing of Dr Strange in an empty cinema :)

See you next week

– Ian