Your Google Calendar knows the truth (about your priorities)

"When is a 6 am Zoom call ever a good idea?"

Bleary-eyed and exhausted, Tim is beating himself up for agreeing to be on this stupid call.

He’s been roped into a low-probability pitch with an Asia-based prospect by his passive-aggressive boss.

("It'd be nice if you could join — but no worries if you can't, I’ll ask James instead.”)

Tim's new "morning routine" would have to wait — yet another day.

72 days ago, his physician told him that he needed to commit to 30 minutes of "movement" daily. (That's the nice way to say, "Try exercising.")

(Tim, like 40% of US adults, has the dubious distinction of gaining "an average of 29 pounds" during the pandemic).

28 days ago, Tim signed up for 43 Ideas for Starting a Side Business on LinkedIn Learning.

(After 21 years as an accountant, he desperately needs a new career that actually makes him feel alive. More on that...)

Yet he hasn’t even made it to Module 3.

Tim tip-toes into the bathroom, knowing his wife will kill him if he wakes her up this early.

He splashes some cold water on his face.

He tussles some pomade into his hair to make it look semi-presentable.

And throws on a button-down shirt, just ensuring it falls over his flannel PJs.

"Business on top. Party on the bottom," he smirks to himself.

Tim saunters over to his laptop, and does a quick time check.

5:59 am.

Crap, he won't have enough time to make a coffee.

As he waits for the call to connect, Tim feels his phone vibrate.

He's ready to flick the notification away, but something looks different:

Tina glides out of bed like an agile cat.

It's also 5:45 am and the swallows have begun their morning sing-song. She doesn't need a piece of metal around her finger to verify that she had a restful eight and a half hours of sleep.

She just knows.

Tina's mornings feel so luxurious. The kids don't rise until 7:30 am and she doesn't open her laptop until 9 am.

She ponders how to spend the next 90 minutes.

"Workout, then read," she decides.

She opens up her phone (a Slack-free and Gmail-free zone) and fires up her Alexia Clark fitness app.

Today's circuit? A 20 minute medley of TRX rows, burpees, inch worms and wall-walks.

By 6:10 am, she's totally wiped. But also bursting with energy.

By 6:30 am, she's showered and dressed (with 60 minutes to spare until the kiddos storm the barn asking for pancakes.)

She's always fascinated by watching the coffee drip out of her Chemex pour-over. The minimalist glass, the splashing droplets of coffee are calmingly meditative to her.

She watches them drop.

Splish! Splosh!

(The coffee is decaf — regular beans make her way too jittery.)

Tina then walks over to her Eames lounge chair (yup, a guilty indulgence) and grabs her tattered copy of Clayton Christensen's book How Will You Measure Your Life.

She thumbs to the most recent page, catching a heavily highlighted paragraph:

Tim (who we’ll now refer to as $10 Tim) swipes to see the quote:

Whut?

It's Tim's turn to introduce himself on the Zoom and he musters up faux pride about his 21 years of experience as a Manager at a Deloitte.

WTF is that supposed to mean?

It's from a new app called WeCroak. The app has a simple promise:

You see, Tim finds himself in a bit of a conundrum.

He's got a wonderful wife and two young kids.

He’s paid down 72% of his mortgage (and his home value is through the roof).

He drives a sleek 2022 metallic blue Audi e-tron.

They're clearly in the 1% of US households.

Yet, Tim is beset by a nagging emptiness.

The daily repetition of Zoom call, after Zoom call, after Zoom call. (He averages 9 per day for the past 2 years. He once did the math: 4,200 Zoom calls since March 2020.)

Then there's the 6-tabbed Excel sheets. Checking Accounts Receivables. Tying out Net Working Capital.

Heck, hitting F9 doesn't feel the same in your 40s.

"Comfortably numb," he recently told his therapist (via Zoom).

Not only that, his 40s are starting to feel like — well, 40.

A game of duck duck goose with his 2 year old, leaves 2 days of soreness in his lower back.

His recent physical revealed that a cocktail of Lipitor, Lopressor and Finasteride were all on the horizon.

But most importantly, on days with more than six Zoom calls, he finds himself asking, "Is this it?"

So one of his Ayahuasca-trying-Bhagavad Gita-toting-startup-founder-friends recommended that he "contemplate his mortality."

Which led Tim to the WeCroak app.

And which is why Moliere is trolling him about being dead for a looooooooong time.

Tim's brief memento-mori was abruptly punctured by his boss asking him to contemplate something else: "a due diligence trip to a data room in Waco, Texas."

Sure. Yeah. Whatever.

Tim then turns around only to see his wife’s icy death stare.

He gives her the "5 minutes emergency wave." She responds with an eye-roll.

Crap — he whispers to himself. He's going to miss the highlight of his day.

Dropping his daughter Ellie at Kindergarten.

Tim stands up in frustration only to forget — party on the bottom.

The Zoom call lets out of collective laugh at his Dallas Cowboy PJs.

Tina (who we'll call $10K Tina) makes it to her home office by 9 am. (The kids loved the pancakes.)

She runs sales at a small design agency and has a familiar morning work ritual.

Before logging into Slack, she spends 30 minutes doing Thinking Time. It's a simple journaling exercise that she conducts on pen and paper before the day spirals away from her. (It's her commitment to $10K Work.)

She's steadfast in her conviction that Thinking Time must occur before she checks Slack or Email. Once she crosses that tipping point, her inbox immediately takes over and she needs to answer to someone else's priorities.

Today's Thinking Time is dedicated to a simple question:

She has no plans on quitting. This job is challenging, flexible and pays extremely well.

But $10K Tina loves the sweet nectar known as "leverage."

By contemplating her corporate irrelevancy, she's able to "institutionalize her brain" for her team, automate large chunks of their sales process and identify superstar candidates to recruit in the upcoming year.

By 9:30 am, she's done and finally logs into Slack. (I know, right?)

She fires off a few responses to approve a contract, reschedule a meeting and thank a vendor for the lovely lilacs they sent her for her birthday.

She then sees a (rare) message in their #announcements channel. It's from the CEO and reads: "Our plans for a 30 hour work week."

"Been doing that for years," she laughs to herself as she opens up her calendar to prepare for her day.

$10 Tim's call goes 45 minutes longer than scheduled (since no one bothers to use an agenda).

It's now 8:45 am.

His wife is pissed.

His daughter's disappointed.

His "party on the bottom" strategy has turned him into the corporate laughing stock.

(He knows that Richie - his Gen Z analyst - will turn his Pajama Transgression into a meme.)

He snoozed yet again on his "movement" (aka a 41 year-old’s version of exercise) and his LinkedIn course.

With 15 minutes until his next call, he goes for a reset. He wants to salvage the day.

Then he feels his phone vibrate.

"Crap,” he says to himself.

$10 Tim is crestfallen as he opens his calendar.

He'll be in meetings until 6 pm. Still, he wants to at least try to win the day.

Seeing on his calendar that his rent is due, he writes it on a Post-It note.

He opens up his Notion workspace to realize that he needs to wire his life insurance premiums. But that can only be done during work hours, so he wedges that between two Zoom calls.

He also has been using Obsidian to come up with business ideas and realizes that he has two tasks (change oil filter and return the paper shredder to Staples) that are clearly in the wrong place.

Should these go in my calendar? Should they go in Notion?

"Let's go old school," he says to himself. And he sends himself an email with those two tasks.

With one minute to spare, he gets ready for his next call. When his phone vibrates, AGAIN!

$10 Tim immediately deletes the app. He puts on some pants. And logs onto his next Zoom call.

15 minutes into the call, his wife slides a giant Amazon box into his office.

Tim smiles. This is his ticket out.

Join us tomorrow when $10 Tim reveals the contents of this mysterious Amazon box...

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Don’t let the daily whirlwind of activities sweep you away while your greatest priorities take a back seat.​
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Join us on October 26th for the 8th cohort of Supercharge Your Productivity.

During this live 4-week course, you’ll learn the simple 8-part system you can use to get more done by working smarter.

You’ll learn to ask the right questions and design your own system (in Notion) that will allow you to:

• Always know what to do next
• Feel like you’ve got things under control (in work and life).
• Finally feel on top of everything
• Finally be able to focus on the things you really want to accomplish
• Be happier and less stressed
• Get the important things done while savoring every moment of life

​

Students who enroll by 3pm EDT on 10/21 will get lifetime access to our two other courses: The GTD Power-Pack and The Fulfilling Path to Financial Independence (a $498 value).

👉🏼 Enroll in Supercharge Your Productivity today (and get $498 in bonuses)​
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If you have any questions, just hit reply - our team is standing by.

See you tomorrow, when $10 Tim reveals the content of the Amazon box.

With gratitude,

Khe

PS Do you want to skip the launch emails, but still receive the Saturday email? Click here, we got you covered.