Adam’s Daily Post

Productivity is for machines. They’re good at knocking down tasks, and being measured by the number of tasks knocked down.

Effectiveness is for human. They’re good at seeing things that aren’t there, and being measured by using creativity to change it.

Do you want to be good at being human, or good at being a machine?

My phone has four icons on it.

Messages, Maps, Photos, Camera.

For when my wife needs to message me, for when I get lost, for when I’ve taken a photo and didn’t have my camera with me, and for seeing those photos so I can get them off my phone.

The rest?

It can wait.

The best part is, even this feels like more functionality than I need in my pocket at all times.

The time and focus gained from not having silly, empty distractions tempting me all day, every day, really adds up.

Worth thinking about next time you consider a doom-scroll session in your favorite time-wasting app?

The funny thing about having the “fear of missing out”…
…is that it’s poses the wrong question.

If you focus on your social feed, you’ll miss out on who’s in the room.

If you focus on who’s in the room, you’ll miss out on your social feed.

There will always be “missing out”.

But the “fear of” part tends to lead to bad decisions, resulting in you missing the things you’ll regret missing after the moment.

Instead of fearing missing out, choose to miss out on the right things.

Algorithms exist where there’s too much information coming at you at once.
And so the machine filters it for you.

Email and RSS don’t have this problem.
Because there, you choose the information that comes to you.

Sources worth reading. Sources recommended to you because the were worth making a remark about.

Not because it upset the most people and achieved the most views.

Simply because it was worth sharing.

Isn’t that a better place to spend your time? In feeds of things like that?

Attention is not “shout about what we do louder or more frequently or with more persuasive words” anymore.

Not in mature markets. Not when competition is already doing that. “Like them, but louder” isn’t a resilient strategy.

The attention those people won’t get that way, is the kind that keeps you at the top of their minds as the first choice for when they move in-market. The kind that has them recommend you even if they haven’t worked with you, because of your contribution and conduct. The kind that makes them say “I’ll check back on them, I’m interested to see what they do next”.

The kind that keeps people in-pool, and lets them deplatform to engage in their own timing.

“Louder” disbands the pool.

A website is not a silo.

It is a baby-step in a much larger experience.

People don’t sit basking in your site for days. They go there because it serves a purpose in a broader narrative.

Make it beautiful (to them), make it so valuable they’re confused by how valuable it is (for them), make it so good they tell the others.

But it’s not 2010 anymore. There’s a whole ecosystem around your site, and if it’s built without fully appreciating that ecosystem, it’s not going to work very well. The best sites know this.

Don’t build pages. Build chapters in a larger story.

SEO isn’t about keywords anymore.

The best traffic sources don’t barter for cross-links.

The best traffic sources don’t respond to broken-link emails.

The best traffic sources cover remarkable experiences and/or resources that contribute meaningfully to their own audience’s lives.

Perhaps that should be the focus.

Perhaps that should have always been the focus.

Proposal documents are guessing.

Blueprints are knowing.

A good proposal tells you what a vendor thinks you want, without due-diligence nor an appreciation for how the work fits into a larger system. A blueprint is what your audience wants, that anyone who has the blueprint can build.

Build the blueprint to their appetite and the proposal comes along for the ride, while being built to solve problems, rather than to merely close a deal.

If you got into your industry for more than closing deals, to make a difference, consider building blueprints, not proposals.

Internet does not have a content shortage problem.

It has an experience worth telling the others about problem.

AI is racing the former to the bottom.

It’s not a race you can win.

It’s not a race you want to win.

Play the better game.

Managers create environments where yesterday’s work gets done faster today.

Leaders create environments where today’s problems get solved tomorrow.

Both matter. Know which one you’re being.