Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind (99U)

Think of capacity as the fuel that makes it possible to bring your skill and talent fully to life.

The second key finding is that our bodies follow what are known as ultradian rhythms—ninety-minute periods at the end of which we reach the limits of our capacity to work at the highest level. It’s possible to push ourselves past ninety minutes by relying on coffee, or sugar, or by summoning our own stress hormones, but when we do so we’re overridi

The challenge is that the demand in our lives increasingly exceeds our capacity.

“What I do every day matters more than what I do once in a while.

But it’s better to disappoint a few people over small things, than to surrender your dreams for an empty inbox. Otherwise you’re sacrificing your potential for the illusion of professionalism.

The single most important change you can make in your working habits is to switch to creative work first, reactive work second. This means blocking off a large chunk of time every day for creative work on your own priorities, with the phone and e-mail off.

What is a professional, anyway?

Which means beefing up your presentation, marketing, and networking skills. It doesn’t matter if you’re shy or introverted. If you want to succeed, you need to communicate. And grow a thicker skin. Show me a creative who’s never suffered a setback or a bad review, and you won’t be pointing at a superstar.

importance of that element to the overall success of the project. Then, as I move through the process, I push myself to keep pace with the goals I’ve set, producing good enough work within the time I have to spend and giving myself permission to circle back if I still have additional hours at the end. This will ensure that I don’t over-invest in le