This week I wanted to share a practice that has helped me make slow but sure progress on my YouTube channel so far. It is to define and tackle your ‘daily highlight’.
Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky, the authors of Make Time, introduced the world to the concept of ‘The Daily Highlight’. Knapp and Zeratsky claim that the answer to slow down and bring satisfaction to your daily life is by defining your daily highlight, which gives “each day a focal point”.
They argue that doing more does more harm than good for most. And doing more over a long period of time just makes you feel exhausted and in extreme cases, feel burned out. Picking a daily highlight ensures that you’re not a slave to you to-do list and that you make meaningful progress towards your long term goals.
The authors have provided three broad strategies to help pick your daily highlight. The first strategy includes urgency, the second is to think about which highlight will bring you the most satisfaction and the third is what ‘task’ will bring you the most joy.
These strategies remind me of a time management concept that I came across during my MBA, the Eisenhower Matrix. The purpose of the Eisenhower Matrix is to help you use your time more effectively rather than more productively. The four by four matrix divides tasks by the level of their urgency and importance.
The first quadrant includes tasks that are both urgent and important. These tasks need to be completed immediately. The third quadrant includes tasks that are urgent but not important. These tasks can be delegated if required, for instance, answering certain emails, making reservations etc. The fourth quadrant includes tasks that are neither urgent nor important. The traditional view on these tasks is to delete them. But engaging in the ‘tasks’ in the fourth quadrant can help maintain sanity to be honest.
Tasks that are important, but not urgent, fall under the second quadrant, also called the ‘Quadrant of Quality’. Unlike the first quadrant, where the focus is to resolve urgent issues, the focus in the Quadrant of Quality is on long term growth, personal and relationship development. Some examples include developing a long term business strategy, researching articles or simply keeping up with family and friends.
The second quadrant is also where ‘deep work’ takes place. Deep work is a term coined by Cal Newport, the author of ‘Deep Work: Rules For Focused Success In A Distracted World’.
Newport proposes that the secret formula for garnering success is through the adoption of deep work on a regular basis. To understand deep work, we must first understand shallow work. Shallow work falls under the third quadrant of the Eisenhower Matrix; it is work that is urgent but not important. This work, then, can be easily delegated or time blocked.
Time blocking or batching tasks helps set clear limits on how much time is dedicated in a day to certain tasks. The purpose of batching shallow work related tasks is to (a) get through them more efficiently and (b) to create a larger window of time to do deep work.
Deep work is usually work that is important but not urgent, and hence falls under the Quadrant of Quality. Occasionally this might fall in the first quadrant depending on the nature of the task. For instance, if I’ve set the deadline for uploading my article today, then a significant chunk of the day would then be devoted to do this form of ‘deep work’.
But in most cases, blocking time in your calendar to do deep work on a daily basis for tasks that fall under the second quadrant ensures long term growth. For instance, learning how to code, learning a new language, developing a plan for consistent video publishing or product reviews.
The idea here is to break our mental model of multi-tasking. Multi-tasking requires persistent context switching, which is scientifically proven to lower the quality of our work. Or as Newport says, “context switches gunk up your brain.” So, the more you ‘single task’, the more you build the mental muscles required for deep work and the easier it becomes to stay focused.
As Newport puts it “the ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive.”
So, to ensure that I am practicing deep work on a daily basis, I bake it into my ‘daily highlight’. As long as I complete my daily highlight, I am satisfied with the use of my time and energy for that day. And it ensures that I am making slow but sure progress towards my long term goals, which in my case is to increase both the number of subscribers and views for my YouTube channel. Since the adoption of the daily highlight practice, my channel has grown from 44 subscribers in December 2021 to 132 subscribers in March 2022. And here’s hoping the number climbs going forward!