Building Blocks, Body Doubling & Baby Meerkats

WELCOME TO THE PORTAL: a weekly dose of refreshing productivity strategies and unconventional ideas to help you finally feel in control of your time.

Subscribe now and join thousands of others discovering a world where productivity actually feels fun (instead of making us feel like sh*t).

This issue of The Portal is brought to you by

Sunsama is our absolute favorite daily task planner that can help you time block your tasks, visualize your days, and easily re-shuffle your schedule when sh*t hits the fan — they hooked us up with a 30-day free trial for all Portal readers, no CC required!

💭 ONE THING WE’RE THINKING ABOUT

So many things are unclear —

Is Travlor just PR? Will Frank Ocean ever perform live again? Will James Cameron ever a make a Titanic sequel?

Look, there are a lot of things we don’t know, but there is one thing we know for sure — “productivity” needs a f*cking rebrand, and we rose to the challenge 😎

Instead of just trying to willpower and muscle our way through everything, over the past two years, we’ve redefined, updated, and created new entry points for people to think about getting things done.

We bring you: Spacetime’s Productivity Glossary

🎧 ONE THING WE’RE LISTENING TO

EVERYBODY HAS A SECRET:
The Love Square (30 min)

We’re big believers that the duo of chores 🤝 podcasts can get you through the most mundane of household tasks. The next time you have a couple hours of cleaning ahead of you, the Everybody Has a Secret podcast will keep you entertained with delicious secrets submitted from the listeners — you may even forget just how much you hate putting your clothes on hangers.

👀 ONE THING WE’RE OBSESSED WITH

Have you ever wondered why it’s so much easier to get something done when you’re sitting at a coffee shop than sitting alone at your desk? Or why your laundry gets folded faster when your friend is on FaceTime?

This is the absolute magic that is body-doubling.

The idea is pretty simple: have another person present while you work on a task or a project. The positive social pressure overrides your resistance to starting, getting you out of your head and into action. This technique is a dream for overthinkers, procrastinators, neurodivergents, or anyone just having a hard time initiating tasks.

Body doubles can be working on their own tasks or simply sitting quietly in the same space as you. The key is their physical presence, but we’ve discovered it can be just as effective when it happens digitally.

Imagine this: You’re working from home by yourself struggling to get moving on your to-do list, so you jump on a Zoom call with 10 other people who are in the same boat. The host mutes the group while you’re working so everyone can lock into focus with the accountability of everyone else there. And after just an hour, you’ve checked off all the tasks that were keeping you up last night.

This is called a Spacetime Session, and we promise it’ll be the most productive hour of your week.

👉 You can try it out for free by booking any session on the calendar using code FOCUS, grabbing a single session any time for just $10, or gifting yourself a membership if you’re craving some structure in your schedule.

🤔 ONE QUESTION FOR YOU

Have any questions you think we should ask? Reply to this email!

⭐️ ONE LAST THING

okay halp 😩 bb meerkats!

@e1atko

little baby meerkats #blairdrummondsafaripark #scotland #stirling #animalsoftiktok #wildanimals #adventureplay #safaripark #fyp

Answer: A chicken caesar salad 🐓

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