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Brain Drain, Pumpkin Pie, and the Worst Song Ever

Brain Drain, Pumpkin Pie, and the Worst Song Ever

The Portal: Issue 053

Internet People
October 18, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes

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).

Spotted: A new segment! Our backlog of ideas was getting so long that we’ve come up with some fresh segments, so keep an eye out over the next few issues 👀 Also, we’re going to need you to weigh in on the poll.

Pharrell when he sees our poll

This issue of The Portal is brought to you by

Notion is a digital workspace that combines note-taking, document sharing, project management, and wikis in one tool. We’re huge fangirls, if our our new Daily Focus Dashboard template didn’t already give that away 😎

The free version of Notion is great, but if you’re working with even just one collaborator (like us!), upgrading to the Pro or Business Plans give you tons of great additional collaborative features. Try Notion today!

💭 ONE THING WE’RE THINKING ABOUT

It’s no secret that your phone isn’t doing you any favors when it comes to focusing, but it’s probably more shocking than you thought.

Recent studies have shown that the mere presence of your phone (literally just being able to see it with your peepers, even when it’s not in use!) significantly reduces your cognitive capacity, which affects your focus, memory, and problem-solving skills — UT Austin researchers call this Brain Drain, adorable.

Because we’re all pavlovian dogs with our phones, we continuously and subconsciously monitor our phones, anticipating notifications or messages. When we do this, we end up diverting brain power away from the task at hand. This continuous partial attention makes you less productive, makes it way harder to concentrate, and tanks your ability to go deep.

Research published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research in 2017 discovered the same thing —

Participants who had the phones on their desk performed the worse, second best were the participants with the phones zipped up in their bags, but the clear winners were the participants who had their phones in a completely different room.

While research about how smartphones affect our brains is still in its earliest stages… it’s not looking good, bruv. But this research is also really helpful — we now know that you just have to hide your phone from yourself if you really need to lock into some focus.

One of our favorite tricks is simple: hide it behind your computer. If that doesn’t do the trick, try putting it in a drawer, placing it in a different room, or donate it to Goodwill.

Curious about how to focus better?

Putting your phone out of sight is just one piece of the puzzle — grab our free Do Not Disturb guide to learn the rest.

⚡️ONE THING WE’RE INSPIRED BY

Contrarians, now is your time to shine!

Mark Manson (author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck) has some fantastic news for you: morning routines, biohacking, and typical “how to be successful” advice is never going to work for most people because the hardest part about achieving extreme success isn’t the work — it’s being a correct contrarian.

We found this video so inspiring (hello, we shout into the void weekly about how to focus during the most distracted time on earth). He proposes that success is all about the willingness to question widely held assumptions, and see opportunities that most people can’t. We couldn’t agree more.

🎧 ONE THING WE’RE LISTENING TO

SCAMFLUENCERS:
The Scam Artist is Present (36 min)

Who doesn’t love a good scam? In this true crime story about love, art forgery, and (almost) getting away with it, a star-crossed couple travels the world and becomes extraordinarily wealthy selling paintings from their mysterious collection — until one wrong brushstroke calls their entire operation into question.

👀 ONE THING WE’RE OBSESSED WITH

We’ve talked about the Lord of Habits (James Clear) and his gospel (Atomic Habits) a lot — and for those of you who have read it, you get why!

For those of you who haven’t read the book, will probably never read the book, and cannot be bothered to listen to the 5+ hour audiobook, look what we found:

A 9-minute white board animation of the core concepts of the book!!!

ADHDers, rise up — now is your time to finally see what this book is all about 🫡