📚 Improve Your Focus, Book Marketing Masterclass, and more.

👋 Hey everyone,

Here are a few popular posts you may have missed:

• 3 Lessons from my most recent author dinner.

• 4 Visual book summaries of Robert Greene’s books.

• 5 Tips to help you read more books from bestselling author Austin Kleon.

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📚 Book Summary:

This week’s book is “Focus On-Off” by Mark Tigchelaar and Oscar de Bos.

I’ve been doing a deep dive into books about attention and focus, and this one is an excellent read.

It sold 100,000+ copies internationally but was only recently published in the US.

If you enjoyed “Learn Like A Pro” or “Stolen Focus”, you’ll enjoy this book.

Here are 3 lessons from it:

📖

1) How Open Offices Destroy Your Focus

Open offices were meant to increase employee connection and productivity.

Ironically, it had the opposite effect.

Removing all walls in the office did make it easier for people to talk with one another, but it took away their privacy since everyone could eavesdrop on their conversation. As a result, open offices tend to have a 30% increase in digital messages. And more messages equals more distractions.

But it doesn’t stop there.

One study by a Cornell University professor found that 74% of participants said their workplaces were too noisy to be able to concentrate.

A colleague having a conversation next to you can cause your productivity to drop by well over 60%.

This is especially harmful for introverted people who suffer even more from external noise and stimuli than extroverts.

Here’s what you can do about it:

• If you’re the business owner or team leader, ask that everyone put their phones on silent every morning after they enter the office.

• If possible, create a designated focus section at the back of the office or purchase a soundproof booth where people can go to do deep work without getting interrupted.

• Encourage your employees to work from home one day a week so that they skip their commute and spend more time tackling a complex project in peace.

• If you have to work in an open office, invest in some high-quality noise-cancelling headphones.

When employees are given the space to focus, they’re 42% more socialable, 31% more innovative, and 31% happier with their jobs.

📖

2) How to Free Up Focus & Memory In Your Brain

Do you ever have trouble relaxing or find yourself thinking about a dozen different tasks before going to bed?

If so, it’s likely because you have too many open loops in your mind.

You may not realize it, but your brain is likely thinking about every unfinished task or project in your life. These open loops are like old tabs on your computer–each one is taking up a piece of your memory and slowing down your processing power.

What you want to do is offload those thoughts and tasks onto an external hard drive so that they don’t take up space in your brain.

This could be as simple as grabbing a pen and paper and writing down every unfinished task or project you can think of.

The scientific term for this is cognitive distribution, but most people refer to this simply as a brain dump.

Once you have your list of tasks and projects, complete the easiest ones, such as responding to old emails or other tasks that don’t take much effort.

From there, identify the most important task on your list and make that your #1 priority for tomorrow.

📖

3) To Make Better Decisions, Make Fewer Decisions

Thinking takes physical effort.

Professional chess players can burn 500+ calories per hour, all while sitting still.

If you think for too long, you get tired and lose the ability to think clearly.

It’s the reason why supermarkets sell candy bars at the checkout counter. By the time you’ve successfully found every item on your grocery list, decided whether to get the low-fat or full-fat yogurt, and what you’re making for dinner tonight, your brain is exhausted and less able to resist a sugary temptation.

That’s why many successful people have a habit of putting simple decisions, such as what to wear or eat, on autopilot.

Steve Jobs wore the same sweater and jeans every day. President Obama ate the same breakfast every day. Mark Zuckerberg wears the same gray or blue shirt every day.

The more you think about the little things, the less thinking power you have left for the big things.

So to reduce decision fatigue, figure out which decisions in your life you can automate or reduce:

• Wear the same sweater every day or pick your outfit the night before so you don’t think about it in the morning.

• Eat the same breakfast every day or rotate between 2-3 different orders.

• Take the same route to work instead of checking traffic apps every morning.

• Set a fixed workout schedule so you never debate whether or when to go.

• Put your bills on autopay so you never think about due dates.

The fewer decisions you need to make every day, the more able you’ll be to make good decisions.

✅ Actionable Advice:

1) If you want to increase your focus, find a quiet place to do your work.

• If you work in an open office, invest in some high-quality noise-cancelling headphones.

2) If you have trouble relaxing or sleeping, grab a pen and a piece of paper, and make a list of every unfinished task you can think of.

• Then get to work and complete all of the tiny tasks that will only take a few minutes to finish.

3) Automate the many small but unimportant decisions in your daily life so that you have more energy for the bigger decisions:

• Wear the same outfit every day.

• Eat the same breakfast every morning.

• Take the same route to work every day.

💎 Weekly Gem:

Workshop: Book Marketing Masterclass

If you’re an author or aspiring author, this is for you.

I teamed up with Alex Stradhee, a book marketing expert who’s worked with 100+ authors and interviewed 100+ bestselling authors, to host a book marketing masterclass.

We’ll be covering:

• The 4 biggest book marketing mistakes (and how to avoid them)

• How to get your book to go viral on social media (and sell hundreds of copies)

• The 5 most effective book marketing strategies (learned from interviewing 100+ authors)

• How to promote your book without using social media (effective channels that most authors overlook)

• Alex's secret 4-step marketing framework every author should follow (I've never shared this publicly before)

This is a live masterclass, but if you can’t join us, you’ll still get a recording of it afterward.

If you want to learn how to sell more books, sign up for our masterclass here!

Your opinion matters!

Thank you for your support,

Alex W.