Oh, cliches. How we love them.

But that doesn't mean they are not worth repeating, (except the humidity one, we know we know). Maybe some nugget of wisdom you hear on a podcast, or read in a blog, didn't apply to you six months ago. Maybe you weren't searching for that answer last week.

But now you are.

And here I am. That guy with the answers to all your productivity questions whenever you need me.

From the Less Doing Labs

Compartmentalization is Good for You - A Voxer message from 6.26.21

It's a misconception to define compartmentalization as putting up a permanent and unscalable wall around the various activities in your life. 

I see compartmentalization like a bento box at a sushi restaurant. Everything is separate, in its spot. The protein here, greens here. Starch here. But as you progress through the meal, everything ends up in the same place, your stomach. 

So it all comes together. And that, to me, is how compartmentalization works. 

You can put pursuits and the challenges associated with them into different boxes. Still, ultimately it's all going to the same place—your brain, where they can bolster your enthusiasm or cause anxiety.  

The way to compartmentalize effectively is to accept and understand and honor that you will take the time to process what comes up in each part of the bento box. Compartmentalization is not, I don't care, and I'm not going to let myself feel these things. It's, "Now is not the time." I'm concentrating on another part of the box. 

But when I'm done, I need to go home and process these things. Because everything I try to avoid, I will only approach faster. 

It might be why I cringe when people talk about a work-life balance. No aspect of your life will ever be in balance for more than a moment, but you can have work-life integration. It means that you have these separate things in your life. Yet you are only one mind, and you are choosing to process all aspects of your life, all the compartments of the box, in a way that makes sense for you.

And not for nothing. But when I do process that later. I'll probably look for things that could have been done better or handled better and communicated differently. But I will address what I experienced today because that's the only way to genuinely integrate the things that we do. 

It's Not Clubhouse. It's Better. The Less Doing Labs is a private group chat that gives you access to me for $12 a month or a hundred dollars for the year. If you're interested, watch this super-fast video for more info.

Coolest Tech of the Month

Spoolapp - Sales script generator for Zoom

ZUUM - Self-balancing eSkates. The newest way to fall on your ass.

Sunnyholo - LED light show for your TV.

Co6 - next-level safety

Some cool thoughts on Burnout in The New Yorker

Readerly - Hosted, managed, and pretrained machine learning model

Dorik No Code Website Builder

Have you checked out my new personal brand website?

Have you subscribed to the Less Doing podcast? These last ten episodes before we shut it down for good are totally worth a listen.

Have you heard I'm doing a project on some of the world's oldest businesses?

I'm picking twelve to do a deep dive on. So if you have a favorite 200, 300,400 - 1500-year-old business you'd like to see analyzed, reply to this email and let me know.

Make it an effective day, even with the humidity

Ari