How 15-Mins Resets My Entire Day ☀️🌑 | Lucus' Productivity Corner - What is Capture Mode 📸
Really happy to announce a new newsletter segment, where my editor, good-friend, and productivity junkie Lucus shares new life hacks on a monthly basis! Enjoy :)
Hey! Thanks for checking in with this month’s half issue of Tyler Talks Product!
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Who is Lucus and Why Does He Care About Productivity 🧠🚀
As a little background, I’m Lucus and I work as a media planner (a fancy way of saying I choose when, where, and to place advertisements to make sure client marketing objectives are achieved). On a given day, I may be handling up to 10 campaigns at all times for various clients as well as a platter of extra side projects. This is all a way of saying: I need to have a wicked productivity system in place to make sure I’m not falling behind. Tyler and I are productivity nerds and spend hours sharing what we like to do to stay on top of industry news, work projects, and life in general. It helps push us forward in our work life and definitely helps us sleep better knowing we are doing our best to be on top of everything at work (and consequently, at home).
What is Capture Mode and Why It Matters 📸
With that being said, this first installment of Lucus Talks Productivity will be about how to organize everything in your head quickly through a small writing exercise called Capture Mode. If I don’t do this, I feel cluttered, lost, and confused. Simply put, I don’t do my best work. It’s easy to implement and was originally from the book: Hyperfocus by Chris Bailey. Here’s what you do -
Schedule a couple 15-minute sessions out of your week ahead of time. Distance yourself from anything that may cloud your thoughts (music, YouTube, other people, social media). Get a blank piece of paper, an iPad whiteboard app, or anything that lets you write ideas out in an unstructured way.I use a plain moleskine journal because I love the feel and friction of real paper without the limitation of lines. Then for 15 minutes, write furiously. Write everything and anything that comes to mind: shopping lists, things you want to remember, things you want to forget, work projects, home tasks, books to read, music you want to hear more of, etc.
At the end of the session, you will have a shopping list, tasks for the week, daily intentions, areas of focus, a reading list, deadlines, and most important of all: a cleared brain.
This exercise often helps me when I’m feeling stressed and brings me back down to Earth with a clear focus of what to tackle, when, and how to do so. After a couple sessions, you might want to lower or increase the time if you find you have more to write. Choosing a specific time limit before starting does help me begin the exercise and use the time to the fullest. Remember, if there’s something that makes the process difficult, iterate by asking yourself what would make it easier or accomplish the same end goal. It helps me so maybe it can help you too.
See you soon,
Lucus.
Resources for Growth 📕
Recent Tech News That Might Interest You
TikTok CEO Testifies (Really Gets Interrupted a ton) Before Congress
Snap Acquires 3D Scanning Start-up
Old but Gold: 5 Ways to Your First PM Role by Sachin Rekhi
On General Product Prep
Try Exponent: A PM website home to questions, company guides, and helps facilitate 1:1 interviews with other aspiring PMs.
Tech Talk for Non-Developers: A course dedicated to demystifying technical concepts for product managers in a more digestible way. (Fun Fact: I did this course and it helped a ton with my first PM job!)
APM List: APM season is here, keep up to date with PM job postings!
Coffee Program and Thank You ☕️
Thank you for taking the time to read this month’s issue! I’ll see you next month :)
Personal thank you to my editors (Cat and Lucus) for taking the time to read each issue before it goes out to the amazing readers!
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Keep the conversation going.
Until next month,
~ Tyler