I Done This Blog

The Science of Stress Management: Your Brain on Cortisol

March 20, 2017 by Jonathan Figliolino Leave a Comment

You’re swamped with a huge project when your boss suddenly asks you to complete another urgent assignment due tomorrow. Your heart’s beating a mile a minute and you’re wondering how you’re going to get this all done. But somehow you’re going to try to make it work.

Too much stress will overwhelm you, but too little stress leaves you bored and unmotivated. The right amount of stress motivates you to succeed instead of making you crack under pressure.

Your ability to thrive or choke under pressure is ultimately based on the Yerkes-Dodson Law: Moderate stress up to a certain point can actually improve your performance. But beyond that point, your performance suffers.

Stress management is actually built into your brain’s chemistry. Here’s the science behind your body’s stress levels so you can maximize your productivity.

Last-Minute Checklist for Productive Startup Launches

March 13, 2017 by Jackie Cohen Leave a Comment

Last-minute checklist for startups As I got ready to launch GetDelight, my team and I created a last minute list of things we had left to do — we put it on GitHub and checked things off when completed.

How We Grew a Six-Figure Email List

March 6, 2017 by Walker Donohue Leave a Comment

When we first started I Done This, we had no subscriber list. But eventually we grew one six-figures in size — all because we offered people something for free. You just have to remember that addresses are valuable commodities: people are generally reluctant to give theirs up unless they’re going to get something of value in return.

The Hidden Form of Procrastination That Is Killing Your Productivity

March 1, 2017 by Jonathan Figliolino 1 Comment

You’re being interrupted every three minutes to handle something urgent. You have a report that’s due at the end of the day. But your coworker just called you into a meeting that will “just be a minute.” When you get back, you just have to send a quick email. After you start on that email, another coworker asks you to jump on a client call.

You don’t think you’re procrastinating because you’re busy every moment. But just because you’re super busy doesn’t mean you’re being productive. You’re actually guilty of a subtle form of procrastination known as priority dilution. This means you are distracted from focusing on your most important work. But it’s not your fault that you’re getting consumed with all these small disruptions. Your brain is actually hardwired to handle them. Here’s the science behind managing the small disruptions so you can be more productive.

Use I Done This to become more productive when you know how to manage distractions, which are the hidden form of procrastination that kills productivity.

Take a closer look at where procrastination originates in your brain, and you’re on your way to vanquishing the hidden form of procrastination that’s killing your productivity.

The 15 Best Productivity Podcasts of 2016

February 27, 2017 by Paige Picard 2 Comments

The average commute time in the United States is 25.4 minutes. Every hour of the day is precious when it comes to getting things done, which is why having to sit through a commute can be insufferable.

Rather than tuning out to the same playlist you hear every day, tune into a podcast — specifically about productivity. This list of productivity podcasts will inspire you and give you the tools to start forming better daily habits, so you get more done.

Make the most out of your commute by checking out some of the best productivity podcasts of 2016.

Do Business Globally and Manage Remote Teams Locally

February 24, 2017 by Jackie Cohen Leave a Comment

RingCaptcha makes it look easy to secure the world

The Internet makes it a no-brainer to run a global business with a tiny staff, but for most ventures that means a direct mail operation out of a single office. Imagine setting up physical infrastructure in 195 countries with a lean team — if that sounds impossible, you might not have heard of RingCaptcha yet.

How to Make Your Company Email Totally Transparent

February 16, 2017 by Walter Chen Leave a Comment

team-email

This is a guest post by Mathilde Collin from Front. Be sure to check out the Front Blog for more tips on managing team emails.

Transparency helps you move fast. Information isn’t siloed — it’s all readily available for the taking. You don’t need to ask questions, forward information about a customer, or attend a meeting to know what’s going on. Instead, anyone can get access to the information they need without having to jump through hoops to get it.

However, extending this transparency to email is tricky. It was initially designed for 1:1 conversation but has been adapted to team use over time. You can loop in the people you need on a single email with BCC or CC, but it’s hard to make email efficiently accessible to an entire team. At the same time, within every inbox is a goldmine of customer interactions, company history, and internal discussions — so not sharing that is depriving your team of valuable information.

Thanks to new tools, automation, and a bit of organization, you can turn your outdated email inbox into a fully transparent platform that will serve as a resource for your entire team. Here’s how to do that in three steps.

Jeff Bezos’s Peculiar Management Tool for Self-Discipline

February 14, 2017 by Walter Chen 4 Comments

The modern workplace’s vogue is informal information exchange. We sit in open floor plan offices so that we can spontaneously collide, chat, and collaborate. An office setup for generating ideas can be fizzy and energizing, though when sparks aren’t flying, the colliding can be noisy and distracting.

Jeff Bezos takes a totally different approach to management, far from that madding crowd. He has a contrarian management technique that’s peculiarly old school — write it down.

jeff bezos
In senior executive Amazon meetings, before any conversation or discussion begins, everyone sits for 30 minutes in total silence, carefully reading six-page printed memos. Reading together in the meeting guarantees everyone’s undivided attention to the issues at hand, but the real magic happens before the meeting ever starts. It happens when the author is writing the memo.

The 27 Best Productivity Software of 2016

February 9, 2017 by Sasha Rezvina 20 Comments

With productivity apps popping up left, right and center, it often feels like you waste more time looking for the perfect software than actually working efficiently. At I Done This, we’ve worked to improve our done lists and integrations to eliminate the need for meetings — but we realize that there are many more ways that you and your team can get more done in less time.

Screenshot 2017-02-07 16.35.02

How To Avoid the Traps Of Communication With a Remote Team

February 7, 2017 by Alexa Lemzy Leave a Comment

If you run a location-independent business, you will run into a number of remote team communication challenges. When they arise, you might question whether or not the benefits of remote work actually outweigh the stress of unclear communication.

If you only knew how to avoid common communication pitfalls, you would be on the fast track to distance collaboration success. Here, that is exactly what you are going to learn.

The Science of Stress Management: Your Brain on Cortisol

Last-Minute Checklist for Productive Startup Launches

How We Grew a Six-Figure Email List

The Hidden Form of Procrastination That Is Killing Your Productivity

The 15 Best Productivity Podcasts of 2016

Do Business Globally and Manage Remote Teams Locally

RingCaptcha makes it look easy to secure the world

How to Make Your Company Email Totally Transparent

Jeff Bezos’s Peculiar Management Tool for Self-Discipline

The 27 Best Productivity Software of 2016

How To Avoid the Traps Of Communication With a Remote Team

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