Not to do list

Fudge Factor

December 5, 2025

Fudge factor- we all need it but no one wants to admit it.

Am I the only one who grossly underestimates how long a task will take?

I pop things in my calendar with the best intentions and when it comes to the allotted time, I get about 25% done of what I thought.

The answer is fudge factor.

What is it? It’s adding 15 – 30 minutes to the task in your calendar.

Yes, it means you fit way less in there as you plan your day, but that accounts for the super optimistic scheduler in you.

Would you rather not get an ambitious day of tasks done…

Or complete a humble chunky block of work?

Work in fudge factor.

Be the boss of your notifications

November 30, 2025

Here’s the easiest way I know to be more productive:

Don’t let any apps send you notifications.

Smart phones are awesome but they’re also annoying. If anything happens on any messaging, email or social media app, it tells you.

There’s a noise and then that enticing red-apple-looking-notification sign with a number of how many juicy messages you get.

I’ve removed them all. My phone doesn’t tell me if I get an email or message.

The apps are still on my phone, they just don’t talk to me.

They can wait, thank you very much.

A number in a little red bubble doesn’t have the right to divert my attention.

I let them all accrue- messages, dms, notifications, emails.

And then I go and visit them when I’m ready.

I’ll look at you and deal with you when I’m good and ready. And some days I’m simply not ready. I can check tomorrow or next week or never.

Of course it does take some training to fight the urge to check. But once you get over that, you’re a bit free aren’t you?

And that’s pretty nice.

Less time reacting to red number bubbles and more doing things that matter to you.

You probably don’t need to learn more information

November 27, 2025

I love learning. And this can actually be to my detriment.

Learning new information is particularly dangerous because on the one hand it is really good! It’s fantastic to gain new ideas, insights and strategies.

The very fact that it’s so positive is why it’s dangerous. Absorbing new information can mask inaction really well.

It’s not often that knowing more was the thing that made the real difference. We mostly know what we need to do.

Here’s a belief to try on: “You have everything within you that you need”

You can start right where you are. Within you also is the capacity to learn what you need on the way.

Trial and error. Hypothesise and experiment.

You can read about swimming or you can dive in the pool. You can probably guess which will get you closer to the Olympics.

Here’s another belief to try on:

The fact that you envisioned the thing you want means you have everything you need to get it. If you can picture it, you can have, be or do it.

Stop learning and jump in the pool.

Whakaiti

November 24, 2025

In te reo the word for small is iti.

It’s such a cute word. There’s also a word for making something small:

‘Whakaiti’

‘Whaka’ means to ‘do’ or ‘make’.

‘Iti’ means ‘small’.

To ‘whakaiti’ a person is to make them small. I love the simplicity of that translation. I don’t, however, love what it represents.

Making people small is, unfortunately, really common these days. Couples make jokes at the expense of their significant other, we laugh at peoples attempts or push them down when they try something new.

What we should aim to do is make people big: to whakanui them. That is, to shine a light on them. Uphold their mana. Listen when they want to be seen anew. Celebrate them and support them.

Remember, it’s not always obvious if what you’re doing is a whakaiti or a whakanui. And it might seem like a little joke here and there doesn’t matter…

But one cut still draws blood.

Here’s a simple question if you’re unsure: is what I’m saying or doing honouring the fullness of this human being, or shrinking them down for a quick laugh or aside?

It’s easy to whakaiti someone. But it takes real guts to make others big, celerbrate them and honour them no matter what.

Under the bus

November 22, 2025

When people make jokes about other people, they say it’s throwing them under the bus.

Why do we do this?

This kind of humour is easy- it’s like junk food. It might taste good- get a little laugh- and it may bring you closer to other people in the environment…

But it’s junk food. It’s trash and we shouldn’t eat it.

Let’s not throw people under the bus for a quick laugh or some cheap connection.

Let’s put them on the bus and give them a bunch of flowers.

Titles and highlights

November 18, 2025

Time has a funny way of getting on, doesn’t it?

Often I’ll meet Monday with the best of intentions only to find it’s suddenly Monday again and I can’t quite remember what I actually did during the week that past.

Here’s two strategies I use to prevent time slipping through my fingers and actively perceive the weeks as they pass:

1)Title your week.

Any self respecting Google doc has a title so your week deserves one too. Think of what you want your week to be about. Is it major progress on a project? Spending quality time with your family? Having an adventure with your colleagues? Giving your week a title sets it up to be different from any other week. What we want to avoid is each week blurring into the next. You probably remember how you spent that glorious week around Christmas last year- without you knowing, it was titled “Do nothing but swim and eat for a week”- yup, that’s memorable! Name every week to tell yourself why it’s special.

2) Highlight the moments

To continue with the stationary/ office theme, I like to think back and highlight moments in the week that was. What cracked me up? What surprised me? When did someone go beyond the call of duty? When did I live into my desired identity? Highlight all these things, they happened during that week! And when you highlight them, not only does it feel good, but it also helps to idividualise the days and weeks. That’s the goal!

Letting your weeks go by as an anonymous procession is letting your life go by without you seeing it.

Title it. Highlight things.

Don’t miss a moment.

Honour the ‘or’.

November 7, 2025

Here’s a belief we should be actively fostering in our younger generation:

If something hasn’t been done before it doesn’t mean it can’t be done. It Just means it hasn’t been done before.

We can be forgiven for thinking that if something hasn’t happened so far then it won’t at all. After all, we use the past as evidence for what will happen right?

Sometimes.

And other times unprecedented things occur. Sometimes completely new things happen. Massive discoveries are made.

Breakthroughs are breakthroughs because they are breaking through what was once thought impossible.

The past does not equal the future. It might be the same as it was…

…or it might be vastly different.

We must honour the ‘or’.

We owe it to the younger generation to keep the door open to new possibilities.

We must take seriously the way in which our language might infer things that limit others.

If something hasn’t been done before it doesn’t mean it can’t be done. It Just means it hasn’t been done before.

Overchunking Medusa

November 5, 2025

These aren’t just two random words I put together, I promise.

There’s a balance we have to strike between dreaming big and actioning small. It’s a tricky one to get right.

If we spend all our time focussing on the giant goal- or even the just big task for the week- we can freeze. A bit like Medusa has paralysed us.

This is called over chunking. It’s looking at too many chunks of information or tasks at once.

It’s being daunted by the giant elephant, the whole mountain or the entire dissertation…

I think back to some monumental tasks I’ve undertaken in the past and I’m almost certain I’d never have even started if I knew all it took now.

So when we are at the foot of the mountain, we have to simultaneously know about the peak while just taking one proverbial step at a time.

Get this balance right and I’m pretty sure we can do anything.

Email batching- thanks Tim!

November 4, 2025

Some say 6, 7; I say 12 and 4!

This idea is from Tim Ferriss. I read this over 10 years ago and I keep coming back to it over and over again.

Tim’s advice is simple- we get more time by eliminating things. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean we miss out on things, it just means we are smarter about what we get rid of and when. So it becomes possible to have your cake and eat it.

Like most, I sometimes feel like I’m a professional email responder. My email inbox is a GREAT place to go if I want to feel ‘productive’.

The problem with that is we are being reactive to the needs and the to do lists of other people. I open my inbox and suddenly an hour and a half would disappear.

My day becomes a continuous stream of processing the request that leak in from people whenever they feel like sending me an email. Over time, this removes my energy and ability to do what’s important and non-urgent to me.

Tim suggests instead we batch our emails, let them accumulate and check them only twice a day.

So I check my email at 12pm and 4pm. That’s it.

The amazing thing is, when I go to my inbox with the singular focus of processing what’s there- it takes all of 15 minutes. Its because I’m a lot clearer on my own priorities and can cut through them quickly. I’m also not kidding myself thinking I will split focus between what I’m doing and the emails as they come in- I am focussed solely on the inbox during these chunks.

The unexpected thing was I found it hard to wait! I had become so used to the magical task-giving inbox that I almost needed it.

“Oh! I wonder what emails I have!”

It became a discipline of it’s own not to check it outside of my allocated times.

I had become addicted to having an instant task someone gives me with a finite end!

When I feel productivity waining, I can pretty much guarantee it’s because this habit has slipped.

When I want to reconnect again to powerful focus on what actually moves the needle on the work that really matters to me, I go back to 12 and 4.

When in doubt, 12pm and 4pm.

Muddy vs. Complex

October 26, 2025

When is something detailed and when is it just muddy?

As actors we want complex work. We want layers and intricacy in the characters we portray- this is the stuff that mirrors real life most accurately.

We don’t, however, want things to be muddy.

I’m wondering about the difference.

What makes something muddy, unclear and imprecise? And what makes it complex, layered and intricate?

Real life can look and feel messy- so art should as well, right?

Well I think art is actually different to life. Aaron Sorkin said he’d been criticized for the dialogue he writes as it doesn’t feel ‘authentic’.

He retorted that real life can be boring- we don’t want to watch a couple of guys discuss what pizza they’re going to get.

Art is framed. We show this moment- not that.

Art is crafted. We need to be able to understand it to digest it and be moved by it.

So yes, be muddy. But be clear in your muddiness; certain of the uncertainties.

Don’t let yourself off the hook- are you being lazy or have you orchestrated this?

There is always room for us to ask deeper and find more.

How cool.

JUSTIN ROGERS

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