Henry Thoreau wrote “Walden; or, Life in the Woods” in 1854. This guy went full Sicko Mode to find the meaning of life by living in a cabin for two years, two months, and two days (talk about angel numbers…) -- he wasn’t playing and received SERIOUS insights about nature, self-reliance, and spirituality.
Nearly 200 years later, I had my own “Walden” experience - baby version. Three days away with three girls in a cozy beach town called Hermanus. Here’s what I learned about myself, isolation, and focus.
⚡️Making progress is about ENERGY management, not time spent on tasks
I took a 2.5 hour break one day to watch Summer House (thank GOD Carl + Lindsay called off their engagement - wtf is their communication?!)… I dicked around on my phone, laid down, sent funny memes to friends. And still made INSANE progress on my goals. When I had energy, I’d sit down and focus. When I hit a wall, I took breaks.
Common sense but capitalism is in my blood cells and I still find it hard to take long breaks (even though I’ve had my own biz for 4 years). Read to the end to see everything I accomplished. I needed those long breaks to propel me forward. It’s CUCKOO to think you can work 8 hours straight and actually create meaningful, high quality work (seriously can’t get over how asinine the 40 hour work week is. It’s giving this emoji —> 🥴🥴🥴)
⚡️Physical transitions make it easier to stay focused
I've experimented with this lots over the last month and love it. Whenever I need to switch context, I signal this physically - with breathwork, stretching, cooking, tidying up, showering, walking. SOMETHING to tell my brain “hey bb - we are done with this task. Let’s switch context.” If I try to play whack-a-mole with going from copywriting to accounting to emails in the same block of time, my eye will start twitching and I can FEEL my cortisol spike. No bueno. TRANSITION. It will change the game for your focus.
⚡️Honor your needs and don’t try to be on other people’s schedules
There were four of us sharing the house and we all had different needs. We woke up at different times and went to bed when we felt like it. Some took walks, some worked four hours straight, some took baths mid-day - we listened to our bodies/energy and did what we needed vs. all trying to be on the same schedule. LOVELY. My personal schedule? Check out this picture of my actual calendar:
⚡️Figure out your flow state
I think I have ADHD and haven’t been diagnosed (lol welcome to every millennial living in the digital age) and I need a LOT of novelty, urgency and… things to get shit done. I need to be in the perfect chair close to the window to have natural sunlight, but not too much where my screen is not visible. I need to be in comfy clothes. I can’t feel cold or I will die. Water needs to close by. I can’t have 39135 tabs open. My screen’s brightness can throw me off. I’m a bit high maintenance when it comes to setting up my flow state.
HOWEVER, this weekend, I think I cracked the code. I used a 25 min FocusMate to start my day by organizing and planning how the day would go. In this block, I also knocked out easy wins (quick emails, paying an invoice, etc) to create a dopamine hit. Then, I booked 50-75 min FocusMates, put on Brown Noise and had a clear project to work on, going down the list, task by task. I did 2-3 bigger blocks back to back and then took a long break. I absolutely CRUSHED my tasks with this flow. Now I can take this home with me and repeat this model throughout the week. Find out how you get in your own flow state, then rinse + repeat as much as you can.
I seriously brought incense lmao I’m not kidding when I say how many things I need to fiddle with before I actually start working 🫠
⚡️Nourish your body vs. mindless eating
We all ate pretty healthy throughout the weekend. I had eggs for breakfast, made some yummy tuna salads for lunch, scooped up yogurt with berries as snacks - this kept me very focused and energized. I think if I would’ve eaten junk food like Doritos, or downed a huge cheesy pizza, or chugged soda and wine, I wouldn’t have been as productive. Some of the gals sipped on Chenin Blanc and still crushed it - so again, do what works for you!
⚡️Move!!!
We all stretched together one day as a break. I did a Pilates class on Sunday with Open - try the 15 min full body with Abe - GREAT to get blood flowin’ in the morning. Some of the gals took long walks. Some went on runs. We NEEDED to change up the energy and move around to stay motivated and focused.
THE RESULTS 👀
Here’s what came out of my 3ish day vortex:
✅ Creating a FULL sales page for my 6 week pitch bootcamp (eeek I haven’t even shared this on social or to my marketing email list!! What do you think?)
✅ Signed 3 new clients! 2 Pitch Bootcampers + 1:1 client
✅ Cleared out 30+ emails from my inbox
✅ Managed my $ - paid all my contractor invoices, sent client ones, put $ to savings, etc.
✅ Booked my flight to Berlin - any of you around in July?!
✅ Created the checkout page + email segmentation for my pitch bootcamp
✅ Buncha small misc. tasks
This was all technically from around 2 days of work. We got in Friday evening and left Sunday afternoon!
My favorite outcome was noticing how much I got done without sacrificing sleep, eating, moving or leisurely time. I literally sat on the balcony and stared at trees for 30 mins on Saturday. I laid in bed for almost 3 hours one afternoon. And STILL cranked out important work.
This showed me I can do this normally. I’m back in Cape Town now and want to experiment with this schedule. Granted, my life is more active here - I have social plans, I do workout classes, I have client calls. It won’t be a perfect copy + paste situation, but I’ll try my hardest to make it work!
Have you ever had a “think weekend”? Or dedicated work time that wasn’t Mon-Fri? How do you organize your days and projects?
This is a topic I’ve been OBSESSED with lately. I geek out on seeing people’s calendars and project management tools. Going slow to go fast is also a rabbit hole I’m on now (recently talked about this on In My Non-Expert Opinion with Isabel Bagsik).
Let me know in the comments which of these things you might try. Or how you manage your energy. Or who is winning the Drake v. Kendrick Lamar battle.
Editor’s Note (aka my wish): Consider sharing this with someone you know - throw it in the group chat, share in your next newsletter of round-ups, or mention it in your podcast. If you want to be REALLY supportive, consider upgrading to the paid tier! You get bonus content each month, and it supports me and the time it takes to create each newsletter (which is anywhere from 1-4 hours). xx
Yasss to the vortex weekend! Loved watching you flow and crank out SERIOUS tasks literally all weekend without compromising your leisure and fun! Powerful af 🔥✨