Hello, fellow tinkerer 👋

Happy Wednesday. I'm writing this while in a coffee shop. My oldest, who is in high school, has a "student support day" at school, which includes only an hour of class and then no school for the rest of the day. So, in my role as Family Chauffeur, I am waiting around and then will pick them up. 'Tis my current Season of Life.

1) Reflection:

My 13-year-old is very meticulous with his homework, so it takes a long time. So long, in fact, that I wondered if he was getting distracted while doing his homework at night.

I had him start working with me in my office. It's called body doubling, and it's an effective productivity strategy (often used by neurodivergent people). Something about being next to a person makes you more focused.

In body doubling with my son, I learned that he is not getting distracted; he just needs a lot of time to do his homework. However, he told me that he feels more productive when we work together. Highly recommend it for parents wanting to help kids with homework without actually getting involved with the homework.

2) Product

A few months ago, based on an invite from a friend, I joined Flow Club for virtual co-working sessions. I was surprised by how much I liked it. You join Flow Club sessions with a small group for a defined period of time (anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours). Some sessions include verbal check-ins; others are chat only. Attendees are encouraged to keep cameras on, for accountability, but turning cameras off is ok.

Flow Club is a type of body doubling, and it works for me. I've been joining sessions almost every day since I joined.

If you'd like to give Flow Club a try, you can sign up using my referral link. With this link, you can try Flow Club for free for two weeks (versus one week if you sign up directly through the website)

3) Tip

I listen to a lot of music while I'm working. If you like variety, Flow State is a free Substack that sends links to a different artist every day. The music has no vocals about 95% of the time, and covers a huge range of genres, from ambient beats to classical. Flow State sends links to several music platforms, like Spotify and YouTube, so you can listen on your platform of choice.

Want more ideas?

→ Here's an article about the difference between project management and task management (trust me, it matters).

→ Here's my process to repurpose social posts using ChatGPT.

→ Quiet quitting, quiet vacationing, quiet firing... "quiet" work terms are all tied to workplace problems.

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That's it for this issue of Tinkering! See you again in two weeks.

Cheers,
Anna

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