I found my writing time completely gone.
I thought back to my blogging days and realized I used to be one of those “wake up at 4:00 a.m.” or “keep chugging till 4:00 a.m.” guys who just grinds away while everybody else sleeps. It’s how I wrote a thousand blog posts in a thousand days. But now I understand you can only drive in the express lane for so long before the wheels come off. And I find myself resisting advice from people who don’t seem to be making time for those crucial buckets of sleep and family.
I realized that what I needed was a practical way to get more work done without taking more time.
And I needed it fast.
Well, I finally found a solution that I feel has saved my career, my time, and my sanity.
I bet you need this solution, too.
I call it “Untouchable Days.”
These are days when I am literally 100% unreachable in any way… by anyone.
What are the results?
Well, Untouchable Days have become my secret weapon. To share a rough comparison, on a day when I write between meetings, I’ll write about 500 words a day. On an Untouchable Day, it’s not unusual for me to write 5000 words. Ten times more! And I’m on a high all week because I hit my writing goals.
Why am I ten times more productive on Untouchable Days?
A fascinating 2009 paper by University of Minnesota business professor Sophie Leroy found that getting into a flow state while doing a single task enables us to be more productive than when we try to focus on multiple tasks.
Leroy coined the term attention residue to explain why we’re less productive when we have lots of meetings and tons of different tasks to accomplish in a given day. Basically, a residue of our attention gets stuck thinking about the last task we were doing.
When I start chatting with people about Untouchable Days, they start laughing.
Why?
Because we are all getting hundreds of emails and texts and dings and pings a day and juggling so many competing assignments and projects and priorities that it seems wholly laughable to even imagine walking away from it all.
But it is possible.
And vital.
Let me share what Untouchable Days look like up close.
I think of them as having two components.
1. There is the deep creative work.
When you’re in the zone, your brain is buzzing, you’re in a state of flow, and the big project you’re working on is getting accomplished step by step by step.
2. There are the little nitros.
Little blasts of fuel you can use to prime your own pump or open up your creative centers if you hit a wall. Those unproductive moments of frustration happen to all of us, and it’s less important to avoid them than to have a mental toolkit you can whip out when they occur. What are my tools? Heading to the gym for a workout. Grabbing a pack of almonds. Going on a nature walk. Doing a ten-minute meditation. Switching to a new work space.
How do I carve out Untouchable Days? I look at my calendar sixteen weeks ahead of today, and for each week, I block out an entire day as UNTOUCHABLE. I put it in all caps, too: UNTOUCHABLE. I don’t write in all caps for anything else, but I allow UNTOUCHABLE days to scream out to me.
Why sixteen weeks ahead? The number of weeks isn’t as important as the thinking behind it. For me, that’s after my speaking schedule is locked in—but, importantly, before anything else is. That’s a magic moment in my schedule. It’s the perfect time to plant the Untouchable Day flag before anything else can claim that spot.
On the actual Untouchable Day itself, I picture myself sitting in a car surrounded by two inches of thick, bulletproof glass on all sides. Nothing gets in. Nothing gets out. Meetings bounce off the windshield. Texts, alerts, and phone calls, too. My cell phone is in airplane mode all day. My laptop has Wi-Fi disabled. Not a single thing can bother me. And not a single thing does. So I’m able to dive easily, freely, and deeply into my work.
So what happens if the bulletproof car of an Untouchable Day gets bumped? Say I get an incredible invitation or somebody much more important than me really has only that one day to get together?
Red alert: the Untouchable Day is under threat.
What do I do?
I have a simple rule. Untouchable Days may never be deleted, but they can move between the bumpers of the weekends. They can’t jump weeks, though. They are more important than anything else I am doing, so if they need to move from a Wednesday to a Thursday or a Friday, that’s fine—even if I have to move four meetings to make room. The beauty of this approach is that when you plant the Untouchable Day flag on your calendar, it really does feel permanent. You start feeling the creative high you’ll get from deep output as soon as you book them in.
And my Untouchable Days have more structure around them to make sure they actually happen!