Productivity

My Favorite Music for Focus

August 13, 2020 By Mike Schmitz

When I work, I like to listen to music. Most of it is instrumental as I find it easier to focus when listening to music without words. Here’s a list of some of my favorites, with embedded Apple Music players so you can try them for yourself.

The Olympians (Self-Titled)

An instrumental retro-soul band with a good flow. This is my current favorite, and my go-to album when I really need to write.

Imagine Gold by Frameworks

A great synth-driven electronic downtempo album. A handful of lyrics with this one, but I love the feel of this one. Another go-to album when I need to write.

Night Drive (Instrumental Edition) by Timecop1983

Full disclosure: I’ve never listened to the real version of this. But the instrumental version is another great synth-driven electronic album that I’ve listened to hundreds of times and never gets old.

Awake by Tycho

I love Tycho. This is my favorite non-work album and is usually the the thing I go to when the family is hanging out and we just want some background music.

Monument Valley Soundtrack

Video game soundtracks make pretty great focus music. And the Monument Valley soundtrack is the best of the best IMHO.

Friday Night Lights Soundtrack

Never really cared for the movie, but the soundtrack has been a regular part of writing rotation for years.

Anything Else by Explosions in the Sky

The instrumental indie rock artist that did the majority of the Friday Night Lights soundtrack above has produced a ton of other music. I have yet to find something by Explosions in the Sky that I don’t like. My current favorite is The Wilderness, embedded below.

Anything by Utah

“Siri, shuffle Utah.” I like everything this electronic duo makes, but they tend to release a bunch of shorter EP-style albums so this is how my office writing sessions have started for quite a while. They released their first full-length album Long Play this year, embedded below.

Dreamer on the Run by U137

This one is kinda weird. The album is named after a Soviet submarine that ran aground on Swedish shores, but is pretty positive and airy. Another staple album in my writing rotation for years.

Astronomy, Vol. 1 by Sleeping at Last

A new instrumental album that I’m digging. Very atmospheric, opens with a sort of angel chorus and keeps a pretty chill vibe throughout.

Additional Resources

There’s a bunch of other great stuff out there. Here’s a couple other things to consider:

Focus@Will – Personalized focus music to help you get stuff done. I’ve used this in the past, and I like it a lot. They also sponsored the Focused podcast, so you can get 60% off with the code FOCUSED at checkout.
Brain.fm – Another focus music service I’ve used in the past. I’ve used this in the past over Focus@Will simply because the app was better, but it’s not such a big deal anymore.
Pure Focus Playlist – A huge playlist with a ton of great stuff on it. If you are an Apple Music subscriber already and want a simple solution, go here first.

But ultimately, you just need to find what works for you. So take a look at the stuff I’ve got here, and let me know if there’s anything you think I should add!

Daily Questions in Roam Research

July 3, 2020 By Mike Schmitz

One of my action items from Bookworm 96 was to implement my own version of the daily questions Marshall Goldsmith uses. He keeps everything in a spreadsheet, but obviously that wasn’t good enough for me. So here’s a quick video on how I did this using Roam Research.

How to Start Your Own Mastermind Group

May 25, 2020 By Mike Schmitz

In a recent episode of Focused, my co-host David Spark & I interviewed Laura McClellan (a.k.a. The Productive Woman). It was a fun conversation, and one of the things we hit on was the topic of mastermind groups. I’m a big fan of mastermind groups, and a member of one myself. But for someone new to the idea I can see how the idea would be pretty intimidating, so I wanted to share some thoughts on how you can get your own mastermind group started.

My NeuYear Calendar

October 29, 2019 By Mike Schmitz

In a recent Focused episode, David and I talked about a lot about calendaring and I mentioned I’d share a picture of my current NeuYear calendar. Here it is:

We’ve even got a special Focused branded version of this with shading for those of you who like the 12 Week Year. A perfect complement to the Personal Retreat Handbook if I do say so myself.

The Motivation Cycle

June 11, 2019 By Mike Schmitz

A couple of weeks ago, David & I talked about “moving the needle” in one of my favorite episodes of Focused to date. David shared his system for making sure the things he was getting done were in fact the right things, and it got me thinking about what happens after you identify what moves the needle for you.

Why I Made Faith-Based Productivity

May 31, 2019 By Mike Schmitz

Purposeful productivity is not a destination, it’s a journey. You’ll never fully arrive at it, but it is indeed a worthwhile pursuit. That is why I created Faith-Based Productivity to help people who are on their own purposeful productivity journey connect to their calling, discover their destiny, and live the life they were created for.

Who is Faith-Based Productivity For?

May 30, 2019 By Mike Schmitz

Faith-Based Productivity is intentionally not like most other online courses. Depending on your perspective, that is either a strength or a weakness.

The course doesn’t give you a 5-step formula for reaching your full potential. It can’t straight-out tell you what your unique purpose and abilities are (no one can). But the course will help point you in the right direction and get you asking the right questions, helping you to uncover your unique talents and abilities.

By understanding your own passions and skills, you can connect to your “why” and live the life God meant for you to live. This course will help you discover the will of God for your life and leverage whatever resources you possess to push past an average existence and do something awesome – no matter where you are or what you have when you start. But it’s still up to you to do the work.

Introducing Faith-Based Productivity

May 28, 2019 By Mike Schmitz

I know, I know – you’ve seen this before. Except not really. The development of Faith-Based Productivity has taken some unexpected turns the last couple of months. Today I want to share with you the short story of what exactly it is and how we got here.

Stepping Off the Productivity Hamster Wheel

May 20, 2019 By Mike Schmitz

I’m a big advocate of productivity. But I’m not a big fan of how most people approach the topic.

Productivity is not cranking more widgets. Productivity is not doing all the things. True productivity is saying “no” to the things that don’t matter so you can say “YES!” to the things that do.

But that’s not what most people think of when they hear the word “productivity.” They conjure up a mental image of heartless efficiency – getting their tasks done faster so they can squeeze in a few more from the never-ending in their task manager.

My Problem with Passion

May 13, 2019 By Mike Schmitz

There’s a fascinating discussion about the most recent Michael Hyatt episode of Mac Power Users over in the MPU forum where a couple fo listeners started responding to what Michael Hyatt calls his Freedom Compass. Michael talks about it in his new book, Free to Focus, but the TL;DR from the podcast episode is this:

Everything you do can be broken down into one of four quadrants:

The Desire Zone – Things that you are passionate about and proficient in
The Distraction Zone – Things that you are passionate about but not proficient in
The Disinterest Zone – Thing that you are proficient in but not passionate about
The Drudgery Zone – Things that you are neither passionate about or proficient in

It’s an interesting mental model, and I mostly agree with Michael’s argument that if you are able to align the things you care deeply about with the things that you are good at, that is where the magic happens. The one thing I would nitpick here is the use of the word passion.