This setup worked really well while writing issue #4 for my newsletter, The Listener.

It looks like I actually can finish a newsletter in one sitting. A couple things that worked really well in this writing session.

1. Using the iPad Pro — this is mostly me just justifying buying a new iPad every year. I do think that because I’m slower in iPadOS for most things, I’m better at focusing on writing when I’m supposed to be writing.

It’s really really great (as mentioned in that newsletter post) for making a notecard right when a visual comes to mind while writing instead of filing the idea away or, worse, switching from my laptop to my iPad to draw. (I love AirDrop, but it’s still a few extra taps.) Inevitably in that situation I’ll get distracted by… something. This week I was really inspired by this post by Neville Medhora: Why Images Are Greater Than Text In Marketing (In Many Cases).

2. Using a Gymboss timer — maybe this will be my one weird trick. I’ve used Bit Timer for years and use it any time I do a kettlebell workout. It hasn’t worked as well when writing or doing other kinds of work at a computer. I think it’s because using a timer on my phone just leads to me procrastinating on my phone. Having the physical vibration just worked well right now.

I tried 25 intervals at 1-minute and… stopped like 4 rounds in. Too quick to really get anything done. I switched it to 7 intervals of 3-minutes and that worked much better. Three minutes is good for a chunk of writing and then I could keep it moving. Three minutes is also a good amount of time to draw something worth sharing in a post. (And another three if I want to do a little bit of animation on it.)

Can’t wait to send you all my free bonus PDF. HIIT WRITING – THE 3X7 ROUTINE THAT CHANGED MY LIFE.