18 Minutes & 30 Seconds

2026/01/20

Here are two pieces of simple advice that make a difference in my work. Things flow smoother when I remember to embrace these rhythms.

18 minutes

A deliberate 18 minutes can keep most work days on track.

  1. 5 minutes at the beginning of the day: plan the outcomes to focus on and what to ignore
  2. 1 minute at the beginning of every hour: check in with your plans, and recalibrate as necessary
  3. 5 minutes at the end of the day: reflect on what actually happened and find a way to be 1% better tomorrow

At each step, write things down. These notes can be ephemeral and tossed at the end of the day. But the writing is part of the magic.

Be specific about what, when, and where. Visualizing the action in space and time increases the chances of making it real.

I don’t remember where I heard this advice. If you’re familiar, I’d love to give proper attribution.

30 seconds

Take 30 seconds to write down the most important thing after any meeting, conversation, or otherwise significant moment. It can be a few things, but it doesn’t need to be mountains of text.

I remember where I picked this up because I saved the link and the most important pullquote (to me) on my own website.

Passing the time

Don’t create distinct notes for every meeting, conversation, or otherwise significant moment. Just keep a daily append only log as you would on a legal pad. Life is lived linearly and memories are sorted out at rest. Synthesize the daily notes at the end of the week if you must. Only then do you add brief insights to long standing notes representing ongoing commitments and projects

Throw out the daily notes after a while. Or put them on an external hard drive so there’s actually a cost to retrieving them. This will force memory to form about what matters, action to make it meaningful, or both.

Be a human. Use computers. Or pens and paper. Quit fighting the hardware.