Aug 9, 2023 3 min read Newsletters

The Productivity Sketchbook #11: Don't Think Outside the Box Until You've Used What's Inside It

It's so tempting to jump straight to the creative and complex solution.

I did that with this newsletter. I wanted each issue to be one big Sketchnote, something I hadn't seen anyone else do.

In a few short weeks I was burnt out.

I began to dread making the newsletter because I knew it would require a brand new Sketchnote, and I felt like my brain was tapped.

Then a couple weeks ago I threw together some content I'd already made in order to keep to my posting schedule.

And something unexpected, yet amazing happened.

The open rate for my newsletter increased!

I then realized I'd been approaching my newsletter all wrong.

I spend a lot of my time making Sketchnotes on things that interest me. I have lots of content ready to go, yet I felt I needed to come up with brand new content each week for the newsletter.

I was thinking outside the box when I hadn't even used what's inside it.

So here's a sample of what I've been working on this past week in regards to visual productivity. I hope it serves as inspiration to you. And please let me know any feedback or questions you have!

Thank you so much for reading!

I love the book Atomic Habits by James Clear.

I've decided to finish the Sketchnotes I'd started making on the book last year.

Here's a Sketchnote summary of Chapter 2:

Sketchnote summary of Atomic Habits Chapter 2: How Your Habits Shape Your Identity (and vice versa)

I've been building a dashboard in my favorite text-based note taking app, Obsidian. It helps me see at a glance what projects I have in flight, and things I want to keep in mind as I work on those projects.