(Catching up on the tales of Tim and Tina? Here’s part 1 and part 2.)

$10K Tina is in the middle of a round of burpees when her phone rings, forcefully interrupting her Alexia Clark workout.

That’s strange.

Tina’s short of breath as she hears her colleague Charli frantically on the line.

“The presentation. The slide with the pricing packages. The printing company got the wrong page. Rick’s flight is in 4 hours, how are we going to fix this?”

Tina takes a deep breath.

(“This ain’t good,” she says to herself.)

“Charli, we got this. I’ll call you back in 15 minutes. For now, just head to the printers with your laptop,” Tina says assuredly.

Tina hangs up and finishes her round of burpees.

She then heads straight to her office and shuts the door.

***

$10 Tim got to sleep in this morning. He gingerly rolls out of bed at 7:15 am.

Tim immediately grabs his phone (ironically nestled between a copy of Deep Work and his uncharged Oura ring).

“Yes! YES!” he screams.

Tim skedaddles down into the kitchen and gives Cathy and Ellie a huge hug.

“Was the Squid Game finale really that good?” she asks.

Nope.

Tim just received a gift.

A gift that he hasn’t had in months.

He had just received a free, contiguous 4 hour block of time.

Without a single Zoom call.

(Why? His boss and two VPs got sent on a last minute due diligence trip. Which means that their 4 hour Internal OKR Kick-off Meeting got postponed.)

Tim has four hours to himself (and an entire Amazon box of goodies to go through).

Sensing his elation, Cathy tells Tim “I’ll take Ellie to school, why don’t you get some of that ‘movement’ in that Dr. Cho’s been recommending?”

Tim - still smiling ear-to-ear - flashes her a thumbs up and heads over to his Peloton.

---

Enroll in Supercharge Your Productivity by 3pm EDT today (10/21) and get lifetime access to our two other courses (at a combined value of $498):

• The GTD Power-Pack
• The Fulfilling Path to Financial Independence

👉 Enroll in Supercharge Your Productivity (and lock-in $498 of bonuses)​

---

$10K Tina is in full command-and-control mode. She texts her husband asking him to get the kids ready for school.

Her Slack is tattered with red notification badges.

She’s got 3 voicemails.

22 new emails.

14 unread iMessages.

(For some reason she also has 2 new Telegrams and 4 new WhatsApp messages.)

Tina is trapped in a dopamine war zone.

She’s got to move fast. Closing this client guarantees they hit their quota for the quarter. But with the wrong slides, all bets are off.

And their CEO Rick has a flight in less than 4 hours.

“Breathe, Tina. Breathe,” she reminds herself.

Her heart rate is at 98. She knows that focusing on deep breaths can keep it under 100. Even while she works intensely to solve the situation.

“What’s the lever?” she asks herself.

Tina knows that when the sh*t hits the fan, there’s usually one decision that unlocks dozens of other actions.

She just needs to find that leverage point.

She’s resisting the urge to check all the notifications.

On a piece of paper, she maps out the sequence of events and their inter-dependencies.

The messages keep piling in, and she can’t avoid checking them much longer.

Thankfully, she crystal clear on her communications hierarchy.

1. iMessages (for emergencies).
2. Then Slack (for team communication).
3. Then email (for external stakeholders).
4. Nothing else moves the needle.

As she scans the messages she’s looking for 3 names. Charli (her sales partner), Rick (the CEO) and Susie (her marketing manager).

She’s determined to not open a single message from any one but those 3 people, as the clock is ticking.

Then it clicks. Susie needs to update the Keynote. Charli, who’s already at the printers can swap in the new page into the deck - and then haul ass to meet Rick at the Denver airport.

Tina then takes 3 more box breaths.

Her heart rate is already back below 70.

***

“What the f**k?” asks $10 Tim incredulously.

Tim is pumped for his Peloton ride with Ally Love.

Yet he finds his bike turned into a makeshift princess castle.

There’s a princess unicorn tutu on the seat.

A tiara in the water bottle holder.

Two stuffed monkeys hanging off the handlebars.

Even the pedals have Beanie Boos stuffed inside them.

Tim’s watching the clock as he disassembles this 5-year old concoction - he wants to do the ride live.

At 8:05 am, he’s got his pedals on and he gets a text from his college roommate.

“Yo, did you see Kanye’s new look,” asks Jed.

DME 🇳🇦 @dme__363 Someone please stop Kanye West 😭😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/2k8goxThcu October 19th 2021 168 Retweets 1,822 Likes

What the heck? As he scans his Twitter feed, he sees that Kourtney (his favorite Kardashian) just got engaged to Travis Barker.

Man, Tim hasn’t thought about Blink-182 in a while. He’s curious to see how Barker's tattoos have aged.

(Tim’s tribal arm band, not-so-much.)

At 8:07 am, Tim types into Google “How many tattoos does Travis Barker have?”

(Answer: 107)

Tim is trapped in a dopamine war zone, too.

But he doesn’t even realize it.

At 8:15 am, he gets another text from Jed. (Jed is clearly out to sabotage Tim’s day.”)

“Hey what rate are you lending your bitcoin at?” asks Jed.

Tim is the proud owner of a single bitcoin. (He bought it at $32,165.)

And in the past year he’s moved that precious coin around from BlockFi, Crypto.com, Nexo and Celsius in search of a couple extra percentage points of yield.

Now he’s fidgeting with Google Authenticator to get into his BlockFi account to make sure he’s getting the top rate.

(If Tim zoomed out, he’d realize that these moves made him 200 extra dollars pre-tax, tops. But if you subtract the hours wasted on Internet Research, it's a loser.)

At 8:25 am, Tim feels his phone vibrate. Strange, he thought his calendar was free-and-clear.

Instead, he sees:

“WTF?” Tim is besides himself. Somehow this training snuck onto his calendar.

Dejected, he takes off his clip-ins. He hasn’t even cracked a sweat.

And heads to his office for the corporate training.

“Thanks, Travis.”

---

Stay tuned for tomorrow's dramatic ending of the Tim and Tina series.

(Hint: it involves a confession.)

We've all been caught in dopamine war zones.

That's where $10 work sneakily enters your mindspace and corrosively attacks your biggest priorities. It can look like:

• Responding to endless emails
• Color-coding your Google Calendar
• Spending hours discussing whether Roam or Obsidian has better features
• Organizing all of your Kindle highlights in your digital notebook

​

While $10 work is a necessary part of everybody's day, you must protect your high-leverage, high-skill work.

On October 26, we'll help you design a system for identifying and implementing your most impactful $10K work so you can hit your goals (and navigate any dopamine war zones that come your way.)

Plus, students who enroll by 3pm EDT today (i.e. Thursday 10/21) will get lifetime access to our two other courses: The GTD Power-Pack and The Fulfilling Path to Financial Independence (a $498 value).

👉🏼 Enroll in Supercharge Your Productivity today (and get $498 in bonuses)​
​

If you have any questions, don't hesitate. We got you, just hit reply.

See you tomorrow, for the big confession.

With gratitude,

Khe

PS We're hosting two free events for those of you still evaluating the course. This Sunday at 11 am EDT, I'll walk you through a Weekly Review Workshop. And On Monday at 11:30 AM EDT, we'll conduct a Live Q&A to answer any questions. (Clicking either link will automatically sign you up.)

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