This week at JDHQ – 2026-07-13
Originally sent to the mailing list on Monday 2026-07-13.
I've been finding it difficult, after taking a month off circumnavigating Taiwan by rail – counter-clockwise, starting from and returning to Kaohsiung City, great trip, recommended – to get back into the flow of things. Feeling distracted and without focus, I went back to an old friend: Cal Newport's Deep Work.
It holds up to perhaps its third reading, and was exactly what I needed. Because its advice is so simple, really, and so obviously true. In order to do good work – work that you're proud of, work that will be noticed – you have to be deliberate. You have to recognise the many distractions of the world and do something about them.
Cal gives the sort of advice that's easy to implement badly: plan your day; don't browse crap online; disconnect at night. But – as I discovered the last few weeks – none of this works as a half measure. A day half planned wasn't planned. Only browsing some crap still leaves your brain a mess. So I'm going all-in: here's my calendar.
The specific problem that I'm trying to solve is the one where you work all day, get to the end, look back, and think … well I was busy, but what did I actually achieve? When you allow yourself to bounce from task to task all day, it's easy to fall into the trap of busywork. There are only two of us in this little business: there's no time for busywork.
Practically, this schedule stops me from drifting away from a task. Those large chunks of pink are labelled either 'Product' (the making or improving of) or 'Marketing' (like sending this email). Figuring out either of those things is hard, and the natural tendency is to start something, do it for half an hour, and drift away from it. And when I say 'natural tendency', it really is: in Willpower, Baumeister and Tierney explain how our willpower is a finite resource, consumed throughout the day. But there are things you can do to help strengthen it, and this is one of them.
I've done spells of 'hyper-scheduling' in the past. It only works when you get to set your own schedule, which rules out a lot of jobs. But if you can, it's worth a try. I'll report my progress.
'The Work System'
Work has started on 'The Work System', aka a 'coping mechanism' for those of you stuck in some corporate situation. We know you probably can't reconfigure the SharePoint, but we should be able to give you something that helps.
Lucy has spent the week in discovery (ref. Workshop area 20-29) and we just reviewed what she has so far. It's nowhere near ready to share, but here's a teaser at how much we're working with.
We'd love to know what help people need 'at work'. Here's a short survey, every question optional: tell us as much or as little as you like.
This survey link will expire around 13th August 2026.
Typeform survey: Johnny.Decimal 'at work'
Giving structure to ideas
On the topic of structure, we're still trying to figure out how best to give structure to our many, many ideas.
(Image made with tldraw which I've just started using and am enjoying a lot.)
Ideas occur, and are saved mostly as simple lists of text in notes that we label 'P5 Ideas'. This extends the task and project management course's P1-P4 system of prioritisation. A 'P5 idea' is just that: a very low priority thing; not even a task. We have a lot of these ideas through our JDex. Let me see if I can … okay, that explains it! A quick grep across my 29 notes named 'P5 ideas' reveals 894 bullet points. That's a lot to try to make sense of (which is why we mostly can't).
We've got a bunch more stuff saved in the still-needs-a-proper-name 'imaginarium aka megablog'. I try to keep ideas out of Things; they might start life there, captured in my inbox, but at morning review I move them out to a P5 note. An idea isn't a task; don't dilute your task system with them.
I just started reading Bob Doto's A System for Writing – the first time I've really learned about Zettelkasten. (Loving the book so far.) ZK's similarities with our 'imaginarium' are striking: the tracking of many granular ideas, loosely connected, in service of surfacing broader ideas, such that content ideas (writing, for Bob – any content, for us) are revealed and can be planned and produced.
I've yet to find the right tool for this job. It's obviously not 894 bullet points spread across 29 text files. In the imaginarium video you'll see me using Airtable. It's too slow, and not visual enough. I need a database crossed with a whiteboard, and I think it needs to be local to be fast enough. I want to feel like Tom Cruise (eww).
I'll take a look at Notion later, but don't think it'll give me the moving shapes around on a canvas I'm looking for. I don't think Obsidian's Canvas will be enough, and this thing needs an actual relational database. Airtable has proven that much. If you've got any other app ideas, I'm all ears.
When we've figured this one out I'll write it up. I can see it becoming a mini-course: how to have, track, and make use of all your ideas, in the specific context of running a creative business.
Recording the 'projects' update to T&PM this week
As noted in the past, the 'projects' half of the 'task and project management' course needs an update. This is the result of 6+ months of thinking since releasing the course, and reflects how we run our own projects. There was a preview video the other week.
These lessons are mostly planned and I'll be recording them this week and next.
SBS Zoom sessions
The Small Business System Zoom sessions continue, one a week, alternating Tuesday/Thursday across timezones. They're 'intimate', shall we say, with just a handful of regulars so far. But the discussion is interesting, and we always learn something. It'd be good to see you there – and don't worry, if you want to lurk with your camera off, that's okay.
That's all for now. As always, we're here to help. Let us know what you need – just reply to this email.
j.