Use Asynchronous Communication
Use Asynchronous Communication
- from the article “Top 10 Elon Musk Productivity Secrets for Insane Success”
The first productivity hack gave you a slight hint for this one: Musk prefers to communicate on his own terms. That means defaulting to email and texts, both asynchronous ways of communication.
In his own words: “I do love email. Wherever possible I try to communicate asynchronously. I’m really good at email.”
He also makes himself hard to reach for people outside his company by using an obscure email address.
This lets him focus on actual work for his companies.
Application in daily life
Progress comes from being focused and performing Deep Work. This means living as asynchronously as possible and with minimal interruptions from coworkers.
Here are three solutions to start working on your terms (in order of difficulty):
- Turn off notifications: shut all notifications down on your phone, computer, and any other gadgets you use. If it’s truly important, people will call
- Decline meetings: don’t agree to a meeting unless there is a clear agenda and you know the expected outcome; if possible, use email instead
- Work remotely: a noisy office means distractions, whereas working from home is done in silence. If that’s not a possibility, ask for a private office
Minimize distractions in your daily life in order to make progress in meaningful work.