Happy Friday!

The Rosin of Productivity

When we talk about “friction” in productivity terms, we nearly always mean something that’s inhibiting our work or workflows. We see friction as universally bad. But some friction can be valuable!

Consider the violin. If you restring your bow with new horsehair, it will barely make a sound when you draw it across the strings of your violin. But once you apply rosin to the bow, that little bit of stickiness generates friction between the bow and the strings. The friction sets the strings to vibrating, and the vibration is amplified by the violin’s body to become the sound we all love.

Now imagine writing a book, but having AI write it for you. Certainly, it might be easier to do it that way, but the value of a book is in how it leverages the author’s experience to convey the message. With the friction gone, your attention is no longer required, and the essential “you-ness” never blooms. A book might be created, but it is not your book. The friction that results when you forgo an AI author and grapple with the content yourself is well worth it, because it leads to a better book.

Bad Friction

Let’s return to the “bad kind” of friction. Bad friction exists when you struggle to get into your work at all. To stick with the book-writing analogy, bad friction would be when you have a ton of ideas flying around in your head but your typing skills are so weak that you can’t get them out in time or in order. Another example might be writing in an app that doesn’t allow you to export the work in the format you ultimately need, forcing you to add several steps to the process to get your writing from where it is to where it needs to be.

The difference between good friction and bad friction lies in what you’re grappling with. When the friction is between you and your work, it is almost always good friction. When it is between you and your workflows, it is almost always bad friction. I want to grapple with the work, because that’s where the magic happens. I do not want to grapple with the workflows, because that’s what stops the magic.

💡 When you find bad friction, build bridges 💡

👆 That's your weekend upgrade.

We take our productivity very personally. When we don’t accomplish what we set out to do, we’re quick to blame ourselves. “If only I had more willpower.” “If only I were more disciplined.”

I’m here to tell you that the issue isn’t a flaw in your character. It’s friction—the bad kind. There is some friction between the way you intuitively want to work and the way you have your work set up.

The challenge is that friction can manifest in unpredictable ways. Maybe it causes us to hesitate, and then we think our indecisiveness is the problem when it’s really friction with our system. Here’s one extremely common example: You hesitate while capturing a task or a note because you don’t know where to put it, to the point where you don’t capture it at all. And you blame that on yourself—“I’m too indecisive.” But the real problem wasn’t that you didn’t know where to put it. It’s that you didn’t have a place to put it at all. Solve that friction by creating the container you need to house the task or note—the project, the bin, etc.—and that hesitation will go away.

Friction also frustrates us, makes us avoid work entirely, and hides inside any number of seemingly emotional responses. I’ve learned about myself that, given the option, I will lie down on the couch for 90 minutes after waking up and idly scroll through my phone rather than dive into my work. It is tremendously tempting to blame this on a lack of willpower, but that is misguided. This is another manifestation of friction. Something about my work is creating a bit of headwind, and rather than push into it, I give in to the cozy comfort of my couch.

Bridging Over Friction

If you’re a regular reader of Weekend Upgrade, you already have the tools you need to overcome bad friction. When you identify it, build a productivity bridge to move you past it. (Refresher: Productivity bridges are structures in your toolkit that increase the speed, accuracy, or quality of future work. A few common examples are templates, procedures, recurring tasks, and automations.)

In the first example above, the container is the bridge. I’m indecisive about capturing because the relevant project or bin doesn’t exist. Okay, create it. Solve that friction by creating the container, and once it’s bridged your hesitation will go away.

The second example is less clear. What bridge is necessary when I’m fighting the urge to plop down on the couch? It depends on the circumstances, of course, but here are some possibilities. Perhaps a simple physical bridge—making it simpler to get to my desk in the morning—will reduce the friction enough.

Or maybe it requires a clearer agenda. If I haven’t specified what I intend to do first in the morning, that lack of clarity leaves me vulnerable to the lure of the couch. If I bridge my intentions from day to day with a more effective agenda, and that reduces the friction.

Or perhaps a morning routine that requires me to be somewhere other than on the couch might be the bridge I need. If a few actions in another room can start my day and give me some momentum to draw from, the couch might not seem as enticing.

None of those three bridges excludes any of the others. I could apply them all, plus more, to systematically reduce the friction that leads me to the couch. This is the key: sure, I could also just “buck up and be more disciplined,” no bridges required. But then, any time I fail, I’m more prone to self-blaming and more likely to slip into an unproductive spiral. If instead I frame the challenge as friction, I now have something concrete to work on and a frame that doesn’t threaten my morale.

When you find yourself hesitating, feeling frustrated, avoiding work, or losing momentum, don’t blame yourself. Search for the friction, and build a bridge over it!

What do I do next?

(1) Take 2 minutes and answer this question: What’s one thing I learned in this newsletter that I can put into practice right away?

By committing to a specific action, you make it much more likely you’ll do it.

(2) Consider the flow of your average work day.

What aspects of the day introduce bad friction? When do you tend to get stuck or distracted? What productivity bridge or bridges could you build to eliminate that friction?

If this was valuable for you:

Share the newsletter with someone you think would also get value from it! rjn.st/weekend-upgrade-newsletters​

Until next time, friends:

Accentuate the good friction; eliminate the bad friction.

R.J.
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P.S. This newsletter was adapted from my upcoming book The Rhythms of Productivity, which launches as a 1st edition ebook on Friday, April 12. Preorder the ebook edition today and get a free ebook sample of the first seven chapters!