[Weekend WRAP 50] Push vs Pull Productivity

Hey Reader,

This is the 50th edition of the Weekly WRAP, apologies for the delay of a day. I woke up at 4:45am ready to write the email before my boys awoke. Alas, they woke up early too and we ate donuts instead 🍩 How can I be mad at a couple of boys who like to get after it early?! They are my sons ❤️

Anyway, I'm grateful to be able to write this email to you each and every week. Thanks for reading and sharing a bit of your time with me. I'll never take it for granted! Now on to the Weekly WRAP.

💡 Idea of the Week: Push vs Pull Productivity

Push vs Pull Productivity is a system I'm applying to my creative agency. Here's the gist: most places work on a Push System, i.e. the manager or client pushes work to you. A Pull System is where the employee pulls work from a central task list or database. It's a variation of the Scrum framework.

The benefits of a Pull System are improved delivery times, clearer task responsibilities, and employee effectiveness. Instead of waiting for the manager or client to say "do this" and push work — team members can look at the task list for their role and pull work for the day.

At the agency, we're organizing our work as a Pull System using a defined process of tasks for each role. To add more clarity, each project's deliverables and schedule can be viewed on a board. It's not perfect yet, but I'll share more as the system develops.

My team has loved this so far. Instead of meetings, they look at the board and the project stage they're responsible for. As projects move across the board, he or she can see a number of tasks they can pull from, e.g. write a newsletter, upload to ConvertKit, send to client for review. When all tasks are complete—or time is up for the day—stopping work feels much better. Starting the next day becomes easier and easier because there's clarity about the work.

🔎 Sources & References

Deep Questions with Cal Newport — episode 199
Moving from a Push to Pull System — Sloan Review
The Power of Pull book (haven't finished yet)

📹 Matt D'Avella tried bullet journaling for 30 days

My friend and fellow productivity nerd, Matt D'Avella, is back at his 30 challenges again. This past month he tried bullet journaling, and WOW DO I HAVE THOUGHTS. As you may guess, he fell in the trap of doing too much with his layout, taking 4 hours to set up everything. A few additional thoughts below — I'm also planning a video response to his setup. Enjoy!

Matt's response to Matt's Bullet Journal setup

Matt (D'Avella) spent a lot of time on his monthly layouts, specifically trying to create a balanced grid of cards to organize each day. He messed up the math of the grid, it looked "weird" to him, and was frustrated. Then to make things worse, he didn't even use the monthly grid often!

Solution: create a single column list for your monthly page. Keeps it very simple and best of all — no math! See my monthly layout here.

The main problem Matt kept bumping into was the time it took him to manage his bullet journal practice. Again, this is a common beginner's mistake!

Solution: take a simple daily approach to your first bullet journal experiment. Build up to the monthly layout after consistently bullet journaling for several days and a few weeks.

Get a Fresh Start with the Best Marketing Platform for Creators [Sponsor]

Watch your first YouTube video (this is mine). Read your first blog post. Find your first newsletter. Listen to your first podcast episode. Now, compare it to your recent work. It’s night and day, isn’t it?

Even if you cringed a little at those early efforts, I hope you also recognize how proud you should be. You've come a long way, and that's something to be proud of. But do you feel the same way about how your marketing platform has grown? It should be working to grow and develop as much as you are.

ConvertKit has been my marketing platform of choice since 2015 and powers every bit of my creative work. Newsletters, sales, content feeds, landing pages, automation, and more. If your marketing platform hasn't kept up with your growth, get a fresh start with ConvertKit today.

Have a great weekend,

Matt Ragland