Your Calendar as Todo List

<p>My tweet thread: <a href="https://twitter.com/swyx/status/1364107473724919809?s=20">https://twitter.com/swyx/status/1364107473724919809?s=20</a></p><p>Audio source: <a href="https://fs.blog/knowledge-project/nir-eyal/">https://fs.blog/knowledge-project/nir-eyal/</a> (40 mins in)</p><p>Future edit: Followup episode with <a href="https://swyx.transistor.fm/episodes/time-block-planning-cal-newport-ryan-holiday">Cal Newport on Time Block Planning</a></p><p><strong>Main Points</strong></p><p>1. Prioritize the hard stuff not the distracting stuff<br> 2. Todo lists don't have constraints, Calendars do<br>3. Self image of Person Who Gets Things Done</p><p><strong>Transcript</strong></p><p><strong>swyx: </strong>[00:00:00] I want to share with you an idea that I've been recently very obsessed with, and it comes like many things from Cal Newport. But I'm going to use my own words. And here it goes: </p><p>your Calendar as Todo List. (Why I'm getting into time block planning).</p><p> We are besieged by to-do lists, open browser tabs, YouTube watch later podcast queue, Twitter, bookmarks, unread emails, notifications messages. </p><p>To do lists aren't good enough. They just solve the easy problem: storage. </p><p>The actual hard problems: prioritization and scheduling. </p><p>Calendars or to-do lists with prioritization and scheduling built in. </p><p>You have to answer questions like: what should I do first? And what's my time budget for this? </p><p>Most people's calendars only track meetings with others, but why shouldn't we make appointments with ourselves? </p><p>Your calendar is the only todo list, where you have a chance at a 100% completion rate. </p><p> So I heard a version of this in Shane parishes podcasts with near IUL. And I wanted to clip his version of his as well, because he writes about it in his book Indistractible.  <br></p><p><strong>Nir Eyal: </strong>[00:01:04] So the second step is to make time for traction. That's the second big strategy making time for traction essentially acknowledges t