My Messy Ride Trying Joseph Birnbaum’s Stuff
So I saw this thing about Joseph Birnbaum and how his methods actually work for people. Real results, they said. Sounded interesting, but honestly? I started with zero clue. No plan, just jumped in headfirst like an idiot.
First Step: Writing Down EVERY Single Thing.
Birnbaum talks about tracking like a crazy person. Okay fine. I grabbed this beat-up notebook from my junk drawer – seriously, the cover’s half torn off. For a whole week, I wrote down absolutely everything work-related. Didn’t matter how stupid it seemed.
- Checking email (morning clusterfudge)
- Random Slack messages blowing up my focus
- The pointless 2pm meeting that ran 40 minutes over
- Even bathroom breaks, because why not?
Turns out, my day was just a bunch of tiny little fires scattered everywhere. No real direction. Seeing it all scribbled down was kinda embarrassing, honestly.
Next Disaster: The “Priority” Thing.
Right, Birnbaum pushes picking ONE big rock for the day. Just one. How hard could that be? Hah. Day 1, I picked “Finish the client proposal.” Sounds solid.
But then:
9:15am: Urgent email! Put out that fire.
10:30am: Boss needs a “quick chat” (spoiler: never quick).
2:00pm: Coworker desperately needs help fixing their spreadsheet… again.
By 5pm? My “ONE big thing” barely got touched. Felt like garbage. Realized quick: saying yes to everything meant killing my own priorities. Had to get meaner.
The Clumsy System Phase (Coffee Was Spilled)
Okay, needed structure. Birnbaum uses systems? Made my own janky version.
- Blocked off 8:30am – 10am EVERY morning. “Big Thing” time. Phone on silent. Slack status: “Busy building a rocket ✨” (Nobody bought it).
- Made an actual “Stop Doing” list. Stopped jumping on every damn request instantly. Said “Can I get to this later?” more often. Felt uncomfortable as hell at first.
- Started ending meetings when the clock ran out. Just said “Sorry, gotta run, block the next steps!” and bounced. Wild.
Bumped into stuff constantly. Forgot to block time once, chaos returned instantly. My system looked uglier than my notebook. But… stuff started inching forward.
Finally… Some Movement?
After a few weeks of grinding this mess… weird stuff happened:
- The big, scary project I kept avoiding? Broken into tiny bits inside my ugly time blocks. Actually shipped part of it.
- That client proposal got done in like two focused mornings. Client approved it FAST.
- Felt less fried at the end of the day, even though more got done. Less hamster wheel.
It ain’t perfect. Still feel like a caveman learning fire sometimes. My “system” involves highlighters and probably looks insane. Birnbaum would probably laugh. But the core idea? Sticking to the few key things? Tracking honestly? Creating those little pockets of focus? Dude, it delivers.
My Takeaway (Way Cheaper Than a Seminar)
You don’t need some fancy setup. Just honesty about your chaos, ruthless cutting of distractions for small chunks of time, and forcing yourself to pick what actually moves the needle. Even if you fumble the details like I did, pushing on these rocks actually gets them rolling. Small wins build up. It works.
