Happy December—

We're 16 days about from the launch of my book ​Money Proud​, I'm excited! Lots of little tasks and pushes, and then in my off time I've been frequenting the local holiday craft markets.

They love a craft market in beach towns, y'all.

If you enjoy today's email, consider forwarding it to a friend. And if someone forwarded this email to you, you can sign up for free ​by clicking here.​​

—Nick

Great news: Effort is cool again 🎉

I’ve long been a Cal Newport fanboy, perhaps because his rise to author stardom feels organic and not overly manufactured.

A computer science professor at Georgetown, Newport’s first website and books centered around study hacks to help his students develop career skills and better focusing habits. It was niche, innocent stuff: How to Win at College in 2005, How to Become a Straight-A Student in 2006, and so on.

“Learn how to learn” content always scratches my best little boy in the world syndrome (​gay trope!​). If you loved being a nerd and/or a good student, perhaps it strikes a chord for you, too.

Eventually, Newport broadened the target audience for his writing. And it was his fourth book, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, that vaulted him to the productivity guru A-list. Deep Work first published on January 5th, 2016.

Deep Work argues that the ability to concentrate is an appreciating skill, one that is worth your ongoing time and energy investment, particularly as the world becomes increasingly distracted (Gestures to AI video apocalypse, smartphone screen time reports, ChatGPT destroying critical thinking and effort in general, etc).

Most of us would agree that deep work is where our best ideas and productivity come forth. But it’s the getting-into-the-zone part that’s hard, if it even happens at all. There is the deep work itself, and then there is work that prepares you for and facilitates the deep work.

I was reminded of this when I painted my living room this summer, because there are so many steps to painting that don’t involve actual painting. It’s all the painter’s tape, putting down all that damn plastic (which, truly, rips just from you looking at it the wrong way), and finding a good playlist so your paint-spattered fingertips don’t go near any precious devices.

When you arrive at the deep work, though, it’s both incredibly productive and incredibly satisfying.

Time vs. attention

When I first read Deep Work, it was the first time I really clarified the difference between time management and attention management. Time management without attention management is kind of irrelevant. Writers and creatives know this.

Sure, you block off 45 minutes to write. Or 90 minutes, or half a day, or whatever. But then you sit down, piss the time away, and then get mad at yourself for squandering the opportunity. That time was expensive, damnit!

But you can’t expect yourself to concentrate full-blast every single hour of the day. Humans aren’t wired that way. You have to portion out those attention bursts. And you also have to figure out what deep work you will do, along with why you should put so much effort into doing it. Motivation, strategy, and implementation are all factors.

This is true for personal finance, writing, business, and many other facts of life.

I’m thinking a lot about deep work as I look ahead. My first book releases in just 16 days (OH EM GEE! ​Order here order here order here​), and I’ve been splitting my time between pitches, conversations, architecting 2026, and helping some others do the same.

(I’m taking a couple of consulting clients for Q1; reply to this email if you’d like more information.)

Deep work is helping me make progress on these goals. It informs a lot of how I work, and perhaps should inform your efforts, too. Whenever I feel scattered, I recall its principles.

​Here’s a piece​ I wrote about Deep Work for Fast Company, my first piece for them, back in 2020 (My writing was kinda bad then, go easy on me!).

Would love to know if you use something like this in your own creative process—reply and let me know.

Queer women love Money Proud!

Thanks to Autostraddle for including Money Proud in their monthly best books roundup.

Y’all know how media pitching goes sometimes: Sprinkle hundreds of seeds, wait, make a snack, eat said snack, wait some more, then see what seedlings emerge. Grateful for the shoutout.

​Read the roundup here.

Social post of the week

“Old data, new audience” as a content formula almost always works.

Here's me sharing some interesting data about queer people and student loan debt.

What happened this week

Disclosure: I work at Ziff Davis, the parent company of CNET, Mashable, PCMag, Lifehacker, and ZDNET, and equalpride, the parent company of Out magazine and The Advocate.

Economy, money, entrepreneurship

​Why It’s Harder to Tell Gambling From Investing Nowadays.​ (Lu Wang / Bloomberg) (7-day friend link)

​Same Cart, Different Price: Instacart’s Price Experiments Cost Families at Checkout.​ The results of a fascinating experiment aimed at exposing Instacart's dynamic pricing aspirations. (Groundwork Collaborative / Consumer Reports)

​Walmart moved its stock listing from the New York Stock Exchange to the Nasdaq.​ Think piece forthcoming on this, but it does feel like every company is vying to be perceived as a tech company now. (Michael Grothaus / Fast Company)

AI, future tech

​Instagram Is Adding AI-Generated Headlines to Some Posts.​ (Jake Peterson / Lifehacker)

​AI Chatbots Are Shockingly Good at Political Persuasion.​ And water is wet. (Deni Ellis Béchard / Scientific American)

LGBTQ

​A guide to the Heated Rivalry characters, actors, and gay storylines.​ I feel like I'm the only person in America not watching this show right now (it's book launch month!), so if you're like me, my buddy Bernardo has this primer for you. (Bernardo Sim / Out)

​Jason Collins, the first out gay NBA player, reveals he has 'deadliest form of brain cancer'.​ (Ryan Adamczeski / The Advocate)

​"The CDC is over." My Loooong Chat With Queer Public Health Leather Daddy Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, Transitioning from the CDC Back to NYC​. A generous essay preview for a paid Substack article. Also, Dr. D is hot AF -- way too hot for the Trump administration. (Tim Murphy / Caftan Chronicles)

Culture, health

​Why Are ADHD Rates On the Rise?​ More than 1 in 10 children in the U.S. have ADHD, fueling debate over the condition and how to treat it. (Helen Pearson / Scientific American)

​Reddit sues Australia over social media ban, citing free speech threat.​ Australia banned social media for users under 16 this past week. (Byron Kaye / Reuters)

​Substack tried to force subscribers to download its app in order to read creator content, even when paying for subscriptions.​ They later rolled back the update. I just lol at y'all thinking Substack ever had our best interests at heart or was independent. (Gergely Orosz, in a thread on X)