BTD Newsletter – Christmas 2025: "What are you struggling with?", Pink Floyd, Books of the Year, egg nog

Last month I invited you to submit questions on areas where you were struggling, in work or in life. The response was interesting. I have collated the questions and answers and anonymised them below. I hope you find this useful.

Struggle A: Mental Clutter Hi Matthew, Really appreciated this. My own struggle at the moment is mental clutter — not quite stress, but a low-level hum of "too many tabs open". Your point about defining what not to do resonated. I suspect my issue is that I'm saying Yes to too many minor things that collectively drain energy. NM, Birmingham

Matthew response: Thanks for sharing this — "too many tabs open" is exactly how it often feels. The problem is that our attention is finite, but the calls on our time are nearly infinite. And they all want to pull us towards them: as Seneca said, "All those who summon you to themselves, turn you away from your own self".

We can either live with this – and accept under-performance – or toughen up by installing some "Saying No" strategies. Key scripts: "Not me", "Not now", "Not ever". So, deflect – politely, but deflect all the same. Your job is not to rescue other people. Bear in mind that everything we decline opens up space for our most valuable work. If I can help with more detail, drop me a line.

Struggle B: Boundaries Hi Matthew, For me it's workload boundaries. I'm fine with the "big" tasks, but the small requests, micro-asks, and ad-hoc calls are killing my ability to focus. Can you suggest any tools that will help? SB, Cambridge

Matthew response: have you tried "Timeboxing"? It's a game-changer. There's a good book on it my Marc Zao ("Timeboxing"). In short, time-boxing is an explicit statement of what you will and won't do every day, decided when you brain is at its best – first thing in the morning! At that time you set "meetings" (with yourself) in the calendar, throughout the day, to do pre-identified work. It sounds odd, but it works brilliantly. You may need to adjust as you go, but the mere act of pre-planning on a daily time horizon, is really valuable.

Struggle C: Concentration, and Music Hi Matthew, I love the Weekly Preview, and was wondering if you could recommend some suitable concentration-enhancing music to accompany this exercise. Cheers MA, Purley

Matthew response: Yes, of course. My default soundtrack for the (Friday 09.30) Weekly Preview is "Shine On, You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-IV)" from Pink Floyd's seminal 1975 album "Wish You Were Here" on 180-gramme vinyl. I quite like the fact that nothing much happens for four minutes, apart from astral sounds and some Dave Gilmour noodling, but when it gets going it really gets going. Something, also, about the thought of poor old Syd Barrett, and what happened to him, serves as a metaphor for the inevitable decay that we all face.

Ok, these are not strictly books of the year - but the three books I have read this year that have had the biggest impact.

"The Courage to be Disliked" By: Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga Actually, I am only half-way through but, so far, it has been a game-changer – really made me re-think the paralysis of conventional approaches to understanding the past, and planning our future. It's written as a conversation between philosopher and student, which makes it nicely accessible.

"How to Live: 27 Conflicting Answers and One Weird Conclusion" By: Derek Sivers Well, I think I recommend this every year. But, then, I re-read it every year, so that's OK. Short, digestible, fun. This book is bursting with ideas about how we can live more broadly, more deeply, or both. Also, it's an ideal gift for young people – particularly those pondering how to make their way in the world. Derek's Tim Ferriss podcast is great, too.

"Slow Productivity" By: Cal Newport Yes, sorry: Newport again. It's just that I get the sense that things are speeding up (again), stress is high (again) and quality is down (again). This book invites us to focus on fewer projects, think long-term, and deliver the highest quality.

I know that you will do this, but just in case you forget the plan: (1) Set "Out-of-Office", (2) hide laptop, (3) forget work, and (4) drink egg nog.