Now before your mind jumps into the gutter, I’m talking about __emotional intimacy.__

Because amidst Zoom Kindergarten, constantly (and I mean _constantly_) doing dishes and laundry, while potty training our 2 year old… adult time has been __scarce__ , to say the least. _(And if you’re baking sourdough with your fiancée – screw you! Kidding… I’m just jealous.)_ And when Lisa and I do have time to __connect__ , the conversation goes as follows: _“So I’ll work out at 10, you’ll cover the Morning Workbook?”_ _“Yup, then at 11, we have the library call, you’ll take Amelie for a walk?”_ _“Ok, and at 3, can I Zoom with my family? Sure, I’ll call my friend Philip.”_ _“Could you grab some limes at the grocery store? Don’t forget your mask!”_ By the time 8 pm rolls around, we barely have enough strength to lift the tiny silver Apple TV remote. * * * But the yearning to communicate as husband-and-wife is there. We haven’t had the chance to talk about the important things in life: _“How are you feeling about your parents in NYC?”_ _“What parts of this quarantine shall we preserve once the lockdowns are lifted?”_ _“Where are you struggling right now?”_ And so we __hit snooze__. Accompanied by the dangerous mindset, “when this quarantine ends, then we’ll rediscover emotional intimacy.” The classic __[when-then trap]().__ * * * The funny thing is that this was an issue in our marriage _looonnnnnnng_ before the quarantine. (I know, funny how that works.) And so the productivity nerd in me hatched up a plan. I created a __recurring task__.

The first time it popped up, __it worked!__ I walked over to her and said, “Hey, I just want to check-in.” But, the following week, I just marked it as complete. And it was all downhill from there. 8 weeks later, I deleted the damn recurring task. * * * Now _Emotional Intimacy_ is just one example of one of these “__gray area”__ tasks. Unlike paying your rent – there’s __no due dates__ for emotional intimacy. And creating an __artificial due date__ – never works. But that doesn’t make them __any less important.__ This is the classic “Important, but Not Urgent” conundrum. This category spans wide swaths of your life: * Spending quality 1:1 time with each kid, individually * Learning a skill (i.e. public speaking) to make you better at your job * Building genuine relationships in your industry * Improving the quality of your sleep * Recruiting for a role that isn’t even open yet These activities (it’s a _disservice_ to call them tasks) are __critical__ – yet we hit __snooze on them__ all the time. Let’s look at them from a continuum of action-ability:

The left side, things with due dates are easy. __You do ’em.__ And on the right side, things you consume are easy. There’s __no penalty__ for snoozing that _Paul Graham blog post_. But that middle category? _Caveat Emptor!_ * * * Now imagine you had an intelligent assistant who surfaced these actions to you with regularity. The assistant might say: _“Hey, it’s been a month since you had a recruiting dinner – time to consider one?”_ OR _“You haven’t gotten Ice Cream with your daughter in two weeks – time to set up a date?”_ To borrow James Clear’s language from Atomic Habits, these are __Cues or Nudges.__ Subtle reminders to keep you accountable. Cues to plant seeds for your future self. Wouldn’t that be nice?