Happy Canada Day and a Fourth of July everyone!

Thanks for checking out the Weekly Learning Roundup. These bite-sized, weekly posts are designed to give you a quick hit of interesting learnings and articles I came across this week.

It’s a motley assortment of tips, resources, and links that will hopefully give you a bit of inspiration for the upcoming week. Enjoy!

What I’m reading —

This Is How To Have An Amazing Relationship: 7 Secrets From Research by Eric Barker

Well written, well researched piece on relationships. The author does a great job simplifying the keys to a great relationship – and they’re all fairly simple in theory. In particular, “express appreciation frequently” and “support your partner’s goals” are two secrets that I need to work on.

A quote that’s inspiring me —

It is a simple matter of what you will do when the chips are down, my friend. When the fat lady is singing. When the walls are falling in, and the sky is dark, and the ground is rumbling. In that moment our actions will define us. And it makes no difference whether you are being watched by Allah, Jesus, Buddha, or whether you are not. On cold days a man can see his breath, on a hot day he can’t. On both occasions, the man breathes.

— Zadie Smith

“ah-ha!” thought of the week —

Keep your phone off your desk.

An easy way to increase your focus during the day is removing distractions from your immediate area. And one of the easiest ways to be distracted is by your phone. Let’s say you see a text come into your phone and you take 2 minutes to send a response. While it might seem like a 2-minute pause, the actual cost needs to include the time it takes for your brain to get back on task, which takes, according to a study, is upwards of 25 minutes.

If possible, keep your phone off your desk. Yes, disabling notifications is good but putting the phone away from your casual reach is way better.

Product I’m loving —

Inbox by Gmail

I highlighted Inbox by Gmail back in the February 28 Roundup but it’s worth bringing it back again for another review because they’ve made some key improvements that I love.

First, the Bundles feature has really made my life easier. Not only can I now categorize emails based on Social, Updates, Promos, etc., I’m able to bring them into my inbox just once in the morning to review. I don’t need to keep tabs on these categories multiple times a day and knowing they’ll arrive once in the morning at 7 a.m. makes it easier to stay focused on the right emails.

Second, the Trips category in the bundles is amazing. It not only automatically recognizes when I’m going on a trip through flight or hotel confirmations, but I can also add certain emails to the specific Trip if it’s missing. This is really helpful when I’m on the fly and need to access certain information right in my email. (I’ve used tools like Trip Case which are also great but I love the convenience of this information right in my inbox better).

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Featured image by Jonathan Denney.

As always, thanks for checking out this Weekly Learnings Roundup. Follow me on Twitter @peternakamura to see the full list of articles that I share on a daily basis.