✅ What small tech job could you finish this week?

Last week I asked you whether you'd taken a first step on something you'd like to try online. Of those who answered, half know what they want to try but haven't started yet, and the other half haven't picked anything yet. Both are fine places to be. Starting is one end of it. Today is about the other end.

Tomorrow it'll be one year since the first Retire & RISE went out. Three times a week, every week since. I'd love to tell you it was a year of steady growth. Here's the truer version. A few weeks ago I checked who was actually opening these emails. I picked 153 subscribers at random and looked at every one. 151 of them were business addresses, where an "open" is usually security software checking the mail before letting it through. Machines, not people. The big number I'd been quietly pleased with wasn't real. You are. You're who I've been writing to all year, whether I knew it or not.

So this anniversary issue is about the most ordinary skill there is: finishing one small thing.

Most of us have a few. The photos you meant to sort. The phone update that keeps asking. The password you meant to change after that odd email. The printer you got halfway through setting up.

None of them are big. That's the trouble. Small jobs are easy to start and just as easy to drop.

There's a well-known idea in psychology called the Zeigarnik effect. Psychology Today describes it this way: unfinished tasks put a quiet load on the mind and come back to you more easily than finished ones. Here's a short, plain explanation if you'd like it.

Later research hasn't backed every part of the original study. Still, most of us don't need a study to know the feeling. A half-done job tends to tap you on the shoulder at odd moments.

There's a second reason it matters. Confidence with technology doesn't come from reading about it. It comes from small jobs you saw all the way through. Each one is a little piece of proof.

That's honestly how this newsletter reached a year. Not a plan for a whole year. One issue, finished, then the next one.

If you finish one, there's one less thing nagging at you, and one more small proof that you can.

If you don't, nothing bad happens. The job will still be there. It'll just keep tapping you on the shoulder.

Same idea, one tap:

There's no wrong answer. I'll tell you what came back next Tuesday.

Pick one small tech job. Write its finish line in one sentence. Then see it through, start to finish, before you pick another.

If you’re a decision maker at your company, you need to be on the bleeding edge of, well, everything. But before you go signing up for seminars, conferences, lunch ‘n learns, and all that jazz, just know there’s a far better (and simpler) way: Subscribing to The Deep View.

This daily newsletter condenses everything you need to know about the latest and greatest AI developments into a 5-minute read. Squeeze it into your morning coffee break and before you know it, you’ll be an expert too.

Subscribe right here. It’s totally free, wildly informative, and trusted by 600,000+ readers at Google, Meta, Microsoft, and beyond.

This is how I support this newsletter.

If you'd like, reply with just the job you picked. One or two words is plenty. Either way, thank you for being one of the real ones this year.

Talk soon,
Bob

A quick tip from my place – the one phone setting that makes everything easier to read. No sales in it.

If a few small, repeating tasks quietly eat your week, here is an honest review of the free tool I use to make them handle themselves.

I use Make myself, and my review links through my affiliate link, so I may earn a small amount if you sign up – at no extra cost to you.