Julian Lehr's information diet

This is the first of a series of tiny interviews with our favorite thinkers, creators, writers, technologists.

It's a way to get a glimpse into their daily routines and information diets.

Who are you, and what do you do?

Hi there. My name is Julian Lehr.

I currently work for a company called Stripe, where I help startup founders with all things monetization-related. Outside of Stripe, I spend a lot of time thinking - and writing - about technology and product design. You can find some of my essays here.

How do you usually start your day?

I have a pretty clearly defined morning routine:

6:30 -- Get up, make tea / coffee.
6:35-7:30 -- Reading time (you can find my reading list here)
7:30-8:30 -- Workout / meditation
8:30-8:35 -- Quickly check emails, calendar, Twitter notifications
8:35-9:00 -- Shower + breakfast
9:00 -- Start work

What’s your information diet like?

Twitter is my main source of information. If you have a well-curated list of Twitter follows, you don’t really need anything else.

I subscribe to a few newsletters (Stratechery, Thoughts in Between, Astral Codex Pen, The Diff) — but read most of the content via Pocket or on my Kindle.

Marginal Revolution is the one blog I read almost daily.

What are the most interesting people you follow right now?

I have a dedicated Twitter list for the most interesting people whose Tweets I definitely don’t want to miss. It currently contains roughly 70 people.

I can’t really give you a top 3 or top 5 because every account in this list is special in its own right, so I’ll just list the first five users that come up when I open the list: @dwr, @_TamaraWinter, @kevinakwok, @patrickc, @kevinyien.

With so many distractions, how do you stay focused and productive?

• No phone between 21:00 - 8:00
• A very clearly defined calendar (I have dedicated time blocks for almost every hour I’m awake)
• My email inbox is my to-do list
• Dedicated reading time in the morning
• I do most of my writing on physical paper (no distractions)

How do you take notes and retain information?

Gmail is my email / notification inbox, my to-do list and (partly) my note taking app.

The most important notes and documents then go into my (more structured) Notion setup.

I also keep track of a variety of quantified self metrics which I log in an Airtable spreadsheet.