How to meta-work and get more life?

My colleagues perceive me as the person who can balance multiple projects without missing a deadline, and hence ask me often for productivity tips. Back in 2020 most of us switched to remote work. Many complained about the increased stress, workload and the demand to be reached. Still, some of us flourished with better productivity and less distractions. I was certainly one of them.

Remote work is quite duplicitous. You don’t need to walk away from your laptop as all your tools are within it. There is a caveat however, because all the tasks are digital activities happening on your screen, so it's hard to see any difference between them. There is no more paper printing, visiting clients at their office, or even random coffee talks with colleagues. You can do your stuff from any place in the world, but little variety in the type of work itself leads to more exhaustion. And even though a task is just a task, you might need different energy levels and focus for each of them.?

This is not so much about the tools as about methodology and mindset. Abraham Maslow described the Law of Instrument saying: “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” Probably you know already that you cannot treat each project equally – conducting research is different from conducting an interview, participating in a meeting is different from giving a presentation.

You will notice that most of the ideas presented below are not my own, but a synthesis of those that worked well for me. I just organised them in different contexts. You might also realise that some ideas are contrary to each other, but this should be fine. Just as Yin and Yang balance the opposite, yet interconnected forces (night and day, order and disorder), also your approach could be more holistic and open-minded. Be aware that I don’t promote a holy grail here, but rather a concept to frame various approaches under one umbrella.

The idea for this article started when I noticed some overlaps between the concepts from Cal Newport's book ”Deep Work”, with the ones from “Thinking, Fast and Slow” written by Daniel Kahnemann. Then I expanded it further, being aware that levels of Energy and Attention could further distinguish them. Consequently, the matrix on the right side has two dimensions. Energy for Executing work is different from Organising it, while the Attention can be Focused or Distracted. This split already gives us four different groupings:

To have a full spectrum of a day cycle, in my model I included Recharging and Relaxing as equally important areas to our productive well-being and also the not so obvious, “not doing” area. Finally, these 7 categories can be visualised below.

Moreover, I prepared a simplified workflow to summarise the premise of the article with actionable advice. Hopefully this will leverage your output and give more life in return. In the next sections of this article I will explain each grouping in detail.??

I. Preparing

All those warming up activities you perform to allow the real work to happen - is it, work or not? You don’t produce the value per se, but you enable yourself to produce. Before you jump to planning, it makes sense to prepare. The advantage is obvious – not everything is equally urgent or ready to start. Some tasks require the right context (people, tools, settings) to be performed. Enter meta-work: work about work.

Meta-work can be easily confused with procrastination, which is understood as following distractions and doing nothing. Sometimes it is essential, however, to clean the clutter in your mind. What can help you to get into the mood is skimming through loose notes, browsing the bookmarks in your browser, or even sharpening the pencils and doodling. You can also prepare a list of the books to read or google for new ideas. All in all, you don’t need much energy for these activities, but at some point that preparatory activities must be done. You will conserve your energy and focus for decision making later. You’ll make such preparations when you feel tired. For example, after lunch when you can’t really focus.

In short, my approach is “do the most challenging tasks when you have lots of energy, and save distractions and boring chores for the time when you feel tired”. This is also what Shu Hattori - the author of "The McKinsey Edge: Success Principles from the World’s Most Powerful Consulting Firm" - recommends: "So when do you complete the more mundane but necessary work—the changing, fixing, or destroying work? At night! After a challenging day, you are usually quite exhausted by dinner. Even though it’s quiet at night, you don’t have the mental capacity to go over output from the team and clients, focus on valuable work, raise difficult issues, do something creative, or think into the future. You just want to relax your brain. It’s the best time to be engaged in the passive, less thinking-intensive work."

?

Short pencil is better than long memory

The first book on productivity I read was “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. One idea in particular hit me: dedicate time to sharpening your tool before cutting down the tree. This taught me about the importance for preparation. If I already know how to do particular work, I consider it almost done. The challenge lies in figuring out how to solve particular problems and that requires creative and analytical skills. Therefore, first I get rid of distracting thoughts. Also, by writing everything down I will dump my brain to utilise the short-term memory for working on that stuff. As Richard Feynman famously said, his thinking is in his writing. Only when you see your thoughts in writing, you see how much sense they really make.

David Allen in his groundbreaking manual “Getting Things Done” argues that humans have a problem focusing on the big picture if they cannot control their day to day work. This is why decluttering your brain has to be done as the first step, often with the help of a notepad. Otherwise the Fear Of Missing Out will ruin your day. One can argue that dumping tasks to your environment is the step towards distributed cognition or the extended mind. I won’t claim that extending it beyond your body is real, however physical objects left at strategic locations (for example a letter next to door, or business card left on laptop) can act as extended to-do list.

There is no need to digitise all your upcoming activities, you just have to clean the space in your short-term memory. In result, instead of trying to remember stuff, your brain can start to process the problems having more “human RAM” at disposal. Working memory is sometimes confused with short-term memory, though they have slightly different purposes. The former holds bits of information for short intervals, so you have to repeat them to not forget. The latter is used for manipulating the information being stored, reasoning and decision making.

?

Intuitive approach

Using intuition by knowledge workers is underrated, if not openly discouraged. Daniel J. Levitin in “The Organized Mind” wrote: “Western culture overvalues the central executive mode, and undervalues the daydreaming mode. Many scientific careers were fueled by ideas that came to researchers by stumbling upon articles that captured their attention while searching for something else that turned out to be far more boring and less useful.”

Personally I consider preparing for upcoming meetings as self-reflection, a mind wandering process and researching with no particular focus. Actually it helps me to warm up and get a fresh, distanced perspective. I am repeatedly surprised that by delaying the actual work, my unconscious mind already has some insights about how to solve the problem.

Daniel Kahneman in “Thinking, Fast and Slow” described System 1 as for the reflexive brain - quick to jump to conclusions and error prone. System 2 is for the reflective brain - slow, logical and less prone to error. This is a great psychological book about how our society functions and (mis)interprets the world. It highlights the wish for understanding between fast intuitive insights of System 1 and deep analysis of System 2. Worth noting is that since intuition is based on your personal experience it is dangerous to be applied outside of your personal experience. The most suitable domain is where you are the expert already, while new areas require a slower system for learning.

Feeding two birds with one scone

Conducting research should be done with an open playful mind. Scratching the surface, collecting ideas, comparing notes – this is the best use for the brain in diffused mode. By not being too critical you spot patterns easier and create those free associations. Sometimes there is a proximity of similar context: I might update the list of employees in the org chart only after having the latest monthly report on activities from last month - in this way I won’t do the work twice. Not to mention, the need to focus twice on similar contexts. Setting a precedence for those operations adds an extra value.

I still remember watching a documentary called “Inside the World of CNN” in my teenage years. It was mentioned that the first 24-hour news station relied heavily on recycling the same footage for multiple topics. That approach maximised the value of the assets for reporters. That also helped me to think about leveraging the work I would produce for multiple purposes, if possible. For example, building a pipeline of IT talents using Scala, which I can further narrow down by location, seniority level or any other parameter. Another example would be reusing the same template in various alternatives when I write reach-out messages to prospects.

The more patterns I notice, the more efficient I get in using them. Why run all the cleaning on the new data every week, when you can only replace the source and the existing calculations will do the rest? Being able to reuse the same data sets and to aggregate them in the same data frame with existing charts and formulas saves me a lot of preparatory work. Noticing those overlaps and contradictions at the planning phase becomes a habit.

Don’t Repeat Yourself

There is a programming principle called DRY – Don’t Repeat Yourself. It aims at reducing repetition of patterns, duplications and redundancy. Consider spending an hour on updating the spreadsheet before the regular meeting. Or forgetting what and how something was already done a month ago, when re-opening an old project. Time spent on those tasks go unnoticed, but scratching your head in order to figure out what was on your mind a month ago can force you to start from scratch. Writing new code seems simpler than refactoring the old one (even if it’s yours). But maintaining the dependencies is key to sustainable project management.

The world of IT adopted the famous saying: “There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs”. Sooner or later you will learn how true it is. Creating documentation (that includes checklists or comments in code) takes time, while taking shortcuts now can lead to organisational debt in the future. You can’t predict what will be useful and when, if at all. Too often the startup mindset is forcing the so-called temporary solutions to become the definite ones. For example, the sourcing activities dashboard I was asked to create and maintain for a few weeks only is still in use, after more than 3 years. Knowing that in advance would save me plenty of struggles on normalising data. But at least I have learned my lesson in reusing components from other projects. Each experience can be a learning experience.

So what is the value of documentation? In the worst? case: you won’t use the same procedures again. In the best case: you will save repeated efforts for your future self. Do the maths on what can save you time in the long run: robust documentation or starting from zero each time you repeat the same process? My personal rule of thumb: if there is a task which I have to repeat regularly in the future, I would opt for documenting. Archiving files, bookmarking pages, and labelling emails became part of my routine in keeping the legacy and consistency too much - sometimes I am replying to a 2 years old email thread to offer historical context. This is laziness on my end – why reinvent the wheel if I remember where I stored similar work? But beside laziness, also hubris and impatience are most sought after chief virtues of a programmer, according to Larry Wall.

?

Key Takeaways:

[ ] dump everything out that clutters your mind to see the big picture

[ ] look for possible duplications and overlaps to get more done in less time

[ ] write down and archive what would be useful again in the future

?

II. Planning

Stephen R. Covey said that people are great at making plans and goals, but not in their execution. He lectured in his book: “When you get to the top of the ladder you may find it is propped against the wrong wall.” That is one example of his seven habits of efficient people, which he called “Begin with the End in Mind". It is easy to get busy, but how will you know if you did the right stuff?

It is obvious that having asynchronous disturbances by written communication like emails or chats (which you can always turn off) is a preferred way for introverts, so they can choose carefully what and when to respond. Phone calls, spontaneous appearing next to a desk are those situations which are harder to avoid if you are thinking hard on a big problem. Being in the open space is then an invitation for disturbances at all lengths from all directions. One has to dedicate extra energy to block those channels consciously. An obvious advantage of working from home is that you are more in control of those distractions.

Planning requires good focus as you weigh the options against your time budget, energy and other resources. What comes into play is also dependencies on other people's work. You should prepare for the meetings in order to get the most out of them. And possibly waste less time when they happen. Break big tasks into smaller, actionable chunks which are self-explanatory. Don’t make them ambiguous or you will waste time trying to understand their meaning. Ancient philosopher Laozi recommended “Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small.”

?

Dealing with ambiguous goals

Having a clear goal in mind for each task can help you plan accordingly. User stories and understanding implications of The XY Problem makes the life easier for everyone involved to avoid pitfalls. While The XY problem highlights that what the customer wants to solve is not what is really their core problem, the User Story clarifies the expected outcome in a clean manner from end user perspective.

Inversion - approaching from the opposite end of starting is powerful, because it flips the problem. Problems are bigger, when you can't start the work until the other one is finished. In that case you will schedule from the end to beginning. That means starting from the one, where no other task depends on it, and the one with the latest deadline at the end of the queue.You identify and remove obstacles looking backwards, so starting at the end makes sense. This way you spot all bottlenecks that are clogging the flow of the process.?

When planning, taking many things into account is hard, but it will make the work easier in the long run. There is a mental model called First-Order Thinking, focused on solving immediate problems. This is however too simplistic, doesn’t take into account the consequences as in a more strategic approach. Slower decisions will result in better decisions.

Second-order thinking – what will happen after something will happen – leads you to plan what is truly necessary. The process here is more complex and convoluted, but shows the root cause, similar to the Five Whys technique. So for example planning to give people bonuses to work harder creates in return a skewed process, focused on results driving bonuses only. Or in my case, building a dashboard would force me to think, how to make it sustainable, so that I won’t repeat the process each time we plug in a new dataset.

?

Measure twice, cut once

Brian Tracy’s approach called “Eat the Frog First” puts emphasis on starting the hardest job first. Once achieving the result everything else would be easy. But what if you won’t be able to finish - will you still have stamina for less important work, after experiencing failure? Starting with an easy errands sets you up in a good mood – you would move to the next one knowing you have already achieved something. Plus, clearing your mind from unnecessary clutter. Consequently, I avoid demanding tasks as the first thing in the morning, and do them only once I have undivided attention. Why? Too often my pre-planned most important task got changed overnight, deprioritized, or cancelled. Or breaking news might bring some new insights. That’s why checking emails first thing in the morning still makes sense. And only then I adjust my schedule for the day ahead. Similarly Monday mornings are blocked to catch up with whatever has happened since Friday and to re-adjust my plans. By the same token, I also try to send my emails as early as possible, hoping to get the reply on the same day. If I would send them after being done with my most important thing for the day, I might not get the answer till next day.

Eisenhower once said "Planning is everything, plan is nothing." It is truly amazing that meta-work can take more time than actual work. Keeping up with upcoming tasks and scheduling them can be too much. The more you schedule, the more you will reschedule. I agree with the authors of "Algorithms to Live by" who stated: "When the future is foggy, it turns out you don’t need a calendar—just a to-do list." If you have too much stuff to do, then booking a time slot for everything is counterproductive. On the other hand, reacting as you go is far from perfect allocation, but gives you sanity in choosing what begs for the most attention.

There are plenty of productivity systems out there, but not many are starting from the human perspective. Two years ago I had a short chat with Maria Matarelli who created Personal Agility together with Peter Stevens. Their concept was inspired by Scrum principles, though instead of products they applied it to humans. The approach is based on self-coaching which includes: regular retrospectives, affirmations and reflection in adaptive mode. They wrote: "If your schedule is too full, especially with immovable appointments, you become inflexible and have no time to do actual work. So in general, important tasks should only be scheduled during the current week, and known, urgent tasks should be scheduled only a day or two in advance." Apparently mindful approach.

Having the luxury of rewriting your schedule is truly a blessing. Cal Newport suggests simply revising the schedule once it gets disrupted. It can happen a few times a day. Better to maintain a thoughtful say on your progress. Flexible schedule is better than a fixed one, where you cannot meet all commitments. If you’re facing disruptions, you can always rewrite the plan to get the best of resources you have. This is why my calendar is never full, while my to-do list is more like a restaurant’s menu: I can review the content and choose what to work on next. The point is: I add new to-dos to my list as soon as they come so they won’t be forgotten, but I don’t instantly schedule them in my calendar. And when I notice an increasing number of upcoming events, I set up blockers between them to act as buffers. Jjust for the sake of having more time for preparing or recharging.

Building a to-do list is contrary to what Nir Eyal recommends about scheduling each task. However I am no devotee to following a strict schedule no matter what. For me, having more dopamine from being busy on something I select from the list of options heightens my motivation and engagement. This flexibility gives space to consider energy levels and upcoming urgent requests from my manager. I can also easily spot overlaps, for example: what if I combine task 1 and 2 now, since I am already discussing it in the meeting? Don’t be surprised if a task actually got solved by themselves, or by another problem being solved. Was it a result of lucky coincidence or conscientious planning?

Algorithms for scheduling

"Algorithms to Live by" is a collection of patterns from the IT world, which can be applied easily to everyday human life. There are mentions of such strategies as Earliest Due Date which is optimal on average when facing uncertainty. This approach is reducing the biggest lateness. So if a new job pops up, you should start it only if their deadline is earlier than your current one. The more to-dos you have at hand, you should finish first the work with earliest due dates.

Shortest Processing Time on the other hand relies on comparing time left on existing work. Here, in a similar way, you should focus on the ones, which can be finished earlier, even if you are already occupied with another task. In other words - do the quickest one first to secure more quick wins. This approach favours the sum of completion times to faster reduce your to-do list.

This contradicts common sense, however makes sense from the perspective of computing power. Moreover, the authors are offering a simple algorithm for managing time when context switching comes into play. That goes: "each time a new piece of work comes in, divide its importance by the amount of time it will take to complete. If that figure is higher than for the task you’re currently doing, switch to the new one; otherwise stick with the current task." Freelancers might approach it by starting from the most costly work first by dividing projects fee by its size, and going from the highest number down.

Working with others

Parkinson’s Law states that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. Consequently, you can use it to slack, or to accelerate. Even a 25-minute time slot can do miracles as all your attention gets driven by approaching deadlines, as the Pomodoro technique implies. Creator of this method, Francesco Cirillo, suggests running a timer for each of the tasks. As a result, upon noticing the time running out we’d be more inclined to finish it on time.

You might wonder, is half an hour before another meeting enough to start something new, or is it better to have a break? Well, that depends on the context. Sometimes, however, the problem is not about how much time is left to finish, but when you can start. What if you are lacking crucial resources, being “blocked” by the lack of someone’s comment or decision? This is why you should outline all prerequisites before starting.

I hate to be a so-called bottleneck for others, so I prioritise their requests first (while silently hoping for a similar tendency on their side). During my unscheduled time I can take their requests instantly. In a way it acts like karma – the faster I solve their problems the faster I expect help. The more important stakeholders, the higher the urgency too. If you are the one, who is delegating some less crucial chords to others, don’t forget to monitor the outcome. You can simply schedule a reminder for checking the progress on that matter.

There are some requests however, where the responsibility is diffused, or there is no clear action step. Since I am not the one who cares the most about the outcome, it makes sense to wait for the follow up. Some people just dump stuff from their brain to forget about tackling the issue themselves. Be sure that if it's an important task, it will come up again.?

My colleague from IT security once revealed his sensible approach. The first time he receives a request, he puts it in the lowest drawer. Once the request gets a follow up, it moves to the middle drawer. With the second follow up he moves requests to the top drawer and only from there he considers requests worth his attention, as they get equal importance from stakeholders. This irony reveals that your stakeholders forget what they requested, or they don’t even care anymore.

?

Safety buffers

Don’t plan too much ahead due to planning fallacy phenomenon. If there is too much on your plate, you will get tired faster, accomplish less and postpone a lot, which in result will undermine your motivation. Experts suggest doubling the estimations for the work to be done, in order to have a buffer for unexpected events. Notice that time devoted to a meeting is longer than its scheduled duration. Most likely you should prepare yourself for the event, (at least) review the pre-read from whatever is added to the agenda, and afterwards finalise action steps and take care of your defined follow-ups.

Having 50% of unbooked time each day allows me to manage my workload the most. I either fill them with any project which gets longer than expected, starting sub-prioritized tasks, or recharge my body battery (bio-breaks during work are not only recommended but required). It also helps me with finding time for those spontaneous calls, when somebody asks if I have a minute for a quick question (the questions are quick, the answers are not).

In less than an hour it is better to just do errands, because figuring out what you need to do will take too much time to accomplish it. My approach is to deal with 1-3 important topics for the day and fit them around meetings existing in my calendar. Secondly, running the rest of errands as the day unfolds, quite often spontaneously. If it will take less than five minutes, then I can do it now. It doesn’t make sense to waste time on scheduling it. I am not always achieving everything I planned, but still something was achieved, according to the rhythm of the day.

Manager’s schedule is open for spontaneous meetings, which might bring new insights or support someone. It is contrary to Maker’s schedule focused on high quality output. The more available for others you are, the more distractions you are open to. That is why it is recommended to set Office Hours. As simple as it is, within this dedicated time slot you’ll be available for anything unplanned, unknown, unexpected. Or you will do the next item from your to-do list if no one shows up.

I adjust my plans to everything that’s ahead, like considering how much I can still do before the upcoming meeting. This is why most likely late afternoons and evenings with no such time limitation would allow me to devote myself fully to bigger problems. Also, I eat lunch late to maintain the momentum of high energy. After lunch everything slows down, I have less distractions from others, so conceptual work can take the rest of my time.

Blocking time for thinking on strategy is particularly a must for pro-active managers. They are responsible for making decisions with as much knowledge as they can have, and it's better if they are not only reacting on an autopilot mode.

?

Know when to end

The work never ends, it only gets suspended. For that reason don’t start new projects on Friday. Implication is obvious. You would overestimate its duration. Once you'd realise you require some support, there is no one left in the office to help. As you might know, most of the tech accidents are happening when nobody is on duty. So now you are stuck with unresolved problems to occupy your energy for the whole weekend.

My personal favourite rule is also to have quick wins by the end of the week and month. By tracking progress I will see what I could finish earlier. So if some particular project grows too much, I would get other tasks done faster, only to cross them out, in order to feel I accomplished something. That’s my need for closure to make the brain feel happy. Another reason to keep some easy tasks on the backlog is that I can fix them quickly whenever I wish for more accomplishments cumulatively.

Fridays in my calendar are often free from external meetings in order to either finalise the still unfinished work. Or to process insights and brainstorm some pet projects in a safe staging area. In both cases I will start the weekend uplifted as there is something to look forward to on Monday morning.

For the same reason I plan my holidays early in January for each quarter of the year. Later I can adjust some dates here and there, but this has two advantages. First, I solve the same problem once, instead of every quarter. Second, knowing ahead until when I will be occupied helps me to plan accordingly for the remainder of the work. During the handover most of my projects reached some milestone or were finished so upon coming back I am refreshed. It feels great to start a new chapter, instead of continuing the same old stuff, and boosts morale, as I can see something was actually achieved.

?

Key Takeaways:

[ ] stay flexible in rewriting your schedule as the life unfolds

[ ] set the buffers between meetings for preparation and reflection

[ ] consider what to end earlier to boost morale

?

III. Performing

Richard Hemming in his renowned essay "You and Your Research" is asking: “What's the best thing you could be working on, and why aren't you?” As simple as it sounds, we tend to be occupied with small problems to get a quick reward, while the reward for big problems may wait in the less real future. Some tasks are counterproductive as a result. Do we all let our errands run our life to avoid dealing with big problems?

The main concept of the book called “Deep Work” has decent roots: “Jung’s approach is what I call the bimodal philosophy of deep work. This philosophy asks that you divide your time, dedicating some clearly defined stretches to deep pursuits and leaving the rest open to everything else.” Making things happen is the main motivation here.?

Trust the process, not the outcome

If you constantly run repetitive tasks it makes sense to schedule them on fixed recurrent timeslots – this will save you from constantly fighting to fit them in on busy days. Having process perspective in mind eases the pain of motivating yourself to start the problematic work. You just do what is expected to be done on the input end. Some projects have no clear end, like education. It is a process, so even if you aim to get the certification, you still continue the learning in practice. Before you start executing your plan, estimate how much you want to get done by the end of the session.

That’s why instead of relying on milestones (“I will write one chapter today” or “I will get 5 candidates this week”) it would be better to plan activity (“I will write for two hours today” or “I will contact 20 prospects each day”). You won’t get the results instantly, but in the long term you will get more done by repetition of the process. It is also easier to pay attention to something within your control, as you won’t feel pressure from the performance.

Camille Fournier, author of "The Manager's Path" is stating the obvious challenge: "What is the value in automation if you don’t use it to make your job easier? We engineers automate so that we can focus on the fun stuff—and the fun stuff is the work that uses most of your brain, and it’s not usually something you can do for hours and hours, day after day."

No matter what your purpose is, you live only in the present and can only do what you can do now. Seneca puts it more eloquently, "The wise man looks to the purpose of all actions, not their consequences; beginnings are in our power but Fortune judges the outcome, and I do not grant her a verdict upon me."

?

Performance requires focus

There is some ambiguity around deep and shallow focus. At times you will require all attention on one task only, but also sometimes when doing multiple things at once. Solving problems in maths or science is more effortful than working on language and people, though they all require a similar approach.

It’s like in photography, you want to blur everything that is outside of your immediate interests, or you want to grasp the big picture. In both cases you are focused, but your aperture is different. For example, proofreading texts requires more focused attention to spot mistakes, but finding the right words during writing requires more free floating attention. For that reason giving presentations or conducting interviews require high energy and lots of attention.

When I was interviewing candidates it was not only about pitching them my company and asking standard questions about their experience and preferences for the next job. Sometimes during the call I had to run additional research on similar jobs for them and chat simultaneously with hiring managers about matching skills for their teams. Or calculating the commuting between the office and their location. So even though I was multitasking (changing from one activity to another), I was still fully focused on making the hiring of the candidate more likely.

?

The Flow

Flexible focus (as opposite to relentless focus) is what distinguishes the daily workflows of Nobel Prize winners. In "How to Take Smart Notes" Sonke Ahrens explained: "Specifically, the problem-solving behaviour of eminent scientists can alternate between extraordinary levels of focus on specific concepts and playful exploration of ideas. This suggests that successful problem solving may be a function of flexible strategy application in relation to task demands."

Probably you’ve heard about the Flow mode, otherwise known as effortless attention. Being in the Flow gives you wider bandwidth to process information. It’s not easy to get into it, but easy to lose it. If some great idea comes to your mind (or any distracting thought, like the stuff you forgot) just leave a note on a side and get back to your main topic. You will consider those notes at the right time, not now. It was hypothesised that autotelic people achieve the Flow much easier. Other personality traits good for experiencing Flow are: curiosity, persistence, low egotism and high propensity to occupy oneself for intrinsic reasons. This means that your motivation plays a huge role in how easy (or hard) your job becomes.

Your attention is your most precious and vulnerable asset. This is why so many makers are blocking time in their calendars for intense activities. It may take half an hour before they will catch up on where they left off. For a Maker, in contrast to Managers’ schedule, one hour won’t be enough to initiate the project, not to mention completing the whole task. What is worse, a short meeting in the middle of the day can disrupt their whole accumulated energy. The lesson is: don’t start working on something big, if you expect a meeting or other distraction soon.

?

Tsunami effect, eustress and internal conflicts

One more word about the so-called Tsunami effect, which happens when the Flow mode passes the critical mass. Suddenly you get that spark as all ideas seem to be connected and you can’t stop working. Everything just goes smoothly in the right place. As it happens spontaneously, try to be flexible on your other commitments. This is why I mentioned earlier to adjust the schedule to your current needs. If you get this sudden inspiration, drop everything else. You will be more productive now, than from blindly following scheduled work. Ignoring this godsend would be a waste.

That said, never wait for inspiration as the driving force, as it may never come. Trust the process and you will advance step by step, while sometimes getting the sudden boost of inspiration, if you’re lucky. Thomas Edison said: “Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration”. In seeking harmony at work, we keep away the conflicts and there is a misconception about stress. That should be avoided at all price, though not the good stress (eustress) which excites and boosts motivation; when the task at hand is challenging, but not too hard. True passion is a struggle in eternal conflict between vision and reality.??

Having self-doubt and feeling anxiety is a good way to create something meaningful. In “The Courage to Create” Rollo May wrote that: “Artists and creative people often experience fear and trembling in the moments of creative encounter. Anxiety must be confronted if we want to experience the joy in creative work.” He highlights the ecstasy from transcending through peak experience, but not everyone can get there. Apparently meditation is not the best approach if you want to achieve something important. It makes the world orderly and straightened, since there is no struggle to combat. Feeling bliss overshadows problems, while embracing chaos of complexity is the step towards bringing order. The purpose of meditation can be found only after the job is done, for relaxation. Once the inner controls are relaxed then unaccustomed ideas can emerge.

Lateral thinking helps to solve the problems through not so obvious creative approaches, where a logical way might be not sufficient. In my observation, day-dreaming, asking questions “what if”, or thinking outside of the box are more frequently praised than practised. Innovations, which all managers expect from us, are happening through such insights when the brain is not in critical mode. Setting the right psychological safety at work is just a beginning.

?

Key Takeaways:

[ ] block all distractions in advance to allow for peak performance to happen

[ ] keep the steady pace and focus on the process, not the outcome

[ ] postpone the finalisation to get substantial second thoughts after a break

?

IV. Reacting

Reacting is very simple. You don’t create input, you react to input of others. Or your own. Consider all those urgent but not important tasks. They don’t require much energy nor focus. We are creatures of habit. By practising something a lot you learn it so well that it becomes automatic. Reinforcing your automatic positive behaviours can greatly improve productivity. Stress is causing hasty decisions and falling back to habit. That is not a surprise, that your performance will be suboptimal. “We are what we repeatedly do”, Aristotle used to say. Another Greek Archilochus would add: "We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training."

Routine errands outside of your work should also be planned in advance. Doing the house chores, shopping for groceries, or taking a sport activity can re-energize your mental capabilities, since you don’t pay much attention to them. Having a regular time slot for them will free your mind from planning each time. The more routine they become – same shop, same ingredients, same order – the more rest your brain will get while doing them on an autopilot mode.

We are talking here about Implementation intention, a plan to incentivize behaviour without conscious effort. Strategic automaticity is supposed to follow the cue without hesitation or doubts. Additionally it will free the mental resources for more complex issues. The structure follows a simple instruction: IF [situation] THEN I will [behaviour]. The same instruction applies to batching.

What is batching?

Batch processing is arranging activities in sets or groups, even when they have different contexts. It is best applicable for activities such as: replying to emails, submitting reimbursement forms, cleaning datasets. Batching is a powerful method for dealing with multiple different tasks in the same time slot. As they share the same context, it is easier to do them in bulk, back to back.

Maybe it is better to have similar meetings (1on1, calls with candidates/clients) in bulk so they won’t break the whole day? When I was a recruiter I knew that passive candidates preferred calls early morning, or late afternoon, so they could speak about job opportunities outside of their working hours. Thus my calendar was shaped like a checkerboard - every other day I was starting earlier or finishing later. Thanks to that I had more interviews scheduled per day, so for the rest of time I was engaged in strategic and conceptual work. Batching was also helpful in staying in the same positive mood for interviewing, instead of switching the mood back and forth.

Being in the operations team I don’t have the luxury of checking emails on a fixed time. Otherwise I might miss an urgent request or update. Donald Knuth, called the "father of the analysis of algorithms'', is the expert on batch processing. It is almost legendary that he fixes in one go all the reported bugs for the typesetting language he invented called The TeX Tuneup, but not more than once in six years. Some experts like Tim Ferriss are recommending to process the emails only twice a day. By processing they mean reading them all and reacting instantly: either archiving, or replying, so at the end of the process there are no new emails left. Your inbox shouldn’t be treated as the to-do list.?

Zero inbox policy is not easy to maintain, but once you experience it, you won’t return to old habits. Here I would add a minor adjustment. I realised that sometimes I am blocked by lack of reply to my emails, so instead of keeping them in the inbox, I move them to a subfolder called “awaiting reply”. This way I can quickly monitor which topics are pending, and not worry of missing anything. With the support of filtering rules, labelling and keyboard shortcuts it is easy and fast to keep inbox at zero.

?

Templates, Forms, Checklists?

When you are reacting to requests from others, you just respond to whatever input you receive. Some people like running the errands, even when there is a lot of repetition. Others prefer to rely on templates, so there is no need to write messages from scratch. You just need to create some generic content once. Templates can support your writing, especially if you don't know how to start.?

It pays off to define templates for the most frequent reach outs and replies. Of course, you don’t need to make your templates generic. Having placeholders allows you to adjust them for each recipient. For my communications with passive candidates I grouped my templates related to their frequent questions about: relocation, salary, required skills, interview process, additional information about team, product and company. Moreover I also prepared a few follow-ups in case I won’t get a reply to the first message. This way I wasn’t worried that I am losing time on writing. It is easier to keep communication warm, if you don’t need to write each similar email from scratch. You spend a few seconds on it, not a few minutes.

For the repetitive processes you can use the forms. They will standardise the input of the users, and you won’t forget to ask any of the mandatory questions. You also save yourself energy, as now the person who is requesting something from you is required to follow the rules strictly. In my recent experience, colleagues were spontaneously requesting software access using email, chat, or during the video call in conversation. Those spreaded requests wouldn’t show the monthly trends in one place. Not to mention, it required many unnecessary follow up questions, which was a wasted time. A standardised form makes the process transparent and robust.

Checklists are another useful tool for automation. Their value was proved in life endangering situations by the jet pilots and surgeons, but you can apply them to most down-to-earth errands. "The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right" is a call for foolproof quality work. The idea is simple: people are not very consistent in discipline, while the brain frequently plays tricks on us. For survival reasons, the brain favours novelty over routines. As a result, poor memory, distractions and even overconfidence could lead us to missing important steps in an all-or-none process (missing one thing is like not completing the whole process at all).

A checklist prevents errors from happening. A good checklist is precise, efficient and includes only the most essential steps. That means, writing down everything misses the purpose. And the purpose is to discipline the brain, where most likely it drifts away. If you perform the same operations on a regular basis, it is quite possible that you are familiar with the content and might forget some steps. Reviewing the checklist frees up your mental capacity to focus on the action itself, not on remembering the next step or their precedence. Having prewritten questions tremendously leveraged my kick off meetings with the hiring managers. I didn’t always ask them all the questions, but having so many options to choose from the checklist allowed for maximal output of these meetings. Moreover, I could engage them more in the process of sourcing, screening and grading candidates.

The added value of a checklist is that if you break down some process in smaller chunks, you create documentation. This can be priceless if you need to hand-over your work at some point. Recently I am handling lots of reports. To ensure that the data is robust it requires identifying sources of data, and cleaning it before providing insights. For example, if I need to repeat some manual work every month I should either memorise each step or write down a step-by-step instruction. Building dashboards repeatedly urges me to productionalize the data – to produce them regularly without much effort. I can’t predict all the questions or requests the stakeholders will have so it's not possible to have a dashboard for any possibility, but at least with a sustainable process I can make that done faster. Fair documentation allows me to dedicate more time for dealing with the specific context, not for remembering the whole operation.

?

Doing the work in the background

You can watch TV news while doing something else, right? Still you follow the topic in the background when catching up with less demanding chores. There are some meetings where you need to play an active role: presenting, taking notes, or just being there to contribute. And there are other ones, often involving bigger groups, where you only participate to be informed, and still you can do something else at the same time. Some of you would disagree here: after all you are not paying full attention, you are not present here and now. Particular aspects, however, demand only a fraction of your attention.?

Continuous partial attention – a term coined by Linda Stone – is a process where the brain is not studying things in depth. And this is a core for understanding what you can do simultaneously. There have been experiments demonstrating that it is possible to divide attention among multiple tasks. The success lies however in how much practice an individual had already with a given task and what is the difficulty level. Once the job becomes automatic, you are more likely to perform it without thinking about it.

Different activities require different senses, though not all of them. For example it is relatively easy to listen to a podcast or interview (audible channel) while dealing with pictures (visual channel) or even text. There are plenty of errands you can do while being involved in something else: scheduling meetings with co-workers, removing unused files from the drive, adding thumbnails to videos, ordering your bookmarks in the browser, cleaning data, updating records. Generally speaking, chores which are not changing, fixing, or destroying something. For that reason, I maintain a list of supporting to-dos, which I will start once doing something else. Most menial tasks can be done with a fraction of energy, so why not combine them with other menial tasks?

Being on autopilot mode has many benefits. If the mechanical actions are repeatable, your brain can be busy with something else. Riding on a bicycle or working at an assembly line are examples of activities where you totally forget about your actions and focus your mind on other things, like rehearsing a presentation or writing. Doing the work in the background of something else is one of my favourite guilty pleasures (or life hacks, if you will). Honestly, it can make some activities more interesting, when I dedicate only half of the attention to a boring job at hand, while watching documentaries or video lectures in the background. Some of them don’t require you to follow each second, anyway.

George Humphrey said that a man skilled at a trade shouldn’t put his constant attention on routines. Otherwise the job is apt to be spoiled. It’s called the Centipede dilemma. Of course you can use it to your advantage. Automaticity has benefits in jobs we know well and shouldn’t be confused with multitasking where we switch attention back and forth.

Multitasking

There is a lot of bad PR about multitasking but sometimes there is no other way to squeeze more hours out of the day. Terrence Sejnowski in the “Learning How To Learn” online course mentions that he wouldn’t survive the work with students, if he didn’t multitask. There are just too many things bombarding at the same time, so you need to juggle them to get through the day. Multitasking is bad for highly cognitive work. However, when you don’t need quality bu t output, you can tremendously accelerate.?

Nir Eyal even proposes to clarify the term better: "Single-channel multitasking is the kind humans are really bad at. This occurs when we have multiple sources of information trying to enter our brains at the same time on the same sensory channel. (...) By first turning our values into time, filtering out the superfluous sources of information we don’t have time for, and finding ways to get more out of the time we have by using multi-channel multitasking, we can consume important information without letting it consume us."

Ironically when you’re asked during the job interview about it, you should always explain in detail how great you are in juggling various requests. This doesn’t particularly constitute the company culture, but rather the chaos we all end up in at some point. And when time calls to prioritise, future employers want to know that you can deal with multiple, contradicting, ambiguous goals. Well, can you?

Bear in mind that it takes more energy to shift your attention than to focus, so you will end up more tired than people who prioritise focused work. Daniel J. Levitin underlines that the phrase “paying attention” is coming at literal, metabolic cost, as switching between tasks faster leads to mental exhaustion as it burns more of the oxygenated glucose, than staying on one only. That’s why in my approach I suggest being mindful about what deserves your total attention and prioritise it. The rest can be done in less precious time.

Need for Closure

There is a psychological need for closure in all of us, whether this comes to unresolved problems, or ambiguity in the resulting outcome. We get benefits in the form of the ability to predict the future and a stronger basis for action, but the world is ambiguous and often we deal with polarities where we can’t offer optimal solutions. Studies show that people with higher need for closure end up having low creativity scores. Apparently finding unorthodox solutions is combined with the acceptance of ambiguity.

Thanks to the Zeigarnik effect our attention stays on work for as long as it remains unresolved. The effect was first discovered almost a hundred years ago in a restaurant. Apparently the waiter remembered well which clients still didn’t pay the bill. What was remarkable was that he didn’t remember any details from the order or even the faces of guests once the bill was paid. Closing the active tasks gives you more mental capacity for other unfinished stuff.

Task which is already started creates a tension, which in return cognitively narrows down our perception to everything related to finishing it. What is interesting, the tension remains even when the work is interrupted, and actually it reinforces the remembering. It was proven that suspending learning to deal with unrelated activity will help to remember the material better. Simply said, you can’t forget what is still not done. This is why we feel that we accomplished little by the end of the day, if not everything we hoped for was done. Again, you can use this knowledge for boosting motivation: prioritise what you can finish earlier.

Key Takeaways:

[ ] optimise templates, forms, checklists and batch the work for most repetitive tasks

[ ] run a to-do list for what you can easily do while doing something else

[ ] reduce the number of projects you can’t finish soon to manage need for closure?

?

V. Recharging

As it was already mentioned, different tasks require different approaches. You can’t use autopilot mode and templates for everything. Einstellung is a German term for using previous experience with preconceived notions to solve any problem. Unfortunately the Einstellung effect forces your brain to think mechanically, inside the box, which prevents? new problems from being solved. How to break out of this and use a fresh perspective? Let’s consider recharging.

?

Resetting your mental blockage

The more you force your brain to come up with solutions, the less results you get. The Einstellung effect blocks the creative flow from intuition so you won't see where to start. Considering different perspectives to look at the problem gets harder. Instead of focusing intensely on the problem, Barbara Oakley suggests the opposite - letting the brain go into diffused mode.

Knowledge workers can get tired mentally, but it doesn’t mean they have no energy for physical activities for a change. Quite the contrary. No need for brain resources, no decisions to be made - you just start doing them. Swimming occupies thoughts so much that being locked mentally in the office is not possible. The same goes for playing sports, dancing, drawing, and cooking. Also less demanding activities such as meditating, taking a walk or shower helps to activate the diffused mode.

Einstein once asked "Why do I get my best ideas in the morning while I'm shaving?". Famous artists and scientists admit that they found breakthrough solutions while doing something else. The process of thinking subconsciously about a problem while being involved in other activities is called Incubation. Conversely to the state you are in during intensive focusing. Daniel J. Levitin argues that those two states are mutually exclusive. There is a noticed benefit of taking breaks during problem solving. This means that splitting work in more than one session leads to superior performance (similar to the Zeigarnik effect).

I realised that postponing the publication or results of my activities brings me better ideas from afterthought. Incubation during exercises or showers - when my brain is still processing the task - refines the last touch, which can highly improve the project. It happened to me many times. Just when I thought I was done and started to relax, some better ideas started to pop up.

Also sleeping is boosting your creative juices a lot as the brain strengthens the important memories and removes the trivial ones. This acts also for kinetic skills, like playing on instruments or performing sport. Always keep a notepad next to your hand. You don’t need to execute the ideas instantly, but without noting them there is a risk you will forget what dreams showed you.

I use that trick repeatedly and delegate unanswered questions or unsolved problems to my sleeping self. Brain likes to have questions in order to work on answering them. Priming however has to be done shortly before falling asleep, otherwise the brain will choose some other problem… According to a legend, Edison used to take naps while holding a ball in his hand. He hoped that the ball would fall on the floor and wake him up during the phase, in which his relaxed mind showed him a new solution.

If you feel blocked at your project, do something different that will occupy your attention instead. Also, to boost creativity do more exercises, take walks or look at nature, since these are our reset buttons. Actually cleaning could do the same, as mentioned by Ethan Kross who authored “Chatter: The Voice in Our Head and How to Harness It”. Ordering the world around us gives us a sense of control and accomplishment.

?

More than meets the eye

Daydreaming plays a big role in our life – whether we are aware of it or not (pun intended). Marcus Raichle called it Default Mode of the brain, because we feel refreshed after experiencing it. This is the reason why vacations and naps are so restorative: you relax on the beach and your mind wanders from topic to topic, while the stream of thoughts doesn’t demand your response. This mode is crucial for our best moments of insight, creativity, and solving hard problems.

Contemporary research contradicts some findings from the previous years, when it was believed that unconscious thought is not very sophisticated. Researchers now claim that unconscious thought is free from bias and can integrate disparate pieces of information more efficiently than conscious one. Where the conscious stagnates, the unconscious precipitates ingenuity. Striking thought, right?

In 2006 the Unconscious Thought Theory was proposed to prove that in solving complex tasks with many variables we are more efficient outside of awareness. Test results show that we come up with better decisions after being interrupted while processing complex input. Neuronal bandwidth seems to be wider which offers more potential solutions then the central focused mode of the aware brain. Decisions where strict rules are required can be better handled by conscious thought, like in maths calculations. However when large amounts of information is involved with vague and conflicting constraints, it is better to employ hidden powers. When you are distracted you can make better decisions on complex problems.

Moreover, adding some random factor can increase the chance for Serendipity. The term was coined in 1754 by Horace Walpole to describe unexpected discoveries or the role of luck in finding something you were not consciously searching for. This randomness is responsible for many breakthroughs in science and creative arts. Also randomization can shake your local focus and let you see a global view, possibly a more revealing one.

Apparently having distance from the issue gives us a big picture view. This contrasts with our self-belief, that we are rational species and serious decisions should be made only after careful analysis. We tend to rationalise decisions after they are made quickly. We are lazy and preserve our energy, because we need to survive in a fast changing environment. You can refer to Daniel Kahneman’s experiments from “Thinking, Fast and Slow” which challenge the assumption of human rationality.

?

Key Takeaways:

[ ] balance mental activities with physical ones, or switch tasks when facing blockage

[ ] try cleaning and ordering to get the sense of control and feeling of achievement

[ ] rely on unconscious thoughts to get fresh ideas and solve complex problems

?

VI. Relaxing

There are moments in creative work where being exhausted brings the best out of the subconscious mind. It can happen because exhaustion diminishes your internal critic and allows you to see free associations. Don’t overdose it, though. Being constantly overworked does nothing more than disrupts your energy level and leads to prolonged health issues. Your leisure time shouldn’t be about whatever catches your attention. The better you plan your breaks, the less likely you will end up in unhealthy habits.?

Structured relax

Some believe that relaxation equals freedom from all obligations. Yet having a structure actually will refresh you, not exhaust you. Plan your relaxation carefully so you will always have something interesting to do. Otherwise addictive websites or applications will remain an attractive option.

Daniel Kahneman warns us that when we feel tired, we are more likely to fall prey to persuasion from commercials. The same happens when we feel enthusiastic and happy. System 1 is na?ve and takes for granted whatever comes through it, without giving much thought. It is not used to having doubts and creates consistent stories even where there is no logic. Maintaining doubts, which is a characteristic of analytical work of System 2, requires more brain power. But as we know, when we’re exhausted, we can only follow simple cues for decision making, and prefer watching TV or sliding through smartphones to kill the time.

Nir Eyal, who wrote "Indistractable" mentioned on his blog: "Most people consume information in whatever cracks of time they have in their day, or when they feel bored, lonely, or overwhelmed. Those negative feelings, or internal triggers, are the leading cause of distraction.(...) We tell ourselves we’re doing something good for ourselves by reading the news, that it’s a productive way to spend time. But if it’s not what we planned to do with our time, it is, by definition, a distraction." And he knows very well what he is talking about. As the author of "Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products" he shared his insights with product creators about the best ways to influence behaviour of the customers. As the antidote he recommends focusing on traction, an opposite to distraction. Traction includes all actions done with intent such as getting enough sleep, exercises or working on big projects. Shortly, doing what you said you will do.

Get into the routine with defined triggers

Since your strong will behaves like a muscle - it weakens from being overused. This means you need to make decisions when this muscle is still strong. Preferably not the last thing in the evening. Every decision is an investment of your energy. Humans naturally try to conserve energy, so following someone’s directions or cues makes life easier. You don’t need to think for yourself. Alas, being on autopilot mode is not always used to our advantage.

Roy F. Baumeister wrote in “Willpower” that you can’t make too many decisions in a row without paying a biological price. Decision fatigue doesn’t differ much from physical one. Willpower, a depletable energy,? is at its best when you start the day. This explains why you end the day with an unhealthy dinner, simply your willpower has weakened muscle after a whole day of being used. But there is good news. Before the automatic behaviours of your less energetic self will take over, just replace them with a better version. Having more good habits to choose from increases the chance of staying on the right track.

The more triggers you have, the easier you start executing. Triggers are a powerful mind hack – if you plan to run, keep your running shoes next to the door, so when it’s time to run you won’t use excuses for finding them. Surprisingly, starting the activity is enough: putting on your shoes is more important than the distance you plan to cover. Your body subconsciously will follow any trigger once the smallest first step is done. Thanks to habits you can pursue your goals better and do them easier. The only trick in replacing old habits with new ones is having a goal in mind. Without a goal there is no reason for you to change. Remember, that your brain is lazy, always saving energy on unnecessary actions.

Doing nothing is really hard, especially when your smartphone lies next to you, so put it aside. Having a walk, lunch break, or even looking at nature will better relax your mind. There are documented benefits of spending time in green scenery, away from the screen. In “Chatter” Ethan Kross mentioned an experiment proving that people who lived in the apartments with windows facing the trees reported less moodiness. But there are other benefits which can improve the quality of your work, so don’t hesitate to add breaks into your schedule.

?

Key Takeaways:

[ ] plan your breaks in advance to know when to suspend working

[ ] put active effort in planning what to do during your quality breaks

[ ] keep a notepad at hand, in case a brilliant idea comes to your mind

?

VII. What not to do?

There is a famous metaphor for prioritisation using the rocks, pebbles, and sand (each one is to describe the size of tasks). It says that if you start filling the jar with sand and then pebbles, there won’t be much place left for rocks. Therefore you should rely on priorities for doing your work. But what if there is too much to fit into the jar?

You need to understand the difference between urgency and importance - classic examples can be found in the Eisenhower matrix. The IV quadrant - to avoid - which should get the least attention is not important and not urgent. Most likely this is a stuff you want to delegate, or not do at all. In every company there is always something to work on, the only question is: when to do what? So if you’re not doing thing A, then probably you are doing thing B, which is more important or more urgent. Paul Graham would say that it constitutes good procrastination. And that is why I am not worried about too many to-dos on my list. Some of them are not ready yet, as I need more context, resources or the right timing. But there is another possibility.

The Zen of Python teaches us: "Now is better than never. Although never is often better than right now." Once I was replicating a bug from the Jira ticket when the engineer realised: this is not important for the users. Then he moved the ticket on his Kanban board from the To-Do column to the one called Won’t Be Done. How simple it was! Not everything that lands on your plate has to be done and solved. Questioning the rationale for some tasks can reveal their uselessness. It is possible that an issue will resolve itself.

Paul Graham argues that it is better to be overworked (like people in startups are), than interrupted (like ordinary office workers). Errands are killing great projects. All the things which won’t be mentioned in your obituary are called by him the “small stuff”, even if some of them are essential for your business to run. He states that there are some errands that don’t need much attention such as shaving, laundry or writing thank-you notes. Some people might be angry, but it’s important for your career to not end with running errands only. Use your efficiency for something that matters, not for other petty stuff.

Where to go from here?

The system I described in this article seems to be complex at first. To me, it is just an extension of three basic activities: prepare, work and relax. Feel free to use what makes the most sense for you and let go of the rest. Since I am different from you, some of the ideas might match your style, some may not. Being a life learner is a burden of a knowledge worker. In order to be more efficient, we need to keep reinventing ourselves. That often means adjusting every now and then our methods to new tools, technology or demands of the market.

Leo Babauta started his Zen Habits blog initially in order to help people stay organised and productive. He collected the core concepts in the book “Zen To Done”. Later, however, he pivoted towards a more mindful way of life, where simplicity became a key aspect. The premise: instead of squeezing to do maximum out of each day we should rather make each day better. After all, having better productivity is only a means to an end.

When I started to learn Spanish years ago, one phrase particularly caught my mind: “La vida es corta pero ancha”. It encouraged me to have a wider bandwidth. Even though life is short, there are still plenty of hours each day, and days within the week. For example, my colleagues often struggle to find time for reading books. But you can read when commuting, in the queue, or waiting for the order in a restaurant.?

In consequence we can compose time that is left with intertwined, overlapping processes, automation and mindful planning. As a result we can do a little bit of everything that is important every day. This clearly follows a general advice on repeated exposure to material that trumps the duration. When learning to play an instrument or new language, one hour each day is better than seven hours once a week. Hopefully this will leverage your productive output and give more life in return.

Bill Gates famously mentioned that we overestimate how much we can do in a day, and underestimate how much in a month. This forced me to think on a wider perspective: how to divide the monthly goals into daily chunks, which naturally translates to routines and habits. Once they’re set, we are on the good way to go by following them blindly. Why limit yourself to one lane only, if you can use the whole freeway?

Essentially time is not a fixed reality but a human construct - what really exists is the motion. The same task can take longer or not, depending on if you are prepared, how much energy you have or how much meaning you attribute to it… There is a famous story attributed to Albert Einstein, when he was asked to explain the abstruse relativity of theory in simple words: “When you sit with a pretty girl for two hours you think it’s only a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove for a minute you think it’s two hours. That’s relativity.“

--Michael Talarek

Recommended sources:

Zen To Done: The Ultimate Simple Productivity System, Leo Babauta

The Organized Mind, Daniel J. Levitin

Deep Work, Cal Newport

Mind for Numbers, Barbara Oakley

The 7 habits of Highly Effective People, Steven R. Covey

Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman

Algorithms to Live by, Brian Christian, Tom Griffiths