Leaving endless tabs open

Design your life like a choice architect:

• Encourage smarter decisions you want to do by making them more accessible.
• Add friction to habits you want to quit, making them less accessible, or remove the option to perform them completely.

“First, never underestimate the power of inertia. Second, that power can be harnessed.” 

The way to improve your Time Management skills requires us to figure out where to focus. This can be done by:

• Getting an objective self-assessment done by your peers or boss, or establishing a baseline behavior to measure your performance against.
• Understanding that it is your skills, not your personality or preferences that can be developed to provide the best results.
• Identifying the key skill(s) that you need to prioritize, and avoiding spreading yourself too thin.

The key factor to consider when developing awareness skills is that effectiveness (doing things well) is as important as efficiency (doing things fast).

• Find which time of the day is your 'peak performance time.
• Treat time as money, a limited resource, and create a 'time budget' for your to-do list.
• Measure and evaluate the projected time vs the actual time taken.
• Consider which of the tasks create follow-up tasks that take up your time later.
• Take into consideration the 'opportunity cost' of spending time in an activity.

• Getting motivated by negative emotions like fear or regret.
• A sudden influx of motivation followed by giving up in the first instance of a setback ("All or Nothing" approach).
• Having a big and unattainable resolution.
• Not being in terms with the concept of failure.
• Not committing fully to the process.

New research suggests we are less prone to keep working on our goals after we publicize them. This is because we may end up talking about our goals and celebrating our success prematurely rather than implementing them.

Social Pressure makes us fearful, as we can feel afraid of appearing inept. This negative mindset does not work well where we need daily work.

• Deep work: Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. Creates value.
• Shallow work: Noncognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. Doesn't create value.

• Monastic: maximize Deep Work by minimizing or removing shallow obligations. Isolate yourself for long periods of time without distractions; no shallow work allowed
• Bimodal: divide your time into some clearly defined stretches to deep pursuits and leave the rest open to everything else. Reserve a few consecutive days when you will be working like a monastic. You need at least one day a week
• Rhythmic: involves creating a routine where you define a specific time period — ideally three to four hours every day — that you can devote to Deep Work
• Journalistic: alternate your day between deep and shallow work as it fits your blocks of time. Not recommended to try out first.

To give your meticulous attention to a task, a person, an action, a moment means to give it everything you have right now: all of your concentration, time, love and devotion.

• Notice each activity that you’re doing as a separate event.
• For every event, ask yourself what you can do to give it your full attention. Turn off your phone? Turn your body fully toward the person asking for your attention?
• Give the moment your undivided attention. Let go of thoughts about the future and past and turn toward what you’re facing even more.

If we believe that we are powerless and stop fighting against the enemy we've created, then we lose our inner strength and resistance to fight, as the body reacts according to our mind.

What our mind believes, our body accepts.

Going anti-something, finding a villain, or a fictional antagonist to our lives makes us work harder, as a force awakens in us wanting to defeat the enemy.

We need to embrace this enemy in our lives and realize that even though this is just us fighting against ourselves, the fight is worth it.

A few smart strategies that can be deployed:

1. Installing pods for deep work while having common areas for collaborative work.
2. Wearing headphones that are easily seen to signal that you are not to be disturbed.
3. Turning your office into a library, following the same culture of quietness where everyone is hushed and respectful.

Real work, by definition, should be rare, valuable and cognitively demanding.

Email does not check any of these boxes, and is, therefore, a pseudo work.

• When we get tired, we make mistakes, which means more time and money must be put into correcting those mistakes. 
• When we get tired, it takes us longer to do things, costing more time and money to do something that could get done in less time if we were fully awake. 

Either one of two problems: you don’t like delegating tasks, or you’re having trouble prioritizing which tasks deserve your time. 

Figure out which tasks deserve your time the most (or those tasks that you do best), and outsource something that’s of low priority. 

1. Observe the need to procrastinate, recognizing and being aware of your desire. This is called meta-recognition and is what all the Gurus keep talking about when they speak about awareness.
2. Label and accept your urge to waste your time, but without any negative judgement.
3. Validate your urge to procrastinate, increasing your self-esteem.
4. Approach procrastination as a friend, not as a threat.

The biggest obstacle, the main villain hampering our productivity is always in your hands, and rarely in your pockets. _It’s your smartphone. It needs to be powered off for some time. Your laptop, clamouring for attention, is not helping either. Remove all distractions and notifications so that you can get in the ‘flow’ mode.

Creating friction between us and the open black hole of the online distractions helps us focus on work.

• Drains are the tasks you have to do (commuting, personal admin, email correspondence, meetings, calls). These tasks drain your time and energy that you want to spend on priority work.
• Incompletions are the items on your to-do list that you have not yet completed. They are related to work and personal items (responding to a simple email, or it can be a dream you keep putting off).

If you are spending your time, energy, and attention on tasks that don't support your overall goal or priorities, it's time to re-evaluate.

• Set aside 20 minutes on your calendar and minimize distractions.
• List all of your drains and incompletions. Write every last item you can think of, including the light bulb that needs replacing, and the conversation you need to have with a co-worker.