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How to Be a Productivity Ninja: Attention management
Levels of attention
- Proactive attention: you are fully focused and prepared for your most important decisions/ most complex tasks.
- Active attention: you're plugged in, but also easily distracted.
- Inactive attention: you're likely to really struggle with complex or difficult tasks.
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SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
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Key Ideas
"The best measure of quality thinking is your ability to accurately predict the consequences of your ideas a..."
Milton Friedman
Think in Years, Not Days
Before jumping to a conclusion, think about the long-term consequences of your decision.
We may respect those able to fling themselves into a hard problem and make a quick choice with seemingly little thought, but making a meaningful decision needs to be done with care for the long-term effects.
Understand Decision Fatigue
It’s important to be aware of what state of mind you’re in before tackling a hard choice.
Decision fatigue happens when the mental energy required to weigh the tradeoffs of our decision becomes too much for us to handle.
5
Key Ideas
Time Management Is Not A Solution
Most people want more done during the course of the day, feeling productive if they have checked more boxes out of their to-do list. Time management has been a fad for a long time, equating product...
Attention Management
Shifting our focus towards people and projects, rather than the time it takes for us to work on something is referred to as Attention Management.
Productivity is not a virtue, but just a means to an end, and it means nothing if the end is not worthy. Paying attention to your intrinsic motivation, on why you are excited about the project will make you push yourself naturally and achieve the goal.
Lack Of Distractions Promotes Productivity
Many studies show that bad weather days when it is too cold or rainy, keeps the working people glued to their work, being more productive as they are less distracted by the thought of going outside.
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Key Ideas
Put a Deadline on Your Thoughts
To avoid over-ruminating about a decision, give yourself a time frame to think about it.
If it’s a small issue such as what paint color to paint your office, perhaps...
Schedule Your Thinking Time
To avoid thinking about problems all day long, schedule a specific time where you give yourself the freedom to think about the issue you need to make a decision about.
If thoughts about the issue creep into your brain before your scheduled thinking time, tell yourself “No, I’m going to think about that after dinner, not during this meeting”.
Problem Solving vs. Worrying
Dwelling on a problem, thinking “this is horrible, I can’t handle this” or rehashing things that happened in the past are an unproductive use of your time.
Thinking about what steps you can take to improve the situation or actively thinking of a solution to the problem are helpful toward moving forward.