Debates over the length of the workweek are nothing new. In 1926, the Ford Motor Company standardised the Monday-to-Friday pattern; beforehand, the common practice was a six-day workweek, with only Sundays off.Henry Ford’s theory was that [working] five days, with the same pay, would increase worker productivity, in that people would put more effort into the shorter workweek,” says Jim Harter, chief scientist for workplace management and wellbeing at US analytics firm Gallup, based in Nebraska.. The theory was largely proven correct: in the decades since, the five-day workweek is been commin

How the four-day week evolved 

By the 1950s, however, there were calls from labour unions to introduce a four-day week. “People began projecting, if we take out another workday, it’d be even better,” says Harter. But take-up of the four-day workweek has remained slow: by March 2020, a Gallup study of more than 10,000 US full-time employees showed only 5% worked a shorter week.  L

There are different four-day workweek models: from cutting one workday, reducing working hours and being paid the same wage; to intense working hours, where five days’ worth of work is crammed into four longer shifts. The former set-up is generally the goal; achieved by a combination of the introduction of new tools and operating practices that boost efficiency and result in a rise in worker wellbeing that fuels productivity.

Some workers may resist having a compressed workweek, with potentially longer hours and fewer breaks, imposed on them by an employer. Others may already be working at full tilt, meaning a shorter workweek could make their workload less manageable. “There are some employees who’ll end up trying to cram more work into four days where they previously had greater flexibility to work across five days,” says Harter. “If you get to Thursday afternoon, still haven't finished your work and everyone else has gone home, that can create stress and resentment.”

How five days’ work goes into four 

A shorter workweek is being hailed as the future of employee productivity and work-life balance. Is it that easy to make work better?

remotework

Remote Work

career

Career

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

timemanagement

Time Management

The realities of the four-day workweek

<ul><li>At the most superficial level, puttering (occupying ourselves in a desultory but pleasant way) may be useful because it occupies the mind so that we devote fewer resources to the things that are worrying us. </li><li>Even if we struggle with structured forms of meditation, for instance, we may find household tasks can anchor us in the here and now. But that will depend on where we place our focus.</li><li>On YouTube, there’s even a huge audience for videos of other people going about their chores, with millions of views for some of the most popular clips.</li></ul>

Pleasant distractions

Unlike other distracting activities – such as playing computer games or watching trashy TV – puttering also has the advantage of being proactive and useful, increasing our “perceived control”.When we feel anxious, a sense of helplessness can heighten the physiological stress response, increasing levels of hormones such as cortisol. Over the long term, the sense of helplessness can even harm the function of the immune system.We can gain a perception of control from activities that may have little effect on the situation that’s bothering us.

Perceived control

If you are sitting at your kitchen table with your laptop surrounded by clutter, that’s a lot of visual stimuli that your brain is continuously having to process while you simultaneously try to concentrate on the task at hand. Take away the visual clutter and you can focus much more easily.Importantly, you don’t necessarily have to remove the clutter to prevent this from occurring – simply rearranging it will do. Organizing objects into groups – by color, for example – may provide the brain with more obvious cues for navigating the chaos.

Tidy room, focused mind 

By reducing anxiety, soothing stress responses, increasing focus, and triggering the release of endorphins, it’s little wonder so many of us take to household chores as soon as we are faced with uncertainty.Like all activities, the extent of these benefits will be influenced by your personal tastes and the associations that you link with the tasks.

Pleasant associations

Especially when you’ve got a lot on, tiny household tasks can be soothing. Why do pleasant distractions feel oddly good?

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

mentalhealth

Mental Health

Puttering around: Why small tasks feel so therapeutic

Not all meetings are a waste of time, but meetings tend to take a lot of time, so it’s crucial to ensure that the meetings you call are worth everyone’s time. You can do this by setting a clear goal or agenda. 
Without a guiding agenda, a meeting is just people talking—and it’s possible you’ve sat through many such meetings yourself.

Wasting time: Meetings with no agenda

If you have far more important things to do but are laboring away at administrative tasks that could be delegated elsewhere, you might have fallen victim to a time waster. You may feel like you’re really working—but if there’s a better way to spend your time and another employee who can easily take over this work, this work qualifies as a time-waster.

Administrative work that could be delegated elsewhere

Poor communication can negatively impact a business, but even on top of these numbers, any failure in communication is also a waste of time. You not only have to account for the time lost based on poorly communicated plans, but you also have to communicate again to correct these errors.

Poor communication

Most of the time, planning is a great way to avoid wasting time. But there comes a point when it’s possible to overdo the planning process. Because it is possible to overengineer a system or a strategy to do more than you set out to do, increasing the complexity of the plan but not contributing significantly to the overall goal. 
Knowing when to stop planning and start doing ensures that you don’t allow your planning to morph into a dreaded time waster.

Wasting time: Forever planning

Possible scenario: you go to a coffee shop to work but end up not doing any work at all. Or perhaps you decide to rent a spot at a coworking space and end up researching nearby co-working spaces for hours.These distractions from work, no matter how seemingly trivial or distantly relevant, are time wasters. And they can negatively impact your focus, productivity, and your career.

Distractions

By definition, procrastinating means that you’re avoiding a difficult task—likely in favor of an activity that provides more instant gratification. 
But it’s not just the fact that you’re not working that makes procrastination a waste of time. It’s also the fact that often, procrastination is linked to a sense of guilt and poor emotional regulation.

Wasting time: Procrastination

Push notifications are interruptions, and interruptions are time wasters. It takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to the original task after an interruption.What’s worse is that push notifications are not just any interruptions; they’re appealing interruptions, and it’s not difficult to imagine why. Research shows that humans are “hard-wired to follow the path of least resistance.”

Constant notifications

Busywork is work that seems productive but only serves to keep you busy. For example, you’re trying to show that you’re a hard worker and end up doing something that is of little value to the company but keeps you occupied. Busywork has many causes, but the result is that time passes and you have not done anything of real value. This is arguably the definition of wasted time.

Busywork

Nobody can truly do two things simultaneously and well. It makes us slower and less efficient. This is because what we think of as multitasking is often just really fast toggling between one task and another. And ultimately, all we end up doing is wasting time.

Multitasking

Time management tips & strategies to stop wasting time.

problemsolving

Problem Solving

health

Health

productivity

Productivity

How To Stop Wasting Time

Everyone is vulnerable to wasting time. The good news is that once you’ve pinpointed the culprit, you can take steps to avoid it.

The worst kind of time waster is the kind that comes disguised as work. This is a guide to some of the most common time wasters and can help you spot and avoid them.

Top 9 Time Wasters and How To Avoid Them

Why You're Wasting Time: Top Time Wasters and How To Avoid Them

Many people become the go-to person everyone at work relies on for more and more job functions until they are unable to keep up.At work, no matter what the job is at the start, they end up being put in charge of multiple people's jobs as they leave the company, take sick or maternity leave, or in lieu of hiring more staff.Should these people start being worse at their job? Or play up their ability to do the primary job they were hired for?

The Problem: Unable To Say No

<ul><li>Learn to prioritize: Do X and Y, or X and Z, but not all three.</li><li>Make sure you're on the same page about your priorities.</li><li>There aren't enough hours in the day for one person to do everything, so a lot will need to be on the back burner until you have time.</li></ul>

How To Handle The Overload Problem

<ul><li>You have to be clear in your own head that you're committed to solving this on your side, and that means not agreeing to take on more than you want to.</li><li>When you agree to try to do everything yourself, you're agreeing to be the only one who carries the burden, and it stops feeling urgent to them. It's better for the organization if things don't get done.</li></ul>

Stick To Your Boundaries And Stay Vigilant

In this “Ask a Boss” column, manager Alison Green advises a letter writer who’s burned-out from being the go-to person for everything at work. They need to be less emotionally invested in doing a good job, Green says, and start enforcing boundaries.

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

‘I Don’t Know How to Say ‘No’ at Work’

Commutes may still be a little unpredictable as we move between remote and in-office work. But for most of us, there are still a few minutes in many days where we’re in that “in between” space of not at home but not quite settled into the days’ business. How can this time work for you? Is it a quick call to check in on a parent? Or 5 minutes of listening to a new podcast and some deep breathing? Even if this time is short, using it intentionally is a satisfying way to start and end the day.

1. Use Your Commute Productively

Yes, clean it out. All the way! Get rid of half-done replies, drafts that won’t go anywhere, and holiday sales notifications you didn’t happen to shop your way through. Even just 30 dedicated minutes on a Friday morning of filing, unsubscribing, and getting responses off your plate in both your personal and work emails will send you into a weekend feeling refreshed.

2. Clean Out Your Email

Prioritization sounds easy, but it isn’t always simple. To really prioritize, don’t just make a list of tasks that need to be done and pluck off the “biggest,” “hardest,” or even “easiest.” Instead, think of your day as a set of building blocks that all need to fit together. Where’s the causality? What needs to be done first to make the rest of the day or week move better? Using this more connected method of prioritizing also helps us overcome some of the resistance we have around tough tasks.

3. Prioritize Your Tasks

These little tomato timers and their “work then break” method are a fan favorite for a reason! It’s proven that our brain feels more refreshed and focused when we can work in bursts. Set a timer, pick a mini project or a task, and then shamelessly give yourself the built-in breaks to recharge and come back strong.

4. Use the Pomodoro Method

If this one feels uncomfortable, try it boldly for just one week and see what it does for your productivity. It’s a natural inclination to want to respond and jump on tasks when we see an email. Starting your day diving right into the piles of emails you have means that your inbox becomes your prioritization list—in control of you instead of the other way around. Consider blocking an hour to check emails a little later in the morning, and instead, start your day with your priorities.

5. Ignore Your Email in the Morning

Matching the type of work that needs to be done with where you do it is a huge productivity hack. Do you do your best number crunching at a structured desk or the kitchen table? Or maybe your best creative ideas come to you when you’re on a walk and can let your mind reset. Either way, knowing when and where you are at your best for all of your various tasks can be a real productivity boost and help with your work-life balance.

6. Understand Your Work Zones

Who says the Out Of Office email is just for vacation? Get creative with this autoresponder and use it for targeted projects. “I’m on a special project right now, and my mornings this week (9-12) will be dedicated to that effort. Please contact me outside of those hours for the most timely response.” Push the boundaries by setting some of your own.

7. Strategically Leverage Your “OOO” Message

“Scoping” your day is different from planning. When you’re scoping your day, you’re mentally preparing yourself for the various waves of energy and effort you’ll need throughout the day. Can you shift an important call to the morning when you’re feeling a little more fresh? Should you see if a friend can help with after-school pick up if your meeting runs over? Being able to do this assessment the night before a full schedule gives you more options to manage and rearrange the day.

8. Scope Your Day the Night Before

Every little ping, buzz, and blink takes us away from our full mental focus. Get in tune with what nudges kick you out of your zone each day. Is it a blinking instant message? Set a few hours of Do Not Disturb. Does the buzz of the office floor catch your ear? Headphones, please! You may even find that a dimmed-out room (and some blue light glasses!) helps you zone in on a key project or task, without other visual distractions.

9. Reduce Small Distractions

There are all kinds of useful apps and sites to help us control our social media consumption. Almost more important than helping corral its use is to figure out when and why you turn to it during the day. Do you find yourself reaching for a “scroll” when you’ve hit a tough part of a task? When you’re lacking some motivation? Or when you’re burned out and need a break? Understanding your “why” will do an even bigger job of helping you reorient to productive mode.

10. Set Up a Social Media Blocker

While a daily massage would be just the self-care that a lot of us would love, there are many other mini ways to fit this into a day. This could look like treating yourself to a whole tea ritual in the break room, complete with a fancy teapot you keep at the office, or a full walk around the block doing a walking meditation. The point is to identify new hobbies or the thing for you that yields maximum good feelings for the highest value cost and effort to help ensure you keep it up.

11. Book Time for Self-Care

Habit stacking was made popular by the book Atomic Habits, which helps you link new things you want to accomplish to existing habits to up the chances of getting them done. You’ll start to view your new habit goals in a whole new way when you think about the small ways you can link them together to be more productive.

12. Find Ways to Set Up “Habit Stacking”

We all know what our personal “running on empty” looks like. The hack is to know how to recognize it before it completely sneaks up on you and rewire. Do you start rubbing your eyes a little more? Do you get distracted and start poking through your old photo reel? Whatever your personal trigger is, that means you’ve hit top capacity on your bandwidth—become friends with her, and watch out for her more regularly.

13. Know Your Personal Bandwidth Triggers

This may be another counterintuitive approach to productivity, but starting with “no” means that you get to say “yes” to a whole host of other things that are your personal priorities. When someone comes to you with a new project or need, start to think through the lens of putting the burden of effort on them to explain why it is worth your time and should be tackled before the long list of other priorities you have in train.

14. Make “No” Your First Response

Some of us are morning people. Some of us are not. No matter how many mini vlogs we watch with a fresh-faced gal bouncing out of bed for her green juice and jaunting off to yoga, we may just never be the person who is their best self in the morning. Know your own rhythm for when your tasks best match your energy throughout the day and hack accordingly.

15. Trust Your Own Natural Rhythms

Productive never happened without a system. That doesn’t mean that you have to string together some ultra high-tech collection of apps, trackers, and planners. It does mean that you need a consistent way to organize your life tasks so you can get to the goals that matter to you. Whether that’s through a gorgeous paper planner that feels more like a journal or a minimal but comprehensive app to tackle your to-do list, find your sport.

16. Find A Planning System That Works For You

Goals aren’t happening unless they’re broken down into mini-objectives and addressed in small pieces. Think about the ways you can take your longer-term hopes and move toward them even in tiny ways every day. Running a marathon for your next birthday? Great. Even a quick 10-minute jog today puts you on the path to achieving that goal.

17. Tie Your Long-Term Goals to the Everyday

We all do better achieving our productivity goals when we’ve shared them with someone else. This can be formal, as in telling your boss or colleagues what you’re up to this week, or it can just be chatting with a loved one about what’s on your plate lately. Externalizing what we’re doing and what we need to get a job done is a huge part of productively working through our task list.

18. Communicate Your Productivity Objectives

Quality almost always wins over quantity. Whenever you find yourself moving speedily through a task and buzzing on to the next thing, think of that as your trigger to slow down. Not only are we likely to make mistakes that will just take more time to correct in the long run, but we’re also training ourselves to overpack our days and often times not communicating that timelines may be unreasonable or that we need more resources. What do you need to get a great job done, not just a quick one?

19. Slow Down

On that note, productivity isn’t about doing more, faster. We could define productivity with a little more nuance and say that it’s about doing the best job, at the right time, with the right resources, and for the right objectives to get to the best outcome. When that’s the case, “how much” we checked off our list doesn’t matter as much as how productively we used our energy in a day, matching it with the things that matter the most.

20. Define Your Own Personal Productivity Metrics

No Need to follow this shit strictly you can take inspiration from this and make your own rules and define your productivity and success.

While there is no one single path to being productive, there are a lot of productivity hacks we can build into our lives to advance our journey.

20 Productivity Hacks To Make Your Day Easier

<ul><li>Only the experienced present exists, but we have access to the past through memory and we have expectations for the future. </li><li>The switching among time dimensions is essential for individual adaptation to changing situational demands. </li><li>The balanced time perspective is an individual’s ability to flexibly focus on different time orientations. </li><li>Temporal metacognition is the ability to consciously self-regulate the focus on the past, present, or future. </li> </ul>

Visit The Past, Don't Live There. 

Although only the experienced present exists in any given moment, access to the past is made possible through <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/memory">memory </a>, and one also has future expectations and plans. The capacity to mentally travel back and forth in time is an important human adaptation developed in the course of evolution. The switching among time dimensions is often automatic, but it is essential for individual adaptation to changing situational demands. Two ideas in time psychology have recently begun to describe this form of temporal flexibility. One is the balanced time perspective .

Although only the experienced present exists in any given moment, access to the past is made possible through <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/memory">memory </a>, and one also has future expectations and plans. The capacity to mentally travel back and forth in time is an important human adaptation developed in the course of evolution (Suddendorf & Corballis, 2007). The switching among time dimensions is often automatic, but it is essential for individual adaptation to changing situational demands. Two ideas in time psychology have recently begun to describe this form of temporal flexibility. One is the balanced time perspective . This de<warningtag>rives from Philip Zimbardo’s time perspective questionnaire, which assesses an individual’s ability to focus on different time orientations. A balanced time perspective is one where an individual has moderate-to-high levels in the past-positive, present-hedonistic, and future dimensions (Zimbardo & Boyd, 2008).</warningtag><warningtag>Time balance means a person can think about the ‘good old times’ and then switch to leisurely activity and know when to work hard to ensure future success. Maciej Stolarski and Joanna Witowska from Warsaw University formulated the idea of </warningtag><warningtag>temporal </warningtag><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/cognition"><warningtag>metacognition </warningtag></a><warningtag> </warningtag><warningtag>, which is defined as the ability to consciously </warningtag><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/self-control"><warningtag>self-regulate </warningtag></a><warningtag>the focus on the past, present, or future (Stolarski & Witowska, 2017). They identified three dimensions of temporal metacognition, namely: (1) the capacity to control a maladaptive time perspective in a given situation and to switch to another (what all three above-mentioned characters lack), (2) the ability to reinterpret past events using present experiences (what the man left by his wife could not do), and (3) the ability to connect the three time dimensions to make conscious, purposeful decisions.</warningtag>

Time balance means a person can think about the ‘good old times’ and then switch to leisurely activity and know when to work hard to ensure future success. Temporal <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/cognition">metacognition </a> , which is defined as the ability to consciously <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/self-control">self-regulate </a>the focus on the past, present, or future. Three dimensions of temporal metacognition(1) the capacity to control a maladaptive time perspective in a given situation and to switch to another

Time balance means a person can think about the ‘good old times’ and then switch to leisurely activity and know when to work hard to ensure future succus. Temporal <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/cognition">metacognition </a> defined as the ability to consciously <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/self-control">self-regulate </a>the focus on the past, present, or future. Three dimensions of temporal metacognition: (1) the capacity to control a maladaptive time perspective in a given situation and to switch to another.

(2) the ability to reinterpret past events using present experiences. (3) the ability to connect the three time dimensions to make conscious, purposeful decisions.We can intuitively feel that a balanced time perspective leads to numerous beneficial outcomes. I have shown that people with a more balanced time perspective experience less time pressure and less boredom in daily life, two main negative experiences we commonly face in our modern societies.

Memories are a great place to visit- Don't forget to leave. 

How flexibility in time orientation leads to a better life.

Past, Present, Future: Don’t Get Stuck in a Single Time Dimension

In today’s time, we as a society have glorified the idea of being ‘busy ‘. People that are seen constantly stressed, buried in their work are viewed as more accomplished than someone not swamped by work and worry. Today’s hustle cultre views these so called ‘hard-workers ‘ as the image of the ‘perfect employee ‘ and holds this standard of being busy on a pedestal.

No, it’s hard to say that everything about hustle cultre or being busy is bad. But it’s definitely a point to note that these do glorify the idea of constantly being on the go and working and have even made it the norm for today’s generation to constantly be working and measuring their own self worth by how much they’ve accomplished.

Is being busy actually bad?

Think about it, how many times have you criticized yourself because you didn’t do ‘enough work ‘ or you didn’t ‘work harder ‘?How many times have you actually been happy on a day off and been glad that you took care of yourself?According to the standards we’ve created for ourselves, anyone who isn’t busy and doesn’t spend every second immersed in work simply doesn’t stand up to these standards and is just termed as ‘not hard working ‘ or simply ‘lazy ‘.This outlook of society makes us judge our own self worth by the amount of work we do and the labels society puts on us.

* Putting Labels On Ourselves 

Glorifying the idea of always being busy tends to make us much more about self and can, in a sense, make our thoughts and actions even more selfish. We tend to get more stuck in our own little world excessively brooding about our own work and our own problems which obviously have a negative strike to our mental health but also end up in us neglecting close friends and family.Cancelling plans last minute, not being present for special occasions and being missing from important moments tends to become ‘normal ‘ for busy people.

* Busyness Affects Our Relationships 

The current idea of busyness doesn’t necessarily put in ‘quality of work’ as an important factor, instead, ‘quantity of work’ becomes the deciding factor. When we place priorities in the wrong areas it does end up being counter-productive and instead of actually getting things done we might only be wasting precious time.It’s necessary to keep track of how and what you spend your time. Know if the time you spend on doing something is actually for something ‘productive ‘ or is it just being busy.

* Quality Over Quantity Or Quantity Over Quality? 

Being ‘busy ‘ isn’t something you’re forced to do, it’s a life choice – something you make and continue.Know that being efficient isn’t about the number of hours you spend doing something that may or may not have a positive outcome. Efficiency is about the number of positive results you get on doing things. Think about the things you do on a daily basis that you think are ‘productive ‘ – does it actually give outcomes that help you grow? Does it help with things you’re struggling with/find difficult?

How to know if you’re actually productive or just busy?

Being busy is just about passing time doing things that seem productive,while actually, using time for things that support growth is real productivity.Answering emails is one such task that might seem and feel productive but it has more cons to pros. It always makes you feel productive but in reality it just gives you that extra stress that hampers with actual productivity.It’s often advised to check your emails only once or twice a day to allow some actual productivity instead of spending hours each day in ‘pseudo-productivity

* Being Productive Or Pseudo-productive 

Being busy is just about passing time doing things that seem productive,while actually, using time for things that support growth is real productivity.Answering emails is one such task that might seem and feel productive but it has more cons to pros. It doesn’t matter how many times a day you check your email, you can always expect more to be there eventually. It always makes you feel productive but in reality it just gives you that extra stress that hampers with actual productivity. It’s often advised to check your emails only once or twice a day to allow some actual productivity instead of sp<warningtag>ending hours each day in ‘pseudo-productivity ‘.</warningtag>

When we’re constantly under stress and lose work-life balance (which is a consequence of hustle cultre) we tend to mess with our attention span, and the constant pressure from work and personal life harms the cognitive bandwidth.Even though having narrow cognitive bandwidth might help you hyperfocus on something, it also has its cons – popularly termed as Tunneling.In the most simple terms, tunneling is being extra focused on things that are right infront of us that may not be so productive, which is caused by extreme stress in our lives.

But why is it that we fixate ourselves in pseudo-productive work?

A definite point of importance is that when we become so fixated in our own lives doing ‘productive’ work, we tend to have less time for things that actually matter, like our own physical and mental health. We tend to have less time for decisions that affect us, instead we make impulsive decisions because taking cautious, calculative steps isn’t an option anymore.

* Pseudo-productive Work Affects Our Health 

• It might make us feel important to be constantly busy and get that validation from society. But remember that the same busyness has long term effects on your health.These long hours of stress and lack of sleep and completely ignoring self-health can lead to problems like headaches, insomnia, fatigue, seizures, etc. When you make changes in busyness, you will only have positive changes in your physical and mental health and will improve relationships with people you’ve been pushing away.

So how can we get rid of busyness and make time for things that actually matter?

• Take a deep dive into the work you’re always busy doing – then think if spending all that time and resources is actually a wise decision. Spend time doing things that you actually find valuable – does it feel productive?• Learn to ignore the voices, views and opinions of society that promotes hustle cultre and being busy. Keep in mind the actual goal you have, that which you strive for. (I know it’s so much more easier said than done, but give it a shot!) Challenge the idea of being busy and go for what you believe you want to do.

• Understand the importance of saying no to things that don’t serve purpose to your life, instead, spend that time on things that drive you and things you find yourself excited to do.• Sometimes you can find true satisfaction in doing less. You could do hundreds of tasks a day but they won’t necessarily bring you happiness, but even doing one task that drives you can be the source of your happiness.• Encourage yourself and people around you to get the image of being busy out of their mind and instead set being productive as the idealistic mindset.

The idea od being busy has become glorified to an unhealthy extent, maybe it's time to take a step back and think of not always being busy, but being efficient. 

Being Busy Is Good?

The approach of building a Second Brain is focused on behavior and habits first, rather than tools, and consists of 4 universal steps called CODE.<ul><li>C (COLLECT)</li><li>O (ORGANIZE)</li><li>D (DISTILL)</li><li>E (EXPRESS)</li></ul>In this case, we will focus on the O phase in which we need a method to organize the information we have collected.This can be achieved with the PARA Method.

Building the Second Brain with The PARA Method

PARA is a principle that’ll help you organize your work digitally. <ul><li>Projects: series of tasks linked to a goal, with a deadline.</li><li>Areas: spheres of activity with a standard to be maintained over time.</li><li>Resources: topics or themes of ongoing interest.</li><li>Archives: inactive items from the other three categories.</li></ul>

What is the PARA Method?

A project has a goal to be achieved — a discrete event that will happen, allowing this item to be completely checked. This goal is supposed to take place at a specific moment in time. It has a deadline or timeframe, whether externally or self-imposed.Projects always fall into Areas. A few examples:<ul><li>Running a marathon is a project, whereas Health is an area</li><li>Publishing a book is a project, whereas Writing is an area</li><li>A vacation to Thailand is a project, whereas Travel is an area</li></ul>

PROJECTS 

Areas of Responsibility are the roles you take on in life and the hats you wear, the ongoing standards where the buck stops with you, and things that take a certain amount of constant attention.<ul><li>Exercise, Finances, Apartment, Pets.</li></ul>

AREAS

Resources are interests, themes, and assets. <ul><li>Psychology, politics, leadership</li><li>Web design,architecture; note-taking</li><li>Stock photos, typography links</li></ul>

RESOURCES

Archives are inactive items from the other three categories.<ul><li>Projects that have been completed or become inactive</li><li>Areas that you are no longer committed to maintaining</li><li>Resources that you are no longer interested in</li></ul>

WORKFLOW

The PARA method has helped me organize the information I collect into actionable things like uploading a post or finishing a university assignment. 

Tiago Forte is most known for his concept of developing a Second Brain. The 
Second Brain helps thousands to organize their minds digitally using 
concepts like CODE and PARA plot out everything in an organized fashion.

writing

Reading & Writing

business

Business

How to Build a Second Brain - Tiago Forte Style  — Keep Productive

According to the video, studies, and the book of The Power of When, there are like 4 chronotypes in which people are categorized in how they should spend their time during the day for productive work, which is heavily influenced by the circadian cycle. <ul><li>🦁 Lion Chronotype </li><li>🐻 Bear Chronotype</li><li>🐬 Dolphin Chronotype</li><li>🐺 Wolf Chronotype</li></ul>

Ideal schedule according to my chronotype

Four Key Personality Traits:Cautiousness, introversion, neuroticism, intelligenceFour Key Behaviors:Avoiding risky situations, striving for perfection, obsessive-compulsive tendencies, fixating on details.Sleep/Alertness Pattern:Dolphins usually wake up feeling unrefreshed and are tired until late in the evening, when they suddenly hit their stride.

Characteristics of a Dolphin

Morning Routine<ul><li>1 hour to wake up slowly & shower</li><li>1 hour to eat breakfast & plan for the day</li></ul>Mid Morning:<ul><li>1 hour of less demanding tasks;</li><li>15-minute break</li><li>1 hour to tackle demanding, productive work;</li><li>15-minute break;</li><li>1 hour for a lunch break.</li></ul>Afternoon:<ul><li>1 hour to tackle demanding, productive work</li><li>15-minute break</li><li>1 hour of administrative tasks/chores;</li><li>15-minute break</li><li>1 hour to tackle demanding, productive work;</li><li>30 minutes to wrap up the day</li></ul>Late afternoon<ul><li>Workout or engage in a personal project/meet with friends or study</li></ul>Evening<ul><li>1 hour to have dinner</li><li>1-2 hours of slow-paced activities, like reading</li><li>Go to bed early</li></ul>

The Perfect Day of a Dolphin

Four Key Personality Traits: Conscientiousness, stability, practicality, optimismFour Key Behaviors: Overachieving, prioritizing health and fitness, seeking positive interactions, strategizingSleep/Alertness Pattern: Lions wake up bright-eyed at dawn or earlier, start to feel tired in the late afternoon, and fall asleep easily.

Characteristics of a Lion

Four Key Personality Traits: Cautiousness, extroversion, friendly and easy to talk to, open-mindedFour Key Behaviors: Avoiding conflict, aspiring to be healthy, prioritizing happiness, taking comfort in the familiarSleep/Alertness Pattern:Bears wake up in a daze after hitting the snooze button once or twice.Most alert: mid-morning into early afternoon.Most productive: late morning.

Characteristics of a Bear

Morning Routine<ul><li>1 hour to wake up, work out & shower</li><li>1 hour to eat breakfast & tackle one individual project</li></ul>Mid Morning:<ul><li>2 hours to tackle demanding, productive work</li><li>15-minute break</li><li>2 hours to tackle demanding, productive work;</li><li>15-minute break;</li><li>Use lunch break to call a friend, watch a series or grab some coffee.</li></ul>Afternoon:<ul><li>1-2 hours of less demanding tasks</li><li>15-minute break</li><li>1 hour of administrative tasks/chores;</li><li>15-minute break</li><li>30 minutes to wrap up the day</li></ul>Late afternoon<ul><li>If energized, enjoy a high-energy activity/task/workout for no longer than 1 hour.</li></ul>Evening<ul><li>1 hour to have dinner</li><li>Go to bed </li></ul>

The Perfect Day of a Lion

Morning Routine<ul><li>1 hour to wake up, eat breakfast & plan for the day </li></ul>Mid Morning:<ul><li>2 hours to tackle less demanding tasks</li><li>15-minute break</li><li>2 hours to tackle demanding, productive work;</li><li>15-minute break;</li><li>Use lunch break to call a friend, watch a series or grab some coffee.</li></ul>Afternoon:<ul><li>1-2 hours of demanding productive work</li><li>15-minute break</li><li>1 hour of administrative tasks/chores;</li><li>15-minute break</li><li>30 minutes to wrap up the day</li></ul>Late afternoon<ul><li>Optional: workout or engaging in a personal project/activity or study</li></ul>Evening<ul><li>1 hour to have dinner</li><li>If energized,1-2 hours of work or If tired: 1-2 hours of slow-paced activities.</li></ul>

The Perfect Day of a Bear

Four Key Personality Traits:Impulsivity, pessimism, creativity, moodinessFour Key Behaviors: Taking risks, prioritizing pleasure, seeking novelty, reacting with emotional intensitySleep/Alertness Pattern:Wolves have difficulty waking up before 9:00 a.m.Most alert: 7:00 p.m.Most productive: late morning and late evening.

Characteristics of a Wolf

Morning Routine<ul><li>1 hour to wake up, shower & engage in one interest </li><li>30 minutes for breakfast & planning for the day</li></ul>Mid Morning:<ul><li>2 hours of less demanding tasks</li><li>15-minute break</li><li>1-hour administrative tasks/chores</li><li>15-minute break;</li><li>1 hour for lunch break</li></ul>Afternoon:<ul><li>1-2 hours to tackle demanding productive work</li><li>15-minute break</li><li>1-2 hours to tackle demanding productive work</li><li>15-minute break</li></ul>Late afternoon<ul><li>1-2 hours of high energy activity, tasks, or workout </li><li>Use late of the afternoon to meet/call friends</li></ul>Evening<ul><li>1 hour to have dinner</li><li>1-2 hours of high-intensity activities</li><li>1 hour of unwinding</li></ul>

The Perfect Day of a Wolf

Grab CuriosityStream + Nebula for 26% discount (14.79$/year): https://curiositystream.com/studycorner A chronotype is someone's internal clock and it dictates how your energy fluctuates during the day. All chronotypes fall into a spectrum so it's impossible to individually categorize each single person's chronotype, but in broad terms, most people fall into four different categories: bear, dolphin, wolf and lion chronotypes. Knowing your chronotype may have a big impact on how you structure your day, when you schedule tasks and, most of all, what you can expect from yourself in terms of energy, creativity and productivity throughout the day. And passing on this knowledge to loved ones and people close to you is also important, because you’re also showing them what they can expect from you, and when. — Chronotype Schedules — Lion: https://cutt.ly/7bMbc6g Dolphin: https://cutt.ly/YbMbWgb Bear: https://cutt.ly/obMbE6V Wolf: https://cutt.ly/NbMbTad I offer organisation consulting services. If you're interested, contact me via hello@simpleproductivity.net You can support me on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/marianascorner Video edited by: Mary Among Stories (maryamongstories@gmail.com) Stock videos and imagery supplied by Getty Images FTC: This video is sponsored by CuriosityStream.

habits

Habits

Grab CuriosityStream + Nebula for 26% discount (14.79$/year): https://curiositystream.com/studycorner

A chronotype is someone's internal clock and it dictates how your energy fluctuates during the day. All chronotypes fall into a spectrum so it's impossible to individually categorize each single person's chronotype, but in broad terms, most people fall into four different categories: bear, dolphin, wolf and lion chronotypes. 

Knowing your chronotype may have a big impact on how you structure your day, when you schedule tasks and, most of all, what you can expect from yourself in terms of energy, creativity and productivity throughout the day. And passing on this knowledge to loved ones and people close to you is also important, because you’re also showing them what they can expect from you, and when. 

— Chronotype Schedules —

Lion: https://cutt.ly/7bMbc6g

Dolphin: https://cutt.ly/YbMbWgb

Bear: https://cutt.ly/obMbE6V

Wolf: https://cutt.ly/NbMbTad

I offer organisation consulting services. If you're interested, contact me via hello@simpleproductivity.net

You can support me on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/marianascorner

Video edited by: Mary Among Stories (maryamongstories@gmail.com)

Stock videos and imagery supplied by Getty Images

FTC: This video is sponsored by CuriosityStream.

Productivity for real people, not robots. 

(Old channel name: Mariana Study Corner)

Sponsorships/business inquiries: marianastudycorner@standard.tv

For anything else, you can e-mail me at hello@marianastudycorner.com


Mariana Vieira

I created your ideal schedule (according to your chronotype!)

The business and productivity app market is worth billions of dollars. Every day, there is a new productivity tool popping up, a book about productivity being published, and millions of people reading and sharing content related to personal productivity. It started as a measure of efficiency for the production of goods and services. Somehow, along the way, many of us have become addicted to productivity.

The Premise

At its core, productivity addiction is based on the same reward systems as other addictions. By providing constant reinforcement — for example, financial rewards in the form of salary increases, or social rewards in the form of work recognition — productivity can become a goal in and of itself, resulting in compulsive behaviours.
The problem is that just like all addictions, over time a person needs more and more to be satisfied and then it starts to work against you. Withdrawal symptoms include increased anxiety, depression and fear.

The Obsession With Productivity

It started as a measure of efficiency for the production of goods and services. Somehow, along the way, many of us have become addicted to productivity.

Productivity addiction: when we become obsessed with productivity

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