Juan B.

Late philosopher Hubert Dreyfus said that habits are a part of our daily coping practices. We don't consciously assess what we are going to do at any given moment - e.g., we don't deliberately reflect on brewing a morning coffee.

But, even when we do something habitually, we can still interact intelligently with it. For example, when habitually driving the same road to work, we might be consumed with thoughts about the day and still be able to navigate the roads.

Loving your job often means that you may be working more. It's harder to stop when you care.

It's deceptive to think that remote work means that you can start and stop whenever you want. Bloomberg reported that people who started working from home since the beginning of the pandemic are working three hours longer per day.

At the beginning of every week, write a two-by-two matrix on a blank sheet of paper.

One side of the matrix says "urgent" and "not urgent".  The other side of the matrix says "important" and "not important." 

Then, write all the things you want to do that week.

• Since shifting into a more virtual work situation our workday has been proven to be lengthed by more than an hour and meetings extended for a full 10 minutes longer.
• As we feed into these longer working hours it causes us to have higher chances for cognitive overhead. We may not be aware of it but our brains aren't wired to look at a flat image of a person on a grid.
• Our brain produces beta waves every time we process a lot of information at once and then our brain starts to slow down.

When we force ourselves to wake up early and fail to do so we tend to beat ourselves up over it. However, we must keep in mind that we are wired differently according to Chris Bailey, the author of The Productivity Project.

It doesn't matter what time we wake up as long as we're able to finish the tasks that are supposed to be done with the schedule it won't make a difference whether you wake up at 5 AM or 10 AM as long as you act deliberately within schedule.

Having no routine or structure is so much more draining mentally, physically, and emotionally than any routine could ever be. 

You're depriving your body and mind of the energy and direction these activities would bring.

• If splitting of weekdays between managing and making is strictly followed, it makes our day focus clear and we can happily ignore emails and other stuff on our ‘maker’ days.
• Others have clear expectations and the seemingly urgent requests can easily be filtered out.
• If you are not always available, it can also facilitate other solutions.

• Start with a purge to create an office that is free of clutter.
• Create a catch-it space for incoming junk to sort through.
• Keep your desktop clear of clutter.
• Place two document trays on your desk, one for new documents, the other for opened documents that you need to deal with.
• Create two separate zones, one for computer work, one for non-computer work.
• Place physical objects into drawers or organizing trays and out of sight.
• Get a bigger trashcan. Make sure to recycle.

The Zettelkasten way or the ‘slip box’ method was pioneered by Niklas Luhmann, is an always-on, filing system that one can use to categorize and ‘slip’ any new insight or idea in a separate file or cabinet.

With this method, any new idea or insight now has a readymade home where it can be placed easily, with the growing collection facilitating new projects and cross-connections.

Precrastination is described as rushing to complete a subgoal so you can tick it off your to-do list at the expense of extra effort. As a result, you will need more effort later to complete the overall goal.

We are part of a culture that values productivity, but we also desire instant gratification. When you combine the push for productivity with our love for instant gratification, you can fall into the trap of "precrastinaiton."