Kevin W.

Throughout history, games and sports have helped humanity to survive times of crisis by reducing anxieties and improving mental health.

While the pandemic has forced most gaming and sports activities to scale down, chess has demonstrated remarkable resilience, adaptability, and very strong convening power in times of a global crisis.

Toxic Productivity is an unhealthy need to always be productive, no matter what the cost. It is the desire to do something at all times and feeling guilty for all the things that one hasn’t done yet.

The pandemic made those still having a job a virtual work martyr, working extra hard just because having a job in these uncertain times was so precious in itself. Work becomes a reason to feel worthy, in control and fulfilled.

We all are juggling life's important areas: work, office, home, health and fitness, our finances and relationships.

It is not easy to juggle so many things all at once, and some areas may get neglected.

Eye strain is a common symptom of too much time on a screen. It can lead to headaches, tense shoulders and back, and potentially blurred vision.

A simple exercise to help with eye-strain: After every 20 minutes, look at an object 20 feet away for 20 seconds.

Work boundaries help secure our time, energy, purpose and how fulfilled we feel.

Boundaries encourage us to have a work time and a time to recharge. So there should be a clear mind shift and a sense that we’re done for the day.

• A good ritual should be accessible most of the time you plan to work. If you focus best in a library, but it is closed on weekends when you need it, it is not a good ritual.
• It should assist with getting into work, not adding steps that turn it into a procrastination tool. _If you first need to meditate for ninety minutes, then drive for two hours to a log cabin before you start working, it is not effective.

Good rituals can be done quickly, on-demand, and help you get into focus. Pairing a consistent routine with focused work can help to direct your mind into a state of productivity. But rituals can also prevent you from moving into focused work and instead become a tool for procrastination.

• Before you can start minimizing your unpaid labor you have to know how much of it you’re doing. And we're generally used to underestimate how long we spend on tasks thanks to biases like the Planning Fallacy.
• Set proper expectations. One of the main reasons unpaid digital labor happens is because people don’t set proper expectations. We assume that people know how to communicate and we don’t need to spell out specific rules.

• Try to schedule routine things, like exercising, early in the morning. 
• Work from home to have more flexibility to organize your time and obligations. 
• When committing to extra work, ensure that you can accomplish it in the time you have.
• Starting your day with a major priority task is ideal. 
• Take breaks to do things that give your brain time to recharge. 
• Sleeping is key to productivity. 
• Create a housework schedule that is realistic for you and try to automate away as many errands as you can.
• Reframe your to-do list from a daily thing to a weekly one to make it less overwhelming.
• Track your days to better manage your time. 

It feels like there’s never enough time to do all the things you have in mind.

You want to exercise, eat well and be healthy, You want to do great work, learn a language or guitar. But years slips by while it remains just an idea.