Productivity

"People tend to abandon the good system they’ll follow in search of the perfect system that they will quit." ―Tim Ferriss

Notes

• On distractions:

  “Follow the wandering, the distraction, find out why the mind has wandered; pursue it, go into it fully. When the distraction is completely understood, then that particular distraction is gone. When another comes, pursue it also.” Jiddu Krishnamurti

• The 70% Rule by Jeff Bezos (2016 Letter to Shareholders):

  “Most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70% of the information you wish you had. If you wait for 90%, in most cases, you’re probably being slow. Plus, either way, you need to be good at quickly recognizing and correcting bad decisions. If you’re good at course correcting, being wrong may be less costly than you think, whereas being slow is going to be expensive for sure.”

• Can't start? Use BJ Fogg's technique: make an action as small as possible, do less than you are capable of doing.

  • Use positive constraints like the Pomidoro Technique.

  • Build in incentives and consequences: make yourself socially accountable, check in or a bet (we work harder to combat loss aversion).

• Too big To Do list? Can't decide where to start? Ask: "Which one of these if done will make the rest irrelevant or easy?"

Links

• Structured Procrastination by John Perry

• Good and Bad procrastination and Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule by Paul Graham

• Productivity by Sam Altman

• The Not-To-Do Lis and "Productivity" Tricks for the Neurotic, Manic-Depressive, and Crazy (Like Me) by Tim Ferriss

• Get specific! by Derek Sivers

• Execute by Default by Eliezer Yudkowsky

• How We Use the Procrastination Equation by Alex Vermeer and Jimmy Rintjema

• Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible by Alexey Guzey

• Minding our way by Nate Soares: a rational take on productivity.

• Plaintext Productivity by Michael Descy: a productivity system using plaintext files.

• The Secret Weapon: email + Evernote + GTD.