Productivity and Time Management

Source: Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman Where in your life or your work are you currently pursuing comfort, when what’s called for is a little discomfort? Are you holding yourself to, and judging yourself by, standards of productivity or performance that are impossible to meet? In what ways have you yet to accept the fact that you are who you are, not the person you think you ought to be? In which areas of life are you still holding back until you feel like you know what you’re doing? How would you spend your days differently if you didn’t care so much about seeing your actions reach fruition? Want more self-elicitation questions like these? Check out “Questions Worth Asking.” ...

Source: Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman Adopt a “fixed volume” approach to productivity Keep two todo lists, one unbounded and one limited to a certain number of items (max 10); you can’t add a task to the second list until you’ve completed a task Might also need an “On Hold” or “Waiting For” todo list Set predetermined boundaries for your daily work Focus on only one big project at a time Decide in advance what to “fail” at (“strategic underachievement”) Focus on what you’ve already completed, not just on what’s left to complete Consolidate your caring (pick your battles!) Embrace boring, single-purpose technology (like the Kindle) Seek out novelty in the mundane Be a “researcher” in relationships (be curious, on purpose) Cultivate instantaneous generosity (act on the impulse to be generous right away) Practice doing nothing

In the quest for personal and professional growth, understanding our unique strengths and personality traits can be incredibly enlightening. Today, I want to share my insights from various personality paradigms and how they shape my approach to work and life. CliftonStrengths: Harnessing Core Talents The CliftonStrengths assessment has been instrumental in identifying my core talents. Here are my top five strengths: Input: I have an insatiable curiosity and a constant desire to collect information. This strength fuels my drive to learn and gather knowledge from diverse sources. Intellection: My love for deep thinking and intellectual discussions is a hallmark of this strength. It allows me to explore complex ideas and engage in thoughtful analysis. Learner: The process of learning excites me. Whether it’s acquiring new skills or understanding new concepts, I thrive in environments that offer continuous growth. Ideation: Creativity and innovation are my playgrounds. I enjoy brainstorming and generating new ideas, which often leads to novel solutions and approaches. Analytical: I have a keen ability to dissect problems and examine them from different angles. This strength helps me make informed decisions based on solid data and evidence. For more on CliftonStrengths, check out Gallup’s CliftonStrengths. ...

Here are 32 things I’ve learned from life, so far. You are not your thoughts. There is a “you” behind and above your inner voice/monologue/dialogue. Pay attention to what you pay attention to. Think about what you think about. We always only have the present moment. Focusing too much on the future leads to anxiety. Focusing too much on the past leads to depression. Wherever you are, be fully there, now! (Read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle [affiliate link here and throughout] for more on this.) It’s OK not to be OK. Feeling anxious, depressed, angry, etc. is fine. However, avoid the trap of feeling anxious about how anxious you feel, feeling depressed about how depressed you feel, etc. (Learned this from The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris.) If you never make mistakes, you’re not learning/growing as well as you could be. Perfectionism is a deadly prison. Break free with “good enough” and “always learning.” You are stronger than you think you are. You are weaker than you think you are. Ask more questions. Ask better questions. God is not a thing among things. There is an “infinite qualitative difference” between God and everything that is not God, everything that exists. Jesus of Nazareth is the living Lord of all. ___ is not. Beware of overconfidence in what the Bible (or any other sacred text, for that matter) “clearly”does or does not say. God is devoted to the poor and powerless. Those who speak and act on God’s behalf should speak and act for the poor and powerless. To do better with people, ask them questions about themselves. (Read the classic How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.) You can’t out-exercise your appetite forever. Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much. Get enough sleep. You probably don’t get enough sleep. Lift heavy things. Go outside. Take a walk. Open a Roth IRA. Invest consistently in low-cost mutual funds or lifecycle funds as soon as you can. (Learned this from I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi.) Reading is a superpower. You can learn from as many other lives and lifetimes as you want. Learn how to read. Then learn how to learn. Then, learn whatever you want! Always read with a pen or pencil in your hand. If you really want to learn from a book, buy a physical copy and annotate the heck out of it. You always have to earn and keep your audience’s attention. Before/while communicating, ask yourself “Why should they care? What’s in it for them?” Humans are incredibly good at misunderstanding each other. Before/while communicating, ask yourself “How might I be misunderstood? How might I be misunderstanding others?” Remember that you and your loved ones are all going to die. What do you want to be known for? Eulogize people BEFORE they die. Everyone should go to therapy for at least a few months. “Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.” Feeling nervous/stressed/angry/etc.? SLOW DOWN, especially if you’re in front of other people. Courage is a choice, not a feeling. No matter how nervous you are, you can always ACT courageously. Everyone is trying to figure it out as they go along. Do you often feel like an imposter? Join the club! Act like you’ve been here before. Act like you’ve done this before. Act calm, comfortable, and confident, if for no other reason than to help the people around you feel calm, comfortable, and confident. Leadership is service. Leadership is the willingness to make a decision for the good of the group even when it’s awkward or uncomfortable to do so. Focus on what you can control. Journal. What do you really want? What are you afraid of? What’s the most important thing you need to get done today? Get a notebook and write it down! In many domains, 80% of the outcomes/effects come from 20% of the inputs/causes. Find the “vital few” things that have outsized impacts, both positive and negative, on your life. Double-down on what’s helping you. Get rid of what’s hurting you. Use smoked paprika. You’re welcome.

Dale Carnegie’s timeless classic, How to Win Friends and Influence People, has been a bestseller for decades, offering insights and advice on improving interpersonal relationships. The book’s practical principles have helped millions of readers excel in their personal and professional lives. In this blog post, I’ll summarize the key points from Carnegie’s work and provide you with a solid foundation to start mastering your own relationships. If you find these ideas helpful and compelling, I highly recommend reading the entire book! ...

General / Thinking Untools: https://untools.co/ James Clear: https://jamesclear.com/ Farnam Street: https://fs.blog/ Your Logical Fallacy Is: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ Your Bias Is: https://yourbias.is/ Fitness / Health Darebee: https://darebee.com/ Reading / Writing QuillBot: https://quillbot.com/ 12ft Ladder: https://12ft.io/ Open Library: https://openlibrary.org/ Design PDF24 Tools: https://tools.pdf24.org/en/ Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/ The Noun Project: https://thenounproject.com/ Software Development Stack Overflow: https://stackoverflow.com/ O’Reilly: https://learning.oreilly.com/ roadmap.sh: https://roadmap.sh/ cheat.sh: https://cheat.sh/ DevHints.io: https://devhints.io/ Learn X in Y minutes: https://learnxinyminutes.com/ Baeldung (for Java/Spring): https://www.baeldung.com/ What would you add to this list? Let me know!

After listening to the Blinkist summary of Cal Newport’s Deep Work (I’ve read the book, this was just for a refresher), I’m convinced that it’s time for another 30-day fast from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. I think I’ll still keep my micro.blog up and running, but between running Anglican Compass and sprinting for some last-ditch clarity on my increasingly frustrating dissertation, I need all the extra bandwidth I can get! If you need to get in touch for some reason, please use the contact form on my website. You can also sign up for my very occasional email newsletter here. ...

SOURCE: They Say / I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing, 4th edition (affiliate link). Perhaps the most helpful and practical book on academic writing! Disagreeing Without Being Disagreeable While I understand the impulse to A, my own view is B. While I agree with X that Y, I cannot accept her overall conclusion that Z. While X argues Y, and I argue Z, in a way we’re both right. The Template Of Templates In recent discussions of A, a controversial issue has been whether B. On the one hand, some argue that C. From this perspective, D. On the other hand, however, others argue that E. In the words of F, one of this view’s main proponents, “G.” According to this view, H. In sum, then, the issue is whether I or J. ...

Writer’s block sucks. I’m currently facing it with regard to my dissertation and I’ve decided to hit pause on research and writing until I regain access to my library carrell at Wheaton. Thankfully, I’ve come across some helpful advice on overcoming writer’s block in Andrew T. Le Peau’s Writer Better: A Lifelong Editor on Craft, Art, and Spirituality (affiliate link). The book is filled with helpful and practical advice on writing, rewriting, publishing, etc. To whet your appetite, I’d like to share some of Le Peau’s tips for conquering writer’s block. These all come from chapter 7, pages. 72–80. ...

The following templates come from They Say / I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. Introducing What They Say A number of $$$ have recently suggested that $$$. It has become common today to dismiss $$$. In their recent work, Y and Z have offered harsh critiques of Dr. X for $$$. Introducing Standard Views American today tend to believe that $$$ Conventional wisdom has it that $$$ Common sense seems to dictate that $$$ The standard way of thinking about topic X has it that $$$ It is often said that $$$ My whole life I have heard it said that $$$ You would think that $$$ Many people assumed that $$$ Making What They Say Something You Say ...

I’m trying to put together a basic home gym in our basement apartment. Mainly, I’m interested in doing squats for now. Then, I’ll expand to deadlifts and benchpress. Our ceilings are too low for overhead presses, however. Anyways, I just ordered the Valor Fitness BD-9 squat rack from Amazon. I still need a decent Olympic bar and Olympic plates.

I’m reading Walter Sinnott-Armstrong’s excellent book, Think Again: How to Reason and Argue. In it (on pages 25–26), I came across “Rapoport’s Rules.” First formulated by mathematical psychologist Anatol Rapoport and discussed by Daniel Dennett (Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, 31–35), here they are: 1: You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.” ...

Right now, I’m using the RSS readers Inoreader and Reeder to subscribe to the following blogs: Snakes and Ladders – by Alan Jacobs Farnam Street — A Collection of Signal in a World Full of Noise. Seth’s Blog Study Hacks – Decoding Patterns of Success – Cal Newport James Clear Barking Up The Wrong Tree – How to be awesome at life. The Appademic » Technology, productivity and workflows for academics, students and other nerds McSweeney’s Internet Tendency Lifehacker – Do everything better What are you reading? ...

I need to finish this dissertation. To do so, I need to write regularly. For me, that means writing every day—a minimum of 500 words every day. Last spring, I did a pretty good job of writing regularly. However, I’ve fallen off the wagon for various reasons, and it’s been a bear to get back on! So, I’ve decided to put some money on the line, using a service called StickK. ...

Just wanted to give a quick shout-out to this fantastic pencil: the Mitsubishi 9850. It’s cheap, writes well, erases well, and looks great! For more on wooden pencils, read this JetPens guide to the best wooden pencils. And, while you’re at it, check out JetPens’ recommendations for the best pencil sharpeners.