Every once in awhile I’ll get an email from someone who feels productivity turns you into a robot. If you spend so much time focusing on productivity, the argument goes, you miss out on having fun, relaxing and doing all the “unproductive” things that make life worth living. I might get more done, they claim, […]
20 Tips to Survive When You’ve Overloaded Your Schedule
It isn’t hard to accidentally overload your schedule. It starts by making a few commitments, months in advance. Those commitments get pushed back and rescheduled until you need to face all of them at the same time. Working through an overloaded schedule without burning yourself out isn’t easy. I’m currently going through my own mini-overload […]
How to Speed Up Highly Creative Tasks
Writing an essay, designing an interface or coming up with an elegant solution for a software problem isn’t easy to do. Highly creative tasks can sometimes require days of thinking before the lightbulb switches on. Before that inspiration, however, it is easy to procrastinate, distract yourself or stare at your computer screen for hours. I […]
Relax Without Feeling Lazy: Kill Open Loops
Stop working on open-ended tasks. These waste your time, cause procrastination and accomplish little. Open-ended tasks are any tasks that don’t have a clear end point. They are activities like “studying”, “working” or “putting on finishing touches”. They don’t have a stopping point where you can clearly say, “I’m done.” “I’ve got a big test […]
I'm a Wall Street Journal bestselling author, podcast host, computer programmer and an avid reader. Since 2006, I've published weekly essays on this website to help people like you learn and think better. My work has been featured in The New York Times, BBC, TEDx, Pocket, Business Insider and more. I don't promise I have all the answers, just a place to start.