Miscellaneous

A compilation of blog posts sharing the theme of work productivity. The question is if, being a diverse collection, it is possible to evaluate it not globally, but using the best chapter? I believe so, because even though I didn’t like many chapters, that is I didn’t resonate with them, that is I think I already forgot their content, at least a couple of chapters made me discover things that I’d never found by myself.
Now, how to be more productive:

Planning tasks in advance (chap. 1, 4, 6, 9). They are all common-sense advices, but it’s important to repeat: planning stuff in advance makes everything simpler and clearer.

Say no often and early (chap. 10, 12). An important theme, facing requests that, upon careful scrutiny, we don’t want to accommodate, but we don’t know how to say no. The book suggests:
– Say straight no.
– Offer one small favour instead, sometimes.
– Don’t be mean, but don’t be nice either.
– Train to say no.
If you have a nagging colleague:
– Clarify the premise of the request.
– Dodge phone calls.
– Delay responses.
– Have a direct, open conversation.

Focus (chap. 15-23). Focus is quite a wide topic, however, the book suggests:
– Monitor our emotions.
– Choose the low hanging fruits.
– Structure solitude.
– Train attention and willpower.
– Take a difficult problem to a walk, possibly in nature.

Focus, why do we procrastinate? (chap. 25, from Heidi Grant) This is the chapter I found more interesting:
– Reason 1. Some people are focused on promotion but, if they feel they are going to fail, they won’t be able to concentrate. Here one should avoid doubts and anxiety and focus on the parts of the task that will thrive. Other people are focused on prevention and for them the opposite works, they’ll put focus the more doubt and anxiety they have.
– Reason 2. Some people look for their feelings and won’t focus on a task if “they don’t feel it”. In this case, it’s better to behave like emotionless machines and just do what has to be done. “Inspiration is for amateurs, The rest of us just show up and get to work” – Chuck Close.
– Reason 3. Procrastinating an unpleasant task. In this case, one has to realize that willpower is a limited resource. Use the if-then-when-where technique, detailing instructions to be followed when the time for deliberation will come.

Focus (chap. 26). A couple of tricks:
– Commit publicly to a task, so that we get emotionally attached to doing it. It’s a way to exploit the “hyperbolic discounting” tendency to overvalue immediate reward and undervalue future one.
– Evaluate the pros and cons of not doing something, also called “Omission Bias”.

Burnout (chap. 27). Understand that burnout has as a root cause the depletion of a resource and that we cannot do anything else than stop and re-evaluating our limits and priorities.

Pronouns matter (chap. 28 and 31). Apparently the way we talk to ourselves can affect our results. Referring to ourselves using the impersonal name rather than the personal “I” or “You” helps managing emotions and get us to sympathize with our limits. Roy Baumeister was the first to show that our motivation is a finite resource and we have to take this into account when over-committing our emotions to something.

Four stars on goodread.