Attention Management > Time Management | Mindfulness
Hey :) How are you doing today?
I had an extremely unproductive week, mostly watching baseball, binge-watching Umbrella Academy on Netflix and playing Dragon Quest 11 on Switch. I have this kind of week once in every few months :(
Still, I managed to publish a video that I was working on for a few days!
💫 New Video + Book Notes
1) New video “Luhmann’s Note-Taking Habit” is up on Youtube!
2) Added more reading notes to my mind garden!
Here are the best articles, books, podcasts, tweets I found this week.
It’s a long list, so I’d recommend using a read-later service like Pocket Instapaper or mymind.
Save them 👉 Read them later 👉 Make notes 👉 Create your own content!
Food for Thought
I loved this episode of Tim Ferriss Show. Tim says effectiveness and efficiency are not enough for better living, but we need mindfulness too.
What is “mindfulness”? Tim defines it as “a present-state awareness that helps you to be non-reactive”.
So, how can we become more mindful?
In this episode Tim introduces many tools and methods he uses for mindfulness.
In my experience, gratitude journaling is one of the most powerful techniques. Every morning/night, you can write about what you’re grateful for:
Gratefulness Prompts
An old relationship that helped a lot
An opportunity you have today
Something good/great that happened yesterday
Something simple near you
2. The Long Tail of Negative Emotions
Speaking of mindfulness, this fantastic article by Lawrence Yeo talks about how we can you “awareness” to curb our negative emotions, which he calls “The Hammer of Awareness”.
We experience negative emotions such as anger and jealousy almost every day. Like Lawrence says, I think the best way to control them is being aware of them.
Once you acknowledge you’re angry, you can calm down quicker, at least in my experience.
This reminded me of the book “Awareness” by Anthony de Mello. He says:
What you are aware of you are in control of; what you are not aware of is in control of you.
You are always a slave to what you’re not aware of. When you’re aware of it, you’re free from it. It’s there, but you’re not affected by it. You’re not controlled by it; you’re not enslaved by it. That’s the difference.
3. The Almanack of Naval Ravikant
I’ve started reading this book by Eric Jorgenson this week. As a huge fan of Naval Ravikant’s philosophy, I’m loving it!
There’s a lot you can learn from this book, but it mostly focuses on wealth and happiness.
If you’re interested, you can read it for free online. But you can also get a physical copy on Amazon, which I’d recommend!
4. Give Your Brain Some Breathing Room
I’ve been trying to stay away from news and social media in the past two weeks because it affects my mood negatively.
“An endless bombardment of news and gossip and images has rendered us manic information addicts,” Sullivan warned. “It broke me. It might break you, too.”
To abstain from all information about the world at this current moment would be a betrayal of your civic duty. On the other hand, to monitor every developing story in real time, like a breaking news producer, is a betrayal of your sanity.
So, I’ve been following Scott’s advice:
I suggest the following compromise: check in on the news for 45 minutes, once a day, preferably in the morning.
But, I haven’t done this for social media yet:
remove all social media apps from your phone; isolate the browsing of these services to a set period of time in the evening; avoid angry posts.
It takes a bit of courage to remove the Twitter app from my phone!
But I may do it eventually.
Overall, this article is great if you’re feeling like the news and social media makes you more anxious, stressed or angry.
5. The surprising benefits of talking to strangers
In the last issue, I talked about why you’ll be better off if you always assume strangers will like you.
Apparently, there are more benefits of talking to strangers.
According to a few studies, for example, greater trust in strangers is linked to better overall health, and trust in strangers is also correlated to individual wellbeing.
I’m not really an extroverted person, but this makes me think maybe I should talk to strangers more!
6. Productivity Isn’t About Time Management. It’s About Attention Management
As someone who makes videos about productivity, I often emphasised the importance of time management and scheduling. But recently I noticed better scheduling doesn’t always lead to being more prolific.
As Adam Grant says in this article, what matters more is attention management.
A better option is attention management: Prioritize the people and projects that matter, and it won’t matter how long anything takes.
Often our productivity struggles are caused not by a lack of efficiency, but a lack of motivation. … If you pay attention to why you’re excited about the project and who will benefit from it, you’ll be naturally pulled into it by intrinsic motivation.
Still, we have to do boring tasks that won’t benefit us. So, how do we get them done?
Contrast effects: A fascinating or funny video makes the data entry task seem even more excruciating, the same way a sweet dessert makes a sour vegetable taste yuckier. So if you’re trying to power through a boring task, do it after a moderately interesting one, and save your most exciting task as a reward for afterward. It’s not about time; it’s about timing.
What’s important is not making a perfect to-do list and then putting them in your schedule, but about timing!
It’s attention management: You’re noticing the order of tasks that works for you and adjusting accordingly.
I’m on the Keto diet for the past 6 months. It was hard to change my diet at start, but I’m glad I did because I feel much better and focus longer than before.
If you’re doing Keto or about to start it, this article might be helpful!
Also, this Youtube playlist “Keto 101” is also great for those who’re starting Keto!
This Week's Video
Smart Note-Taking Habit | Luhmann's Zettelkasten
Sharing = Loving
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Thank you! Have a great week :)
Shu