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  • “Because of the need for being more professional, more polished, more branding for your company, for your business, for your organization, there are more virtual backgrounds that are being created,” Golden says. “It helps you look more credible, trustworthy.”
    Steven Melendez https://www.fastcompany.com/90826656/more-zoom-users-are-coming-around-to-virtual-backgrounds

    I have to disagree here. Using a virtual background makes you look less professional and less polished, unless you use a proper green screen and good lighting. In most cases, you’ll look more profesional and polished if you simply fix and arrange what’s behind you on camera.

    → 12:45 PM, Dec 27

  • Is there any way to change the sort order of the reading list in Safari? I prefer to see the oldest saves post first.

    → 12:56 PM, Dec 26

  • Try to complete new tasks on the day you receive them

    By tackling tasks immediately, you prevent them from piling up and getting in your way later. This is similar to the idea that a task is a debt you have to pay off in the future. While it can sometimes be useful to postpone things, it is usually better to handle them quickly. This keeps your task list short and allows you to make progress faster and adapt more easily to changes.

    Working quickly and efficiently is often praised by successful people like Sam Altman and Tyler Cowen. They emphasize that acting quickly and adapting swiftly to new information is important for success. This means not only responding quickly to emails and meeting deadlines but also making decisions quickly and adjusting them if necessary. This approach ensures that you keep moving and don’t get stuck in long decision-making processes.

    A short task list helps you focus on what really matters and prevents you from being overwhelmed by a lot of unfinished tasks. By handling new tasks immediately, you reduce stress and make room for new challenges and opportunities. This not only increases your productivity but also your ability to remain flexible and resilient in a changing work environment.

    Related:

    • Make reversible decisions as quickly as possible
    • Do the right thing, in the right way, and at the right moment
    • Although time pressure makes us work faster, it does not automatically mean we work better
    → 10:41 AM, Dec 22

  • Is there any browser plug-in for Safari to remove those irritating Google login popups?

    → 12:37 PM, Dec 20

  • The human mind and brain lack the architecture to perform multiple tasks simultaneously

    People are not good at doing multiple things at once. Our brains are not designed for this. Our cognitive and neural systems, which are responsible for mental functions, do not have the right architecture to effectively support multitasking. When we think we are working on different things at the same time, we are actually switching quickly between tasks. This back-and-forth switching costs energy and time. As a result, we make more mistakes and the work takes longer.

    Our brains work best when we do one thing at a time. This is due to how we have evolved as humans. If we try to do different things at once, it becomes too much for our brains. There are some people who can do this better, but they are very few. For most people, it works better to focus on one task. This way, you get the best result.

    Related:

    • Avoid excessive task switching to increase efficiency
    • Schedule two hours every day for important work that doesn’t need to be completed immediately; this helps you become happier and more productive
    • Attempting to do two or more attention-demanding tasks simultaneously reduces productivity
    • A little time pressure while working on your tasks helps to reduce ‘attention residue’
    • A small part of the population is able to multitask without performance reduction
    → 2:34 PM, Dec 19

  • The benefit of using my own blog on my own domain for microblogging with ActivityPub is that Twitter probably won’t block links to it.

    You can follow me at @jeroen@jeroensangers.com from Mastodon.

    → 8:41 AM, Dec 19

  • Professionals spend about 60% of their time on work about work

    “Work about work” refers to the activities you do to organize and coordinate your work, but that do not directly contribute to your main task. These include tasks such as communicating about work, searching for information, switching between different programs, dealing with changing priorities, and figuring out the status of ongoing projects. While these activities are necessary to move projects forward, they can be time-consuming and distract from truly productive work.

    The concept of “work about work” is well-researched, including in Asana’s Anatomy of Work Index, which surveyed over 10,000 knowledge workers worldwide. This research shows that these additional tasks take up a lot of time, leaving less time for important work that directly contributes to the organization’s goals. This can be frustrating for employees, as they feel they cannot use their time effectively and that their productivity is hindered by these ancillary tasks.

    To reduce the impact of “work about work,” organizations can simplify their workflows and use technologies that require less communication and information searching. Spending less time on “work about work” can not only increase productivity but also enhance job satisfaction and employee well-being.

    Related

    • Professionals lose an average of three hours per week on unnecessary meetings
    • Modern work is unconfined work
    • Spend a little attention on planning and organizing your tasks, but not more than necessary; then, get to work
    • A four-day workweek improves employee well-being without reducing productivity
    • Start with as little as possible and add complexity as you go
    → 3:16 PM, Dec 15

  • Professionals lose an average of three hours per week on unnecessary meetings

    Professionals lose an average of three hours per week on unnecessary meetings, which has a significant impact on their productivity and job satisfaction. This waste of time can often be attributed to poorly organized meetings with no clear agenda or where the topics discussed are not relevant to all attendees. The feeling that “this meeting could have been an email” is a common complaint among employees, indicating that many meetings are not effectively utilized.

    The costs of these unnecessary meetings are not only time-bound, but also have financial implications for organizations. By using tools such as the Meeting Cost Calculator, companies can gain insight into the actual costs of meetings and make better decisions about whether a meeting is necessary. Reducing unnecessary meetings can lead to a more efficient use of time and resources, and can contribute to higher satisfaction and effectiveness among employees.

    Related:

    • Professionals spend about 60% of their time on work about work
    • Start meetings on time for higher satisfaction and effectiveness
    • Large organizations extinguish employees' passion
    → 3:08 PM, Dec 15

  • Escuchando al último episodio de @feliztividad, no podría estar más de acuerdo con @fjrascon y @jlgomezp. Necesitamos como mínimo dos repositorios de conocimiento, que no necesariamente debes estar en la misma herramienta:

    1. Documentos originales de terceros
    2. Nuestras propias ideas

    Y Evernote continúa siendo una buena solución para ambos usos.

    → 1:21 PM, Dec 15

  • 🎉 Muy contento que Apple ha incluido el podcast de KENSO en sus lista de «Programas que nos encantaron en 2022» (estamos en las secciones «Programas más seguidos de 2022» y «Programas más compartidos de 2022»).

    🙏 Muchísimas gracias a todos los oyentes para hacerlo posible.

    → 6:22 PM, Dec 13

  • ¿Qué es este podcast recomendado por Amazon Music Podcasts?

    Recomendaciones de Apple Music Podcasts

    Sí, ¡es el podcast de KENSO! 🎉

    → 4:56 PM, Dec 9

  • 📸 Delta de l’Ebre

    → 6:10 PM, Dec 6

  • Ya tenemos libro para la próxima reseña en el podcast: Ego is the Enemy de Ryan Holiday 📚

    → 3:48 PM, Dec 2

  • I really like the idea of receiving a yearly activity summary such as Spotify Wrapped or Apple Music Replay… but now now!

    We still have a full month to go and there’s a lot left to be listened, read, watched and done.

    Please, send me the final report on January 1st. 🙏

    → 1:56 PM, Dec 1

  • Mastodon could use a well-designed client. This is great news.

    Hello people of the Fediverse! Some of you may have heard that a new Mastodon client, Ivory,  is in development for iOS (and Mac!). This is true! Tapbots is going all in on Mastodon and we hope this place continues to grow and thrive. Tweetbot will continue to be developed alongside Ivory as a lot of code is shared.
    Ivory https://tapbots.social/@ivory/109433914793802708
    → 10:41 PM, Nov 30

  • Finished reading: Good Anxiety by Wendy Suzuki 📚

    → 9:24 PM, Nov 30

  • The story you tell yourself creates your reality.

    Part of the activation energy required to start any task comes from the picture you get in your head when you imagine doing it. It may not be that going for a run is actually costly; but if it feels costly, if the picture in your head looks like a slog, then you will need a bigger expenditure of will to lace up.

    Slowness seems to make a special contribution to this picture in our heads. Time is especially valuable. So as we learn that a task is slow, an especial cost accrues to it. Whenever we think of doing the task again, we see how expensive it is, and bail.

    That’s why speed matters.

    James Somers https://jsomers.net/blog/speed-matters
    → 9:03 PM, Nov 27

  • Today I received my invite to access Tana and immediately imported my Roam Research database.

    So far, I like what I see, but will have to do a lot of work to recreate a trusted system in Tana.

    There is still a lot to figure out, including some very basic stuff such as how to create an inline hyperlink and how to capture information from my phone and tablet.

    → 9:59 PM, Nov 25

  • Love it how an insurance company sent me my username and password in two separate mailings several days apart, but since international postal delivery is flakey, the mailman handed me both envelopes at the same time.

    → 1:48 PM, Nov 22

  • With Mastodon I get the same feeling as email in the early days.

    Remember the hassle to change from yahoo.com to hotmail.com to gmail.com?

    Having and using your own domain name makes switching email providers a breeze and should also be the norm for Mastodon. You can follow me at @jeroen@jeroensangers.com on Mastodon.

    → 1:43 PM, Nov 22
  • And yes: that’s certainly how a lot of capitalist cultures think about time — as something that can be wasted or optimized. It’s often predicated on the idea that you should be focused on doing one thing, and one thing only, very efficiently: time is money, etc. etc. But that itself, sometimes referred to as a “monochronic” understanding of time, is no more or less “natural” than other ways of conceiving of time, like “polychronic” culture, which understands time as dynamic, flexible, and filled with several tasks at once, each of which will take the time that they need. Monochronic cultures may be more “efficient” in their use of time, but in their treatment of time as a commodity, they lose the richness that comes with allowing tasks, conversations, and interactions to move forward at a more natural and sustainable pace.
    Anne Helen Petersen https://annehelen.substack.com/p/the-diminishing-returns-of-calendar

    My quest for the rest of this year: get better at living a “polychronic” life.

    → 9:53 AM, Nov 22

  • Para un proyecto estoy buscando un proveedor acreditado para el #KitDigital con experiencia demonstrable en diseño web con Squarespace.

    → 2:24 PM, Nov 21

  • What’s the benefit of 4K video when YouTube by default fills only a third of the screen (at most!) with its video player. I always maximize the player, but know I’m an exception.

    → 8:20 PM, Nov 18

  • Now that everybody is migrating to Mastodon, I suddenly remembered that a few years ago I created an account on mastodon.social to try it out.

    It has been abandoned ever since, so today I deleted the account just to prevent people from subscribing to the wrong account.

    If your interested in following me on Mastodon, you can follow my personal site (the one true source of all my writings, toots and tweets) at @jeroen@jeroensangers.com.

    → 11:59 AM, Nov 18

  • Once in a while I go through the ever growing list of Roam Research extensions and find something useful that apparently had been available for a while already. Is there a newsletter, Twitter account or RSS feed to get notifications of new additions to the Roam Depot?

    → 2:19 PM, Nov 16
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