Finished reading: Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday 📚
“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.”
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.
Is there any way to change the sort order of the reading list in Safari? I prefer to see the oldest saves post first.
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:
Is there any browser plug-in for Safari to remove those irritating Google login popups?
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
- Multitasking leads to an overestimation of your own ability to perform multiple tasks simultaneously
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.
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
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:
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:
- Documentos originales de terceros
- Nuestras propias ideas
Y Evernote continúa siendo una buena solución para ambos usos.