Intentional inefficiencies and opportunistic lawn mowing
Plus: Savoring vs. consuming, a critique of paternalistic tech criticism, and a productivity master falls for Parkinson's law – Digest for the week of May 19th.
In this digest:
Intentional Inefficiencies – Good time management is not always about efficiency. In fact, it’s often by being intentionally inefficient that one gets quality out of their time.
Opportunistic lawn mowing – Remote work lets you integrate professional and personal tasks effectively, but only if two prerequisites are met.
Stop consuming. Start savoring. – Let's raise the quality bar for what we feed our minds with.
We need more refined technology critiques – Only nuanced critiques can improve how we interact with technology.
Parkinson's law strikes again – Even a best-selling productivity master cannot stop work expanding to fill the time available for its completion.
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Intentional Inefficiencies
At least a couple of times a week, my wife and I do a school pick-up or drop-off together. This is utterly inefficient from a time management standpoint but makes perfect sense in the context of what a productive day looks like for us. Dropping off or picking up kids from school is a job a parent can manage alone. When both parents participate, one of th…
Opportunistic lawn mowing
Weather patterns can be frustrating. At times, they seem to be mocking us. The sun can shine all through the week, only to be replaced by endless rain during the weekend. Now, I love cozying up on a rainy day with a book and a cup of hot coffee, but bad weather during the weekend is inconvenient for many reasons, one of which is missing out on the only t…
Stop consuming. Start savoring.
Whenever I hear the term “consuming content,” I picture people pouring colorless sludge down feeding pipes that come out of their heads. The entertainment industry, in particular, seems to have embraced the term content consumption. Streaming services churn out shows nonstop, and every new movie either sets up a franchise or is…
We need more refined technology critiques
Many technocritics argue that technology is taking away our ability to think for ourselves. YouTube tells us what to watch, Spotify what to listen to, and fitness trackers how to work out. They don’t seem to realize the internal inconsistency of this kind of reasoning. In assuming technology is thinking for us, they impl…
Parkinson's law strikes again
Computer scientist and best-selling author Cal Newport shared an “interesting observation” on the importance of structuring one’s time in episode 247 of his Deep Questions show. After having delivered the last in a long series of tightly packed projects, Cal finally found himself with a week without any demanding work on hi…