Mental Pivot #38: Time, To-Do, Average
A realistic guide to time management, a dead-simple to-do system, and a fun but unscientific tool for comparing yourself to the average.
With the impending start of summer, I’m scaling back the newsletter for a few months to enjoy some post-pandemic excursions and projects. You’ll still be getting a weekly dose of interesting reads and thoughtful finds, so there’s no change on that front (though I might be tweaking the format from week to week).
As always, feel free to message me to let me know what works, what doesn’t, and what you’d like to see more of in the newsletter.
Now onto this week's recommendations…
Productivity:
A Realistic Guide to Time Management: Solid overview on auditing your time and figuring out how best to allocate this precious resource.
A Simple To-Do System that Uses Post-It Notes [Video]: Solopreneur Pieter Levels shares his dead-simple system in a 2-minute Twitter video. Proof that overly complicated task management systems aren’t de rigueur.
Knowledge Needs to Be Remembered: How to Take Smart Notes [Podcast]: The inaugural episode of Josh Duffney’s podcast looks at Sönke Ahrens introduction to the Zettelkasten method. It's a welcome new feature of Duffney’s weekly newsletter which offers solid advice for note-takers and Obsidian users.
Unbounded Possibility Is Bad for Productivity: Brian Schrader shares an effective visual to demonstrate the importance of focus in a world of dizzying options. Hint: specificity helps overcome ambiguity.
Human Nature:
A New Replication Crisis: Research that Is Less Likely to Be True Is Cited More: The world of academic research can't escape the gravitational-pull of the attention economy where novel, interesting but sometimes flawed conclusions garner more media play than accurate but boring ones. As usual, strong economic and social incentives conspire against the objective truth.
How the Twitter/Media Feedback Loop Can Work to Undermine Our Understanding: The SARS-CoV-2 “lab leak” theory gained credence in recent weeks, prompting reflection on our previous resistance to the mere possibility of the theory in 2020. Regardless of the ultimate truth (if it’s ever determined), it’s clear that non-scientific factors (e.g., charges of racism, conspiracy skepticism, and politics) played a role in how we embraced or disregarded potential explanations.
Rich People Actually Do Have Trouble Understanding What It's Like to Be Poor: The title might be obvious, but the article considers a specific bias that informs this view: "…power-holders overgeneralize their greater sense of choice to others. They see everyone as having lots of choice, regardless of these people's actual situation."
Status Trumps Argument: It’s not about the quality of your argument, but the social rewards and credits that are generated by them.
When Scientific Orthodoxy Resembles Religious Dogma: “Innovation blossoms in a culture willing to acquire new knowledge rather than being trapped in its past belief system.”
Society:
Braver Angels: Cancel Culture, Communication, and the Quest for Humanism [Podcast]: Host John Wood Jr. converses with cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker (Englightenment Now) about polarization, human progress, and finding common ground. Braver Angels is an organization dedicated to fostering civil dialogue between citizens across the political spectrum.
Long Slide Looms for World Population, with Sweeping Ramifications: Lower fertility rates and longer lifespans may conspire to generate a host of new challenges for developed nations in the coming decades.
Odds & Ends:
ThanAverage is a fun but unscientific experiment that lets you compare yourself to other participants. The site poses dozens of questions like: “Are you better looking than average?”, “Do you procrastinate more than average?”, and “Are you a better driver than average?” Plus the site animations are super cute.
The Lazarus Heist [Podcast] is a multi-episode documentary from BBC World News about a North Korean hacking ring and its audacious attempt to steal a billion dollars by infiltrating the global SWIFT banking network. It’s a fascinating look at the bizarre world of state-sponsored crime, the dystopia that is North Korea, and the vulnerability of modern digital infrastructure.
Julia Evans encourages us to blog about what you’ve struggled with. This is great advice for those of us who don’t know how to create content that will resonate. The reality is that if we struggle with a problem, there’s a good chance that others are struggling with the very same challenge. Write about what you discover and share that knowledge with others.
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