Lifestyle

# Created: 2020-12-05; Modified: 2021-08-29

On the format: It is an imitation of “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus” by Wittgenstein, which preserves the logic between statements without becomming too essay-ish for easy amendments.

1 Efficiency

1.1 Know exactly when to work and what to work on

1.11 Treat fragmented work that involves large amount of time and produces marginal outcome as habit

1.111 Habits involve minimum decision

1.1111 New tasks can be stacked on old habits to reuse the same circuit

1.1112 Habits can be associated with a new environment

1.11121 e.g. Walk to balcony to learn French

1.1113 Habits can be associatd with specific time point

1.112 Habits are outside priority system, they can’t be scheduled (delayed)

1.12 Treat work that requires quality thinking as project

1.121 Man has limited bandwidth / concentration / production capability

1.1211 Work on one area for at least a month

1.1212 Work on one project for at least a week

1.122 [TODO] Prioritize projects

1.1221 Important over urgent

1.1222 Balance between immediate desire and long term plan

1.123 Be specific

1.13 Other techniques worth considering

1.131 OKR: Essentially similar to project workflow, constraint on sustained devotion is equivalent to setting a short-term objective, project roadmap is similar to key results.

1.2 Make it easy to start and stay working

1.21 Understand “planning” is not “working”

1.211 Planning offers illution of progress, without the possibility of failure

1.212 Perfect plan does not exist and even more so if you never enforce it

1.213 Analysis paralysis

1.22 Environment encourages certain behaviour

1.221 Forbid yourself from doing unrelated things

1.222 Surround yourself with related things

1.2221 One space for one thing, in both physical and cyber sense

1.23 Begin flexible: calibrate the workload

1.231 Anxiety hurts efficiency, a task composed of several smaller tasks has multiplied difficulty

1.2311 Identify the bottleneck of current task, and reschedule the task

1.23111 e.g. Writing a French blog post is the composite of French writing and essay writing

1.2312 Identify the attractive part of current task, and reduce the unattractive parts

1.232 Choose frequency over intensity

1.24 Begin small: take the first step

1.241 Set a 15 minute count down where you must do the work

1.2411 Quote Scott Adams on procrastination: you are lying down and should get up but don’t want to–start by moving just one finger, then your hand, etc.

1.25 Be your own scheduler, hand-write daily tasks as a FIFO queue

1.251 fact: Humen love checkboxes

1.252 Instead of fork() right away, push the side misson into queue

1.253 Stay busy if you really can’t handle the task at hand

1.2531 This is also called economical procrastination

1.2532 Reading, which is rarely related to what I’m writing, or hoping to write, helps get started writing (Susan Sontag Paris Review)

1.254 Pass on unfinished tasks and breakdown the ones devised badly

1.3 Find pleasure in even the dullest work

1.31 Focus on process more than key results

1.311 Deadline set up just to improve efficiency is vulnerable

1.3111 Failure to deliver results on time lead to frustration

1.3112 See 1.32 to materialize a deadline by involving other people

1.312 The doing of something related to a specific objective helps estabilish a virtual character

1.3121 Repeated, predictable behaviours become proof for your identity

1.313 Concrete the work into benifits of process, rather than a pale TODO item

1.32 Gemification

1.321 Role-playing a character related to the area you are working on, resonating with 1.312

1.3211 Decorate your life with things that are not necessarily helpful to productivity but build up an image

1.322 Ritualize the starting or finishing of working

1.323 Give yourself a treat when working hours reach certain milestone

1.3231 Doing this while adhering to 1.31, the calculation of working hours should be irrelevant to actual progress

1.32311 Quote Goodhart’s law: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”

1.324 Streak, work in hand with 1.323

1.3241 Never miss it twice

1.325 Involves other people to play

1.3251 e.g. make a bet, set a deadline

1.33 Maintain a positive emotional image of working

1.331 Pacing

1.3311 Stop once it becomes emotionally difficult to continue (for the day of course)

1.332 Tools

1.3321 Susan Sontag writes with a felt-tip pen, or sometimes a pencil, on yellow or white legal pads. (Paris Review)

1.4 Misc

1.41 Reduce time dissipation

1.411 Time non-purposeful activity (thinking it as film exposure)

1.4111 Mobile app or mechanical clock with a symbolic time limit (2h)

1.4112 Even if it’s relaxing day, do it as a habit

1.42 [TODO] Information flow control

1.421 information should be arranged in a priority aligned with work

1.4211 Urgent over important

1.5 My workflow

1.51 Work day time table

Schedule A: I wake up at 9, go to work at 12:30, office hour from 13:30 to 21:30, get home at 22:30 and go to bed at 1 (hopefully fall asleep at 1:30).

Schedule B: I wake up at 8:30, go to work at 9:30, come home at 7, and go to bed at 0:30.

I learn French on sofa at 21:30 for 30 min, and scratch some algorithm at 8:30 for 30 min.

1.52 Tasking

1.521 Monthly role, weekly project

1.522 Keep a worklog, as a task queue and external memory set