Category: Productivity

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Most Plausible Theory Yet: Attention Hijacking

Obviously I’ve had a lot of theories as to what is causing some of my difficulties, ranging from pretty likely to absurd. In many cases, I was quite hopeful that I had found my true explanation. Once I’ve figured it out, I plan to go through all of my posts and assemble a master list of everything I’ve theorized and tested.

It’s been a little while since I’ve had any confidence in any of my ideas, but I finally feel, once again, like I’m on to something.

I’m reading the book Stolen Focus by Johann Hari and almost everything in it so far has resonated really strongly with me.

While thinking through my own life, I’ve realized that I’ve gotten myself into an unsustainable habit of constant task switching coupled with little to no downtime where I have no active tasks.

I’ll walk through both of those now.

I first approached this topic from where I feel I’m doing the most harm: during work.

Early on, I came to realize that work is where things seem to go wrong. I might have a day that’s starting well, but by the time I’m done with work, I’ve got just as much brain fog and lethargy as ever. Often, it sets in almost immediately. I do not believe this to be a case of just getting naturally worn out.

So I put a lot more thought into how I’m doing things.

I’ve realized that I am constantly task switching. When I’m going through emails, understandably this is going to happen. Most don’t take long, so it’s just one after the other.

But this part is understandable.

What isn’t is the fact that I basically leave my Gmail window open all day, and I also leave my Whatsapp window open all day.

The moment I have any downtime (which is constantly because the internet in 2026 is almost unusably slow across the board), I check for new emails, I look at my Whatsapp messages, I respond.

I’ve trained myself that I need to be doing something at all moments, and having to wait for anything feels unbearable without replacing the first task with another.

As a result, everything is way more difficult, but I also feel like I’m sort of just fracturing my mind throughout the entire day. It’s never able to really focus on anything.

Even when I’m “done” with emails, the moment I sit down to do any other harder task, I still have Gmail and Whatsapp open and I’m constantly glancing between them. I’m absolutely frying my ability to focus properly on one thing.

I think this, by itself, could explain a huge part of why I’m feeling the way I am.

It’s also very consistent with my history of feeling better during and immediately after trips; particularly trips in which I’m moving around a lot and don’t have time to be working all day or using my phone.

Generally, the good feeling quickly fades as I go back to my old routine.

So I think the constant task switching is probably the number one problem.

As a sub-point of that, I also think that the tasks I’ve been spending time on lately have also been pretty detrimental. It has been almost entirely putting out fires with things breaking as a result of email deliverability or bot attacks on e-commerce sites.

I’ve already resolved to put some extra things in place for most sites to proactively prevent these, and hopefully that will help. But by nature, these types of things are frustrating. They tend to be largely systemic problems in fragile systems I have very little control over. They are also very difficult to articulate to clients. If things go well, they don’t even know. If they go poorly, they blame me even if it isn’t my fault.

So I’ll do what I can there, but it’s not the main problem.

Now I want to talk about the second main issue, is that I feel I don’t spend nearly enough time doing nothing.

I think this concept is starting to rise in the mainstream consciousness, but it’s also addressed in depth in the book.

Basically, I’ve tried to fill every moment of my time with something. And if I feel I don’t have the energy to actually do anything, typically I’ll just consume content. TV shows, YouTube, etc.

Just like most people, I’ve become uncomfortable just doing nothing. But that’s exactly what I need to be doing much of the time.

I haven’t been giving myself appropriate time to just switch to the Default Mode Network and let my brain do its thing.

It has important work to do while I’m awake but not switched on to a task, and I’ve been depriving it of that. I need more time walking without music, being in nature, sitting and looking outside, cooking or eating without anything on, and just resting.

I feel like if you don’t get this, it makes you anxious and fractured which then makes it even harder to get this. It’s harder to let go and just relax.

It’s a vicious cycle.

And as a third and final category, I feel that I’m not getting enough flow either. I think largely as a consequence of these first two problems, in fact. But also just because I’m not often sitting down and working on an important problem or task.

I think it’s probably a fairly necessary state to be in on a regular basis, and I’ve gotten it very little.

Okay, so I’ve determined that these things are probably having a very negative impact on my life and well-being. What now?

I need to make a plan. I need to set up some guidelines to follow to avoid falling into the same traps.

To that end, here is what I propose.

  1. Whatsapp and Gmail are closed unless I’m actively planning to use them.

    I can’t just have them sitting idly open at the times when I’m not messaging. Otherwise I see those little notification icons and it distracts me constantly.

    I’ve noticed that this will happen even if I don’t plan to respond right away: my brain constantly goes back to them and is trying to focus on them even if I won’t let it. That’s very clearly terrible.

  2. Pick designated times to deal with these.

    For Whatsapp, I think I should generally have it closed and not use it at all other than maybe once in the morning, once after lunch, and then whenever after work.

    For Gmail, I’ll have to figure out the best rhythm, but I’m thinking I’ll go through email once in the morning like usual (though I may investigate doing something else first), perhaps once before workout/lunch, finally once after lunch.

    The rest of the time, it should be closed and not even visible.

  3. Make time for flow activities.

    I need to do my best to incorporate flow activities into every day. It could be writing, focusing on one hard work problem, or some other task. I’ll have to figure out over time how to best do this, but I know that what I’m doing now is insufficient.

    When doing these activities, I need to be totally disconnected from everything else. No distractions. Ideally, have my phone elsewhere.

  4. Sleep with my phone in a different room.

    I need to start charging it elsewhere. I don’t want it to be close enough to feel like a distraction when trying to sleep.

    I’m considering getting another device (or just using my old phone) just for studying and translations. Something without any messaging of any kind, or email. It will just be for language learning, basically. I’ll need to look into that.

  5. More downtime, shooting for at least 1-2 hours per day.

    This is time spent with no task. It could be walking around the neighborhood, possibly kayaking or hiking, sitting down relaxing, cooking, eating, showering, etc.

    I just need some time when I’m not doing anything productive.

  6. More time spent doing just one thing, like cooking, lifting, editing, etc.

    I tend to stack lots of activities, like cooking with a language lesson, weight training and editing photos in the downtime (still not sure if I should keep doing this one or not), and more.

    I think I need to spend more time with just one thing.

  7. Reduce as many notifications as possible on my phone and elsewhere.

    It seems like the vast majority are a huge waste of time and attention. I need to aggressively opt-out, disable, etc. Only notifications which are vitally important should come through.

  8. I need to spend more time with my phone elsewhere.

    Particularly when not working, I should spend more time with my phone elsewhere. It doesn’t need to be on my all the time.

    I want to break the thought process that my phone is an extension of myself or that it’s always there for distraction. I want that to not be true.

 

I’ll probably revise this list over time and perhaps add to it, but this seems like a great start and these things should help a ton.

It’s hard for me to believe at the moment that these issues aren’t the primary cause of the problems I’ve identified. I’m actually pretty confident I’ll see some pretty significant improvement with these in place.

I’m actually hoping strongly that this is the main problem, because unlike many other causes, I can actually do something about most of these.

I’m going to try to keep all of this up and then report back on results. I’m very curious to see how these changes impact me and on what timeline. It’s possible some improvement will come almost immediately, and others may take some time.

 

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I Should Have Easy Days from Time to Time

I’ve obviously discussed the importance of not getting burnt out, and easing off the throttle when I’m feeling worn out.

But a proactive approach might be considerably more effective.

I think that sometimes (as much as every week or two), I should have a day where I have very little planned and don’t feel the need to be super productive. I can just do whatever I feel like doing.

I have a tendency to load up my to-do list if it looks like the day is going to be pretty easy. I want to capture as much productivity as I can every single day.

But if I do that every day… It just sort of feels mechanical. Like I’m a machine whose only purpose is productivity, and like I need to fill all of my time.

Neither things are true.

The biggest thing is that I don’t ever want to feel like I’m lacking in time. I want it to always feel like a plentiful resource.

I think when I have a day where I have almost nothing planned and can just do whatever I want, it sort of resets that sense in my mind that time is scarce.

Which, in turn, I suspect greatly reduces anxiety among other things.

So today wasn’t too difficult. I’ll get some house and yard things done anyway, but they don’t sound bad at all so I’ll still have fun.

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I Need to Write About Anything I’m Thinking About Consistently

I realized today that there are tons of things just sort of… Swirling around in my mind at any given time, and it feels a bit like I’m putting in a monumental effort to simply keep them in a sort of queue.

I think there is a cost associated with any effort of that nature, and over time, it really starts to bog down my brain.

I’m sure I’ve read about the legitimacy of such a thought and, from what I understand, it is actually valid.

The solution?

For anything that has popped up in my head or that I feel like I’m trying to hold on to: write about it! Here.

I’ll come back to it.

The moment I write about it, a bit of a weight is lifted. I no longer need to remember it. Obviously, for some things, they need to “cook” for a bit and those are going to stay in my head for a while.

But for other things, I just need to dedicate some actual time to sit and write about it, to put in the thought required to resolve it, and then either act on it if applicable or forget about it.

And that’s it.

It makes no sense to be dragging all sorts of mental baggage around with me all the time, scattering my attention, focus, and brainpower.

I think it’s important to come to this blog almost every day and write about, really, whatever is on my mind.

Things that are seeking some kind of resolution will get there faster, things that require action will come to the surface and become actionable, and things that I’m ruminating on will be given enough thought to resolve and then forget.

Like in many areas of my life, I think my threshold for quality is too high. I have this idea that I shouldn’t do something at all unless it’s great.

But this blog is almost entirely for me. I don’t need every post to be incredible. Sometimes it’s just about writing it.

And I’m arguing now that, for many things, the main value is in writing it and getting it out of my head.

So going forward, I want to be way more open to just word vomit and spilling out my brain into blog posts with no specific purpose.

The quality might go down but the clarity of my thinking is likely to improve. And that’s the important thing.

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I Have Tons of Time to Do What I Want – It’s All Relative Though

I often find myself lamenting that I don’t have more time for my hobbies or other non-work activities. Ironically, I find myself working harder and more often in an attempt to get myself to a financial place where I no longer need to work as much and have more time for hobbies.

It’s all relative, though.

To someone working two full-time jobs (or any parent), 15 minutes in a day is lots of free time.

The amount of free time I have is probably in the top 1% of employed people my age. And in addition to having the time at all, I also have an incredible amount of flexibility with it so that I can really make the most of it.

And that’s all amazing.

But it’s just funny how quickly we take for granted… Literally anything good.

I’ve found myself more and more envisioning a future where AI disrupts my industry to such an extent that I no longer have a livable income from my business. And I’ve realized just how much I take for granted.

And this is one of those things, specifically. Yes, I could have more free time. But like… Not that much more. And it’s not like having a little extra free time is going to drastically change my life.

I think I just need to be more efficient with the time I do have, and consider cutting some things out if I don’t feel like they are providing value to me.

So this is just a note to myself to be thankful for these things. Whether or not they last forever, they are still objectively good.

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I Want to Play More Guitar and Generally Shift my Time Focus

I’m just about done with my 3 week Asia trip, and I feel like my perspectives and priorities have changed a bit.

Most of the most rewarding experiences I had involved playing guitar or performing music (jamming with musicians in Kyoto, playing a guitar at a bar near Nagano, Karaoke in Tokyo and Taipei, playing Cajon in Taipei at open mic night). It made me realize I’d really like to invest lots of time into improving. I’d like to get really good.

And I’ve done just fine maintaining my business with an average of fewer than 2 hours per day spent on it. Which means I should have an incredible amount of free time on my hands.

I need to focus on practice and learning vs. just “being good”, because I think that will make it more fun and ultimately lead to better results.

I’m told that 3 hours per day is probably the most you should ever play and it will yield the best results. I don’t need to play that much every day but I might as well shoot for close to it. Maybe even just try it for a while and see how things change.

I might even buy a new acoustic guitar that’s a little more standard to play and go from there. My current ones are unusual.

I’ll focus on fundamentals and hopefully also start playing with people again. I think that would be fun. Maybe do open mic nights.

But I’d say that overall, I’ve had a bit of a mindset shift on how I spend my time. I got the impression while traveling that in these places there is far less of a focus on money and productivity, which is great. I’m realizing more and more that our system in the US is just sort of sick, and much of it has been imposed upon us by billionaires trying to create a culture of wage slaves to enrich themselves.

And I want no part of it.

Obviously, I have to plan for my future. And my job has only improved over time and paid me more, and I’m incredibly thankful for it.

But I need to realize that it’s a means to an end, and that I need to take a step back and really be honest about how I’m spending my time with it. I need to really focus on making it as efficient as possible and spend as little of my own time on it as possible so that it doesn’t interfere too much with the rest of my life.

And I also just need to review how I’m actually spending my time. I think I’m still wasting far too much time on silly activities like entertainment. I’m not being intentional enough.

Part of the problem is that I lack the energy to work on things that benefit me all the time. I may need to improve my sleep for that or figure out other things.

But I should also change how I view some of my activities. I should have times when I’m playing guitar just for fun and I don’t need to focus on learning or improvement. It can be low-energy and restorative. Just play songs I know if I’m lacking in energy.

Anyway, that’s what I hope to do going forward and I’m thankful for this trip that it helped me see that. Hopefully I won’t just slide backwards going forward.

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It’s Burnout… And Basically Everything Else

I’m only maybe 5 days into relaxing a bit since developing my theory that I’m essentially just burnt out and I’m feeling… Great.

I haven’t been super productive, though I have spent lots of time on the important things I need to do in my business and also have done tons of reading and playing guitar (which I’m enjoying much more).

Overall, I’m just feeling like how I should be feeling, I think. It’s great.

Obviously I don’t automatically feel great, but the floor is way higher, I enjoy things more, the brain fog is pretty much gone, and I have way more energy.

I randomly decided to go on a run today and my pace was for about an 8:38 mile, vs my most recent runs previously of 9:22 or more. And I felt good doing it. I felt light.

And really all I’ve done is relax a bit more and have some flexibility in what I get done.

Nothing else major has changed.

So I think really, this is it.

What’s funny is that the first post I randomly read today before writing this was one from March in which I specifically determine that I think I’m burnt out. I had forgotten about that entirely. It’s funny how things work out.

I eventually dismissed that idea at the time, because I realized my CPAP settings were not good and were definitely hurting me.

Which is probably true. And would make them the biggest contributor to my burnout.

You see, I think basically everything I’ve brought up here as an idea has contributed in one way or another to the burnout. Most of them affect how I sleep, rest, or otherwise recover. That’s why my sleep apnea has had a massive impact, and why when I was most burnt-out, I felt most like I did before it was treated.

So over time, I’ve slowly fixed and optimized so many parts of my life and I think those will continue to serve me well. And I might not have ever figured them out if I didn’t feel bad to start.

But now I feel like I can solve the overarching problem while reaping the benefits of everything else I learned.

I think that basically, I need to just pay attention to how I’m feeling. If I’m getting really stressed, I can’t just use that stress to power through for days at a time. I need to occasionally back off the workload and take some time to recover.

I may also need to figure something else out for my mornings. If I’m waking up past 8, going on a walk, studying, and reading for a while, then breakfast, THEN trying to do all of my important work tasks for the day AND workout all before lunch… It just won’t work.

So maybe I’ll plan to do emails and then just the ONE important work thing and work out, and then lunch. And then do the other work things afterwards.

And if things get crazy, I need to be open to working out after work.

But the important thing is to just monitor how I’m feeling and make adjustments as needed. I don’t want to get burnt out again. It’s not a good feeling.

I’m mostly just excited that I seem to have finally figured it out. It’s very encouraging, and I’m far more optimistic for the future now.

I think at my lowest point, I really started to give up hope that things would improve. I was feeling pretty hopeless.

But now it’s back! And I’m excited for the future again.

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Of an Abundance of Time

I swear I already wrote this post, but I think it might just be that I have a note to write it laying out and just never got around to it.

I’ve determined that it’s very important for me to feel like I have an abundance of time. The moment I feel like I don’t, I get anxious and unhappy.

Much of this connects to general anxiety and the rest mostly relates to something I’ve brought up before which is that “freedom” has historically been a value I subconsciously lived by. If anything at all impinges upon my freedom (in this case by taking up too much time) I start to get stressed because I’m no longer living up to my values.

This has caused me to resist beneficial routine and avoid committing to good things that would take a lot of time.

But at the same time, it’s not all bad. I think I’ve always understood the premise of this blog post at some level and – as a result – have typically not remained in a state where I have no free time for too long.

Over the last year, on average, I’ve improved my energy levels greatly and have also initiated two different acquisitions in my business. The result is that I have more work to do but am also capable of working more.

Some of that is great. But it can’t go on forever. I don’t want to immediately expend all of my new-found energy on work.

Instead, I need to consistently spend some of it on improvements to my business so I can outsource more of the work or make processes more efficient so I’m not doing as much.

As I gain more energy, I want to also feel like I have more freedom with my time to do whatever I want. I need to plan days and weeks where not much is going on.

Because at the end of the day I’m just much happier when I have that abundance mindset with regard to time.

 

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I Need to Redouble Efforts to Avoid Phone Time Wasters

I’ve let myself start to develop bad habits again with my phone. This time, it has mostly been Reddit. For whatever reason, I guess I decided again that it was important for me to be kept up-to-date on what’s happening in the world every single day.

There’s way more on Reddit than just current events, though, so of course things spiraled.

I’ve wasted so much time lately on that website. And the worst part about it is that not only does it just completely waste the time used to view it, but it also seems to sap me of my energy and make me less productive and happy beyond that.

So it’s got to stop.

I’m making it my main priority right now to avoid that completely. From now on, I plan to really just avoid scrolling Reddit completely. I also want to spend minimal time on YouTube, though that’s far more under control thanks to my Screen Zen app.

I think the importance of these things is implicit, and I’ve talked about them at length in the past, so I don’t need to rehash all that. I just want to document it here so that I can keep track of it and establish my resolve to really take it seriously.

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In All My Hobbies I’ve Opted to Nominally Do One Hard Thing – At the Expense of Fundamentals

I always hated “fundamentals”. I always wanted to just jump to doing the really difficult, impressive stuff so that I could prove I was good at something.

I remember with skateboarding, I always struggled with some core stuff, and instead of just perfecting each thing one at a time, I would spend all of my time trying to land – for example, a 360 flip. It’s a very difficult trick, and every so often – only from a standstill – I could land it.

It looked bad and I could never really get the hang of doing it consistently, but sometimes I could do it. And that made me feel like I was good at the sport.

I wasn’t though. I was just ignoring all the small pieces that were required to get good.

Or on the trampoline. I did get good at basic flips, but then I started doing backflips with a full 360 in them. Once again, it wasn’t pretty. But I could do it. And it impressed people and made me feel like I was really good at it.

And then guitar. I never practiced with a metronome, I didn’t learn any music theory, my rhythm was bad, and just so many of the fundamentals were totally foreign to me.

But I could play one of the more complicated Stevie Ray Vaughan licks. Not very well, obviously, but I could play the notes and I could do it quickly.

I think with all these things, there has been sort of a desperate thread to prove (to myself?) that I’m good at something. I skip steps to just get to the hard stuff because otherwise I feel like I’m just not that great.

And I also just get bogged down in the details of things and it feels overwhelming. I’d rather just go to something cooler and more showy.

I never put any of this together until just recently. The irony is that, in my quest to prove I was good at things, I neglected the very fundamentals which would have enabled my actual success.

It’s sort of frustrating looking back now and seeing how counter-productive it was. I should have drilled in the fundamentals and mastered them so that I could proceed from there with a good base.

Even now, I’m just realizing I do it with weight training, too. I’ve neglected all stretching and all core stability exercises. Instead, I’ve focused hard on obvious measures of success like my bench press numbers.

And then just the other day I injured my back again, ostensibly as a result of not building up core strength. In this case, I got burned by not building up a literal base of stability from which to expand my strength.

In work, I’d much rather take on major acquisitions than slowly build up my client base with strong business fundamentals.

So the question is: what do I do now?

The first step is obviously what I’m doing here: acknowledging the issue. Now that I’m actually aware of it, I can watch out for it going forward. I can pay attention and notice where it might be counter-productive.

I’m really going hard at the guitar again, and it’s important that I do things differently this time. I actually have been focusing a lot more on the fundamentals this time around, so perhaps I have already started to improve. But I do really need to dial that in and realize that being rock-solid on the basics will make the harder stuff way easier.

And I should obviously apply that elsewhere, to. Particularly with my business. I need to look for all the ways in which I’m neglecting some of the basics and really start to work on them. I already sense that there are tons of areas in which I need to improve.

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I Need to Totally Recalibrate How I View and Experience Things – Especially Being Alone

I’ve often mentioned here how I’d like to sort of get away from all social media and all silly entertainment, and I finally feel now like I’ve pretty much done that. YouTube had long since been the holdout, but I’ve been using the Screen Zen app and it has successfully gotten rid of the habit.

It’s not that I don’t ever use YouTube now, but the app basically just bugs me to get off it, and I do. So I went from averaging probably almost 2 hours per day on YouTube down to maybe 10 minutes per day. Which is great!

But I feel like a lot of wiring in my brain is being reworked.

I’ve been practicing a ton of guitar and reading a lot. And… Not much else, beyond work and normal, in-person socializing.

What I spend my time on has seen a massive shift away from mindless entertainment and far more onto productive practicing and reading in other languages. Both are things I’ve wanted to prioritize, and now I am.

But I think it necessitates a recalibration of many things. Some of this will happen naturally, and some I probably need to put some thought into.

Historically, almost any time I found myself home alone on a weekday (or worse: weekend), I found myself feeling very lonely and itching for some kind of distraction.

And I always found that distraction: mostly in mindless entertainment.

Over the years, any time I felt that tinge of restlessness or loneliness, I would just turn to YouTube or just watching movies or shows, and I could successfully ignore it.

But now I’m not doing that. The feeling is still there, but I’m channeling that energy into practicing things and reading.

Whereas in the past I never saw those as pleasurable activities, I feel like they are slowly becoming so as more and more time goes by and I get away from any social media or entertainment addiction.

I’ve heard a lot about “dopamine resets,” which may be largely nonsense as a concept. But while there may be no way to “reset” things in one go, I think that if I can avoid all of the mindless entertainment as an ongoing state that it will greatly increase my enjoyment of good, healthy things.

Since it’s all still kind of new, I don’t know for sure, but that certainly feels like how things are going.

So I’ll keep paying attention to that and see where it gets me.

I’ll also work on avoiding giving into any temptation when I feel that boredom or loneliness or… Whatever.

I think being bored is a gift. Maybe nothing productive or healthy sounds fun in a moment, and that’s okay. Maybe I should just be bored for once.

I don’t need to be stimulated every second of every day.

We’ll see how things go in the future, but I’m hopeful they will keep improving in this area.