Stop Wasting Time - 11 Tools to Double Your Focus - by Ali Abdaal

Quick reminder of some of the most common and popular productivity methods

1. Pomodoro Technique: Use a timer to break work into focused intervals (traditionally 25 minutes), followed by short breaks. This can help maintain concentration over longer periods.
2. Time Tracking: Regularly track the amount of time spent on tasks, either manually or with apps. This awareness can enhance productivity by making it clear where your time is going.
3. Mindfulness: Engage in brief mindfulness exercises to reduce smartphone addiction and improve concentration. While the video doesn't provide detailed methods, it suggests that even short sessions can be beneficial.
4. Distraction Blocking: Use apps to block distracting notifications and websites, or manually turn your phone to grayscale mode to make it less appealing. Alternatively, physically remove your phone from your workspace to avoid interruptions.
5. Gamification and Social Interaction: Incorporate elements of play and social interaction into your work to make it more enjoyable. This could be through background music that fits the mood of the task or organizing co-working sessions with friends or colleagues. Also: ticking off completed tasks from a list is fun.

Change Your Life by Journalling - 10 Powerful Questions - by Ali Abdaal

Some interesting prompts for a self-reflection session, covering the last weeks to months of your life

1. What would you do if money were no object? - This question encourages reflection on passions and desires beyond financial constraints, aiming to uncover true interests and potential paths that might bring fulfillment.
2. What would you like people to say at your funeral? - This prompt urges consideration of the legacy one wishes to leave behind, focusing on the impact on family, friends, coworkers, and those influenced by one's work.
3. If I were to repeat the things I've done this week for the next 10 years, where will I end up? - This question serves as a reflection on current habits and routines, contemplating whether they align with long-term goals and desires.
4. What have I done in the last 2 weeks that has energized me? What has drained my energy? - Known as the energy audit, this prompt helps identify activities that fuel or deplete one's energy, guiding towards more fulfilling and energizing tasks.
5. The Wheel of Life - A holistic life assessment tool that divides life into categories like work, health, relationships, and joy, asking how aligned one's actions are with the desired future in each area.
6. The Odyssey Plan - Involves envisioning three different paths for the future: continuing on the current path, taking a completely different path, and pursuing a radical path, aiming to explore and compare potential life directions.
7. What is the goal, and what is the bottleneck? - This question clarifies objectives and identifies the main obstacles hindering progress, promoting a focus on solutions and strategic actions.
8. Brian Tracy's goal-setting prompt - Involves writing down 10 goals for the next 12 months and identifying the one with the greatest positive impact, encouraging focused action towards achieving it.
9. Do you work for your business, or does your business work for you? - This prompts entrepreneurs to evaluate whether their business is serving their personal and professional goals or if they are being consumed by it.
10. If I knew I was going to die 2 years from now, how would I spend my time? - Encourages reflection on what truly matters, questioning whether current activities align with those priorities and inspiring changes to live more in accordance with one's values.

How I got the strongest I've ever been at 36 years old - by Matt D’Avella

Watch if you’re interested in getting into powerlifting as fast as possible, or if you want to up your personal gym game using some of his learnings

1. Set a Big Goal: Participating in a competition or setting a significant goal provides a clear deadline and motivation, making every training day count.
2. Hire an Expert: Working with a knowledgeable coach can accelerate progress by providing tailored advice, correcting form, and answering questions, which is more effective than self-guided learning.
3. Be Imperfectly Consistent: Adjusting workouts to fit life's unpredictable schedule ensures continued progress, even if not every session is perfect.
4. Practice Progressive Overload: Gradually increasing the weight lifted over time is essential for building strength effectively.
5. Stay Off Social Media: Comparing oneself to fitness influencers can be demotivating. It's more productive to focus on personal progress.
6. Follow a Legit Program: A structured program designed by professionals can lead to better and more consistent gains than a self-assembled plan.
7. Track Everything: Monitoring food intake and workouts helps in understanding how diet and exercise impact fitness goals.
8. Train Without Going to Failure: Avoiding training to the point of failure reduces the risk of injury and may not significantly impact hypertrophy or strength gains compared to stopping just short of failure.
9. Effort Makes a Difference: Intensity and focus during workouts significantly impact results, but maintaining such a high level of effort continuously is not always desirable or sustainable for long-term fitness enjoyment.

how i fixed my attention span - by Answer in Progress

Watch if you’re fed up by your wondering mind and inability to focus. Contains some decent insights, in addition to the usual advice

1. Recognize and Address Distractions: Identify the main sources of external distraction in your life, such as excessive phone use or constant notifications. Take steps to minimize these by deleting unused apps, setting app time limits, muting notifications, and possibly adopting a grayscale display to make your phone less appealing.
2. Manage Internal Distractions: Be aware of internal distractions like passing thoughts or worries that can derail focus. Keep a notebook handy to jot these down for later consideration, allowing you to return your focus to the task at hand without fearing you'll forget important tasks or ideas.
3. Adopt Time Blocking: Use time blocking to organize your day, dedicating specific blocks of time to specific tasks. This helps minimize multitasking, which can dilute focus and efficiency. When planning, consider your energy levels throughout the day and schedule tasks accordingly to take advantage of your peak focus times.
4. Incorporate Meditation: Explore meditation as a tool to enhance your internal ability to manage focus and withstand distractions. Even if you're skeptical, giving meditation a chance through guided apps like Headspace can provide subtle yet significant benefits to your ability to concentrate and stay engaged in activities.
5. Balance External and Internal Strategies: Recognize that while external changes to your environment and habits can help reduce distractions, strengthening your internal focus through practices like meditation provides a more resilient foundation for managing attention. Aim for a balanced approach that combines managing your external environment with enhancing your internal focus capabilities.
6. Embrace the Process: Improving focus and managing distractions is a gradual process that involves trial and error. Be patient with yourself as you experiment with different strategies and find what works best for you. Remember, the goal is not to eliminate all distractions but to develop a more mindful and controlled approach to how you direct your attention.

How to Stop Wasting Your Time - 6 Tips - by muchellb

Ways to stop wasting time that go beyond quick fixes but instead focus on getting a better understanding and therefore control of the underlying factors and triggers

1. Log Your Alerts: Treat your urges to procrastinate as alerts, not commands. By understanding what your alerts are trying to tell you (e.g., boredom, frustration, low energy), you can address the underlying issue rather than succumbing to distraction.
2. Mindful Consumption: Apply the concept of diminishing marginal utility to your consumption of digital content. Regularly rate your enjoyment and mood during activities to become more aware of when the activity becomes less fulfilling, encouraging you to stop earlier.
3. Track Your Time and Mood: Monitor how you spend your time and how it affects your mood, energy, and focus. This can help you identify tasks that make you feel out of control or unenjoyed, contributing to feelings of "time poverty."
4. 'HelloFresh' Your Tasks: Simplify tasks by preparing them like a HelloFresh meal kit. Include tools needed, steps, launch tasks, time estimates, and flow elements to make starting and completing tasks easier and more enjoyable.
5. View Distractions Positively: Treat distractions as opportunities to practice redirecting your focus. Just like in meditation, noticing when you're distracted and choosing to refocus is a skill that improves with practice.
6. Flow Elements in Tasks: Incorporate elements of flow into mundane tasks by setting clear goals, seeking feedback, embracing challenges, and minimizing distractions. This can transform tedious tasks into engaging ones, improving focus and satisfaction.

Throwback: 7 Ways to Maximize Misery 😞 - CGP Grey

Learn how to be miserable. And then do the opposite

1. Stay Still: Avoid physical activity and remain indoors, limiting your movement as much as possible. This passivity can lead to both mental and physical health decline.
2. Screw With Your Sleep: Disrupt your sleep pattern by varying your sleep and wake times, leading to insomnia and reduced mental clarity.
3. Maximize Screen Time: Increase your engagement with screens, particularly before sleep, to disrupt your sleep cycle further and keep your attention fragmented.
4. Stoke Negative Emotions: Focus on news or social media that fuels anger, anxiety, or despair about situations beyond your control, keeping you in a state of perpetual upset.
5. Set Vapid Goals: Pursue vague, unrealistic, or delayed goals that ensure failure or dissatisfaction, undermining any sense of achievement or progress.
6. Pursue Happiness Directly: Aim for a constant state of happiness, which is unattainable, making genuine contentment feel even more out of reach.
7. Follow Your Instincts: Give in to immediate impulses that lead to long-term misery, avoiding actions that require effort but offer real satisfaction or improvement in your life.