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Effortless personal productivity (or how I learned to love my monkey mind)

jakobgreenfeld.com

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Re: Effortless personal productivity (or how I learned to love my monkey mind)

#41

Post by fellowniusmonk »

_benj wrote: post #2

I loved the article! Over the years and after burning out I’ve learned observe my state of mind, but mostly for the distracted mode, and when I finding in it I’ll just stop whatever focus work I’m doing because very few good things come out during that mental mode, and a ton of frustration is built. The part that I haven’t been able to accomplish is a good use of the low filter mode. For me in this mode I have little…

Try writing rhymes and poetry on your phone, I've found low filter mode great works well for that and is more rewarding than most alternatives.

Re: Effortless personal productivity (or how I learned to love my monkey mind)

#42

Post by fizzbar »

godDLL wrote: post #38
Tim25659 wrote: post #21

When I am stressed out monkey mind will get stronger and stronger I will be out of control..

I put my monkey in a cage. I went around and logged the things I happen to be doing in a spreadsheet for three weeks. Assuming those are mostly the things I'll be doing going forward I've categorized them into action-cards. Those have groupings by space (home, out, job) and time (night, noon, morning). One card is titled BURN. If you play that card you can do whatever for 25 minutes, but you can't play two in a row.…

thank you for sharing such a detailed and simple workflow!

Re: Effortless personal productivity (or how I learned to love my monkey mind)

#43

Post by abledon »

zackmorris wrote: post #40

I had an unusual experience this weekend while I was sick. After laying around for 2 days with brain fog, I woke up early Sunday morning and watched TV, checked social media, etc, but was sick of consuming information and had the strangest feeling that I wanted to work on something productive but my body aches wouldn't let me concentrate. I also felt like.. playing video games? I haven't had the urge to play video ga…

you may like the youtube channel "HealthyGamerGG", its the intersection of gaming and meditation/psychology

Re: Effortless personal productivity (or how I learned to love my monkey mind)

#44

Post by jfarmer »

“The great thing, then, in all education, is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy. It is to fund and capitalize our acquisitions, and live at ease upon the interest of the fund.”

— William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890)

Re: Effortless personal productivity (or how I learned to love my monkey mind)

#45

Post by serverlessmom »

zackmorris wrote: post #40

I had an unusual experience this weekend while I was sick. After laying around for 2 days with brain fog, I woke up early Sunday morning and watched TV, checked social media, etc, but was sick of consuming information and had the strangest feeling that I wanted to work on something productive but my body aches wouldn't let me concentrate. I also felt like.. playing video games? I haven't had the urge to play video ga…

Thank you for sharing your experience. I find that it mirrors my own in many ways. I especially relate to the idea that life goals are accomplished when we dedicate time to ourselves and are adapt to being more flexible with the patterns in which our minds move. I also have learned over time that through the use of caffeine, a beer, or having a smoke I can help shift my mind into other modes. The same goes with exercise and meditation or sitting down to take a break for five minutes and be mindful about where my mind is at and what I need to do for myself versus others.

Re: Effortless personal productivity (or how I learned to love my monkey mind)

#46

Post by titanomachy »

teekert wrote: post #10

Hmm, finally some tricks that I could actually see myself use! Especially the healthy intellectual “snacks”. I mean I can get stuck on HN for a long time, but to be honest I could also do a course that just requires me to listen and eat a (physical) snack or something. I'm still hoping that a some point this leads to a control over the states, but maybe I should give up that dream :) "I also made so many mistakes tha…

Step 1 (develop awareness) is hard. I did a long meditation retreat and it helped a lot, although it still takes a lot of effort to integrate that back into living.

Re: Effortless personal productivity (or how I learned to love my monkey mind)

#47

Post by brimble »

zackmorris wrote: post #40

I had an unusual experience this weekend while I was sick. After laying around for 2 days with brain fog, I woke up early Sunday morning and watched TV, checked social media, etc, but was sick of consuming information and had the strangest feeling that I wanted to work on something productive but my body aches wouldn't let me concentrate. I also felt like.. playing video games? I haven't had the urge to play video ga…

On rare occasions, I'm left with both wife and kids out of the house for a few days. Just about every time I lose the first (non-work) day entirely to video games. Then the next day I'm just... done with games for a good long while, and start doing productive things because I want to. It's like I have a fucking-around-uselessly tank that's never full (near-empty, in fact) usually, so most of my free time goes to worthless activities like games or bad TV or—ahem—certain websites of dubious value, but as soon as I'm allowed to fill it up, I don't need to "add more" for a while. I was very surprised the first time this happened, because I fully intended to waste all of the time, but when it happened I simply did not want to. Same thing happened the next time. Seems to just be how I operate, which kinda sucks because 360+ days per year that "tank" is both very demanding of time, and yet unsatisfied.

Relatedly, I think the worst thing about work is that it's the same shit day after day, week after week, month after month. Left to my own devices I would still write code—but, like, hyper-focused, a few scattered weeks per year, and in between I'd probably hardly touch a keyboard. It becomes a draining grind when that's all you do, with only infrequent and never-long-enough breaks. Keyboard and screen. Again. And again tomorrow. Indefinitely. Ugh.

Re: Effortless personal productivity (or how I learned to love my monkey mind)

#48

Post by serverlessmom »

bitexploder wrote: post #19
kache_ wrote: post #14

I disagree that programming isn't done well in robot mode. Lots of things like test coverage & braindead text editing doesn't require analytical thinking. Hell, analytical thinking is overrated. Just pick a direction and go!

Cal Newport essentially calls this "Shallow" vs. "Deep" work and I think it is a more useful sorting practice of chores for me. I know I can intensely focus only so many hours in a day. The rest of my day is structured around that notion. That deep work, every day, is sacred. Shallow work happens around my scheduled, uninterrupted deep work blocks. Shallow work is everything else. While it is helpful to let the sub-c…

This is a really powerful concept and something I wish we taught to new comers to the computer science track and in web development bootcamps. Of course, it is helpful advice for anyone too :).

The attitude that makes much of the foundation of the culture of the technology industry, that constant push of "produce produce produce" makes it hard for web developers to step back from their work and take the time to know themselves and their processes. I often find new students stuck in shallow work mode because they can't stop thinking about the deadline and "get it done" supercedes the ability to "learn it well".

Re: Effortless personal productivity (or how I learned to love my monkey mind)

#49

Post by titanomachy »

madmod wrote: post #32

This sounds like good advice but the writer clearly has a lot more flexibility in their schedule than the average person.

The average childless software engineer who works from home has a fair bit of flexibility in how they use their time.

Re: Effortless personal productivity (or how I learned to love my monkey mind)

#50

Post by serverlessmom »

reddit_clone wrote: post #37
awb wrote: post #7

In the same vein, here’s a fun illustrated guide to procrastination (and fixing it) by Tim Urban: https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrasti... And accompanying TED Talk: https://youtu.be/arj7oStGLkU

That is so true it is not even funny. But the essay(s) don't mention ADHD at all. Is that intentional ? May be some dopomine deprived people don't even have a choice other than to embrace the monkey :-(

Over time I have definitely come to see my ADHD as a blessing and a curse. I feel really lucky that I responded so well to medication, though sometimes I still feel so scattered I lack total enjoyment with whatever projects I work on.

So when I really need my monkey to to take the back seat for a while I can use medication.

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