Producer vs. Consumer

A good read also: http://paulgraham.com/addiction.html

I just finished reading "The Power of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential...in Business and in Life" [http://www.amazon.com/Power-Less-Limiting-Yourself-Essential...] and this advice is spot on.

In that book, Leo recommends your days 3 MITs (Most Important Tasks). These tasks are derived from your Goals, and Projects lists (He recommends that you start with only ONE goal for year, for e.g Learn Spanish, and break it down into 6-month goals, 1-month goals, and weekly goals). Furthermore, we all have projects on our plates, but he recommends that we

  1. Pick only 3 projects (of which one should be tied to your ONE goal)
  2. Finish ALL 3 projects before putting 3 more on the plate.

These projects (ideally those things that require more than 1 To-do item, otherwise they would be just a To-do item :D), along with your goals should drive your To-do list (We all have other items on a day to day basis, and these do show up on your things to do, but more about that in a minute).

With all that in place, you should, on a day-to-day basis establish the 3 things you that will take you one step closer to your GOAL, or completion of a project - These MITs (decided on the night before, or first thing in the morning) are the first things you do everyday. That way, you know you have knocked out important items without having the day, or your manager, or your email throw you off.

He even recommends checking your email at 10 am (if possible, or later than the absolute first thing in the morning, because if you are like most people, your email usually has a few To-dos in it).

I have just incorporated his advice and am attempting to apply the same and I have to say that I feel so much less cluttered and far more focused. Knowing that I am doing what I need to do and then relegating myself to the not-so-important tasks later on the day seems to free up so much of the internal chatter in my head.

[Disclaimer - The link above is an a non-affiliate link, and I have no connection with the author other than having just read his book]

Probably pushing the comparison a bit, but The Matrix is here. Only, we are not a source of direct energy but glazed eyeballs glued to television; to sticky content sites, checking news sources and aggregators to see if there's anything new in the last five minutes; succumbing to the urge to find the latest thing for Twitter or HN or Reddit to gain artificial scores; sitting through CoD intermission for the next round rather than quitting; getting worked up as the mainstream papers inflate another trivial issue to incite response.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbXgsMxOPtI A quick google revealed this which seems to be the video in question (or relevant to "saying no to science" by invoking God, at least.)