10 Tips from 4000 Weeks

 In the appendix of 4000 Weeks, Oliver Burkeman sets out 10 tips:

Those 10 tools are:

• Adopt a ‘fixed volume’ approach to productivity.
  •  keep two to-do lists: one “open” and one “closed”. The closed list should have no more than 10 things on it. As you finish things on the closed list, you can add stuff from the open list to it.
  • Another strategy is to fix time limits for your daily work in advance. Ensure that you don’t work beyond those limits.
• Serialise, serialise, serialise.
  • Focus on one big project at a time (or, at most, one work project and non-work project). Don’t move on until you’ve finished that project.
• Focus on what you’ve already completed, not just on what’s left to complete.
• • Keep a “done” list that you fill up with accomplishments throughout the day, no matter how small. There is good evidence that small wins can be motivating.
• Seek out novelty in the mundane.
  • find novelty in relatively mundane things. Suggestions include: going on an unplanned walk, taking a different route to work, taking up photography, birdwatching or nature drawing, keeping a journal, and playing “I Spy” with a child.
• Be a ‘researcher’ in relationships.
  • When you’re faced with a challenging or boring moment, be curious. Rather than trying to achieve a particular outcome, try to figure out who the other person is.
  • You can take this attitude to everything and embrace the uncertainty in life. 
• Cultivate instantaneous generosity.
  • When you feel an impulse to be generous – giving a compliment, making a donation – act on it. (from Joseph Goldstein)
  • Sure, your impulsive act might not be as good as if you’d done it later after more consideration. But it’s better than not being generous at all, which is most likely to happen if you put it off. 
• Practise doing nothing.
  • If you can’t bear the discomfort of not acting, you’re more likely to make poor choices simply to feel like you’re doing something.
  • Train yourself to let the things around you – your experience, and the people and things in the world – be as they are.
  • Shinzen Young teaches a “Do Nothing” meditation where you set a timer (for only 5-10 minutes initially), sit down, and stop trying to do anything. This means not focusing on your breathing, not thinking, and not criticising yourself for doing things.