I think there's an obvious but not very useful way to address this, which is to simply advise that one should preserve some empty space in one's diary each day and then see what comes up to fill it.
The reality is that such a space is virtually impossible to maintain and is, at the least, very antagonistic toward the process by which one prioritizes those things that pay the most dividends across the most domains in one's life. That's because, inevitably, there are more things than can be done than there is time to do. If all the things that are left undone are things that advance multiple projects in meaningful ways, it's always going to be hard-to-impossible to choose to leave those undone while an empty slot sits in one's diary against some speculative gain that may arise from leaving it there. Cory On 11/08/2017 03:45 AM, Udhay Shankar N wrote: > Interesting article by Cory. This is something I've been thinking about as > well: the need to engineer some some *slack* into everyting you do, as > over-optimising (which is usually optimising the wrong variable, or > possibly prematurely optimising the right one) can have various adverse > effects in various domains: > > - Financial: e.g not leaving any cash in the bank account as it is all in > various investments can be bothersome when you have sudden need. Today is a > particularly interesting date to be talking about such a situation, for > folks in India at least. :) > > - "Productivity" e.g filling your day with busy work or even "important" > work back to back. > > - "Leisure" e.g feeling the need to fill every minute of your weekend or > holiday > > - Childraising e.g "classes" tuitions, camps &c &c > > All of which is another way of restating one of my favourite phrases: What > are you optimising for? > > Thoughts? > > Udhay > > http://locusmag.com/2017/11/cory-doctorow-how-to-do-everything-lifehacking-considered-harmful/ > > Cory Doctorow: How to Do Everything (Lifehacking Considered Harmful) > November 6, 2017 > > I was there when “lifehacking” was born. It was the 11th of February, 2004, > at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, held in a giant conference > hotel in San Diego. I was on the committee for ETech (as we called it) and > I had lobbied hard for the inclusion of a talk called “Life Hacks: Tech > Secrets of Overprolific Alpha Geeks” by Danny O’Brien, a technology > columnist and former standup comedian who is also a good friend (I am now > godfather to his daughter, Ada). I’d watched Danny compiling his research > for the talk and I knew it would be a great one. > > I liveblogged his presentation, because this was before lifehacking, but > after liveblogging (if only barely). Danny described a research project in > which he interviewed “overprolific” tech workers who had a reputation for > doing a lot of things at once, and reported on their commonalities. My > notes on the talk are still live at <www.craphound.com/lifehacksetcon04.txt>, > but the long and short of them was that all of these super-nerds were > really good at one or two flexible tools (ranging from Excel spreadsheets > to the programming language Python), and they used those tools to automate > many of the processes in their life. They also all used some kind of > master, monster to-do list and file-of-useful-pasted-snippets. > > I recognized some of my own working habits in the description, and, more > importantly, acquired some useful tips. After all, I was one of those > really techie people who did a lot of different things at the same time: > writing novels, working for an activist group, editing a blog, sometimes > even having a life. One intriguing takeaway from the talk was a > recommendation to read David Allen’s 2001 book Getting Things Done, an > instant classic in the “personal productivity” genre (this was after the > productivity genre, but still before lifehacking). > > Allen’s book is a fantastic and inspiring read. The core of his philosophy > is to recognize that there are more things in the world that you want to do > than you could do, and that, in the absence of a deliberate approach to > this conundrum, you are likely to default to doing things that are easy to > scratch off your to-do list, which are also the most trivial. After a > lifetime of this, you’ll have accomplished a lot of very little. > > Allen counsels deliberate, mindful prioritization of this list, jettisoning > things on the basis that they are less satisfying or important than the > other things you’d like to do – even if those other things are harder, more > time consuming and less likely to result in a satisfying chance to scratch > an item off the list. > > This resonated with me and, by 2004, I’d bought and given away half a dozen > copies of Getting Things Done and put its method in place. I even had a > chance to sit down with Allen in 2007 and talk about how the web fit into > his method. > > It’s been more than a decade since I took up Allen’s method and started > lifehacking (as the kids say), and I have a report from the field. > > The past 14 years have regularly featured junctures where I had to get rid > of something I liked doing so I could do something I liked doing more. Some > of that was low-hanging fruit (I haven’t watched TV regularly in more than > a decade), but after getting rid of the empty calories in my activity diet, > I had to start making hard choices. > > In retrospect, I observe that the biggest predictor of whether an activity > surviving winnowing is whether it paid off in two or more of the aspects of > my life and career. If something made me a better blogger – but not a > better novelist and activist – it went. The more parts of my life were > implicated in an activity, the more likely I was to keep the activity in my > daily round. > > Some of these choices were tough. I have all but given up on re-reading > books, despite the undeniable pleasure and value to understanding the > authors’ craft, which is easier to unpick on subsequent readings. But I > have more than 20 linear feet of books I’ve promised to read for blurbs and > reviews, and reading those books also teaches me something about the craft, > also brings me pleasure, also makes me a better reviewer, and also makes me > a better citizen of science fiction, who contributes to the success of > worthy new books. > > Some social media tools – like Facebook – make for fun (if problematic) > socializing, and all social media pays some dividend to authors who are > hoping to sell books and activists who are hoping to win support, but > Twitter also teaches me to be a better writer by making me think about > brevity and sentence structure in very rigorous ways (and from an activist > perspective, Twitter is a better choice because it, unlike Facebook, > doesn’t want the web to die and be replaced by its walled garden) – so > Twitter is in, and Facebook is out. > > There are some unexpected outcomes from this process, albeit ones that are > obvious in hindsight. > > The first is that it has gotten progressively harder to tease apart the > different kinds of work I do. People often ask, “How much of your day do > you spend writing, and how much being an activist, and how much on > journalism?” The answer has always been that it’s hard to cleanly separate > these activities, because they overlap – writing a blog post is a way to > think through and track an idea that might show up in a story, and also a > way to raise alarm at a political affair. > > But today, thanks to a vicious Darwinian winnowing process, the only > activities left in my day serve double- and triple-duty. There is virtually > no moment in my working day that can cleanly be billed to only one ledger. > > The corollary of this is that it gets much, much harder to winnow out > activities over time. Anything I remove from the Jenga stack of my day > disturbs the whole tower. > > And that means that undertaking new things, speculative things that have no > proven value to any of the domains where I work (let alone all of them) has > gotten progressively harder, even as I’ve grown more productive. > Optimization is a form of calcification. > > That presents a paradox: if the purpose of lifehacking is to mindfully > choose your priorities, what can you do when that process leads you to a > position where no more choices are possible? > > I’ll let you know if I figure it out. In the meantime, let this be a > warning to anyone who wants to do it all. > > Cory Doctorow is the author of Walkaway, Little Brother, and Information > Doesn’t Want to Be Free (among many others); he is the co-owner of Boing > Boing, a special consultant to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a > visiting professor of Computer Science at the Open University and an MIT > Media Lab Research Affiliate. > > This review and more like it in the November 2017 issue of Locus. > > -- FOR PUBLIC SAFETY REASONS, THIS EMAIL HAS BEEN INTERCEPTED BY YOUR GOVERNMENT AND WILL BE RETAINED FOR FUTURE ANALYSIS -- Cory Doctorow docto...@craphound.com Wickr: doctorow For avoidance of doubt: This email does not constitute permission to add me to your mailing list. blog: boingboing.net upcoming appearances: craphound.com/?page_id=4667 books (novels, collections graphic novels, essay collections): craphound.com latest novel: Walkaway latest nonfiction: Information Doesn't Want to Be Free latest graphic novel: In Real Life podcast: feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast latest YA novel: Homeland craphound.com/homeland latest short story collection: Expanded Overclocked Join my mailing list and find out about upcoming books, stories, articles and appearances: http://www.ctyme.com/mailman/listinfo/doctorow READ CAREFULLY. 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