The three-or-four-hours rule

Oliver Burkeman, a writer of self-help and time management books, says that most people are not capable of devoting more than three or four hours a day to intense mental or creative work.

The way to be more productive, he writes, is to fence off three or four hours a day for your high-priority work and deal with the routine work and busywork later.

If you’re a creative worker, you don’t become more productive by working longer hours.  You become more productive by finding a few hours each day to focus on your most important (not most urgent) work.

This is true of me, and I think it is true of a lot of people.  It explains people like the SF writer Gene Wolfe who had a time-consuming job as a trade-magazine editor, and did his writing only in bits and snatches of time, but still did outstanding work.

Of course not everybody has a work schedule or a life in which they can set aside even a few hours for creative work.  But for those who do, the following is good advice.

It pays to use whatever freedom you do have over your schedule not to “maximize your time” or “optimize your day,” in some vague way, but specifically to ring-fence three or four hours of undisturbed focus (ideally when your energy levels are highest).

Stop assuming that the way to make progress on your most important projects is to work for longer. And drop the perfectionistic notion that emails, meetings, digital distractions and other interruptions ought ideally to be whittled away to practically nothing.

Just focus on protecting four hours – and don’t worry if the rest of the day is characterized by the usual scattered chaos. ​

The other, arguably more important lesson isn’t so much a time management tactic as an internal psychological move: to give up demanding more of yourself than three or four hours of daily high-quality mental work.

That’s an emphasis that gets missed, I think, in the current conversation about overwork and post-pandemic burnout.

Yes, it’s true we live in a system that demands too much of us, leaves no time for rest, and makes many feel as though their survival depends on working impossible hours.

But it’s also true that we’re increasingly the kind of people who don’t want to rest – who get antsy and anxious if we don’t feel we’re being productive.

The usual result is that we push ourselves beyond the sane limits of daily activity, when doing less would have been more productive in the long run.

What to do if the ice breaks

Hat tip to kottke.org.

How to stop a dog from chasing you

Ben Carlson’s three rules to live by

There are 3 rules that I live by:

(1) Never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city.

(2) Never get behind a minivan in the drive-through lane.

(3) Never take personal finance advice from billionaires.

Source: A Wealth of Commom Sense

The arts of argument and persuasion

This episode of William F. Buckley Jr.’s The Firing Line was broadcast on Sept. 10, 1981

In American political speech nowadays, we need more argument and persuasion and less denunciation.  I am reminded of William F. Buckley Jr., who was a master of both.

I considered Buckley’s political views were not only wrong, but reprehensible.  Yet I was a regular viewer of his PBS program, “The Firing Line.”

Buckley took the trouble to understand his opponents’ arguments.  He read their books.  When he invited them onto his program, although he was not above taking cheap shots, he tried to refute what they actually said.

He played fair.  He gave his opponent a chance to give their views.  That is why he probably changed more minds than Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity ever did.  I think there is much to be learned from his methods, whatever you think of his views.

I remember a program in which his guest was Ralph Schoenman, appearing on the show as the representative of the International War Crimes Tribunal, also known as the Russell Tribunal, and the issue was American atrocities in Vietnam.  Buckley’s claim was that Bertrand Russell, John-Paul Sartre and the other tribunal members were Communist sympathizers and should not be believed.

Schoenman expressed himself in a robotic, staccato manner that fit the stereotype of the dogmatic Communist.  Buckley, aware of this, let him go on at length, knowing his audience would be influenced more by his manner than by his actual argument.

A member of the audience argued that what mattered was the quality of the Tribunal’s evidence, not the views of its members.  Buckley listened respectfully, restated the argument and then asked what the questioner would think of anti-corruption investigators who were all Republicans and whose investigations were all of Democrats.  A bogus argument, but convincing.

I think it is possible to persuade people who strongly disagree with you politically.  Sometimes not, but people can be more open-minded than you might think.

It is important to distinguish winning an argument from successful persuasion.  I have lost many arguments, but I don’t recall ever changing my mind as a result.  My losing an argument only makes me rack my brains for what I should have said, but failed to think of on the spot.

Some advice on dealing with the coronavirus

This is a copy of an e-mail from my friend Walter Uhrman.

The following is from Irene Ken physician, whose daughter is an Asst. Prof in infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins University, quite informative.

* The virus is not a living organism, but a protein molecule (RNA) covered by a protective layer of lipid (fat), which, when absorbed by the cells of the ocular, nasal or buccal mucosa, changes their genetic code (mutation) and converts them into aggressor and multiplier cells.

* Since the virus is not a living organism but a protein molecule, it is not killed, but decays on its own.  The disintegration time depends on the temperature, humidity and type of material where it lies.

* The virus is very fragile; the only thing that protects it is a thin outer layer of fat. That is why any soap or detergent is the best remedy, because the foam CUTS the FAT (that is why you have to rub so much: for 20 seconds or more, to make a lot of foam). By dissolving the fat layer, the protein molecule disperses and breaks down on its own.

* HEAT melts fat; this is why it is so good to use water above 77 degrees Fahrenheit for washing hands, clothes and everything.  In addition, hot water makes more foam and that makes it even more useful.

* Alcohol or any mixture with alcohol over 65% DISSOLVES ANY FAT, especially the external lipid layer of the virus.

* Any mix with 1 part bleach and 5 parts water directly dissolves the protein, breaks it down from the inside.

* Oxygenated water helps long after soap, alcohol and chlorine, because peroxide dissolves the virus protein, but you have to use it pure and it hurts your skin.

* NO BACTERICIDE OR ANTIBIOTIC SERVES. The virus is not a living organism like bacteria; antibodies cannot kill what is not alive.

* NEVER shake used or unused clothing, sheets or cloth. While it is glued to a porous surface, it is very inert and disintegrates only

• -between 3 hours (fabric and porous),
• -4 hours (copper and wood)
• -24 hours (cardboard),
• – 42 hours (metal) and
• -72 hours (plastic).

• But if you shake it or use a feather duster, the virus molecules float in the air for up to 3 hours, and can lodge in your nose.

* The virus molecules remain very stable in external cold, or artificial as air conditioners in houses and cars. They also need moisture to stay stable, and especially darkness.  Therefore, dehumidified, dry, warm and bright environments will degrade it faster.

* UV LIGHT on any object that may contain it breaks down the virus protein. For example, to disinfect and reuse a mask is perfect. Be careful, it also breaks down collagen (which is protein) in the skin.

* The virus CANNOT go through healthy skin.

* Vinegar is NOT useful because it does not break down the protective layer of fat.

* NO SPIRITS, NOR VODKA, serve. The strongest vodka is 40% alcohol, and you need 65%.

* LISTERINE IF IT SERVES! It is 65% alcohol.

* The more confined the space, the more concentration of the virus there can be. The more open or naturally ventilated, the less.

* You have to wash your hands before and after touching mucosa, food, locks, knobs, switches, remote control, cell phone, watches, computers, desks, TV, etc.  And when using the bathroom.

* You have to Moisturize dry hands from so much washing them, because the molecules can hide in the micro cracks. The thicker the moisturizer, the better.

* Also keep your NAILS SHORT so that the virus does not hide there.

How to intelligently follow breaking news

For details, read the Breaking News Consumers Handbook from the On the Media blog.

Why plastic bags don’t go in the recycling bin

Jordan Peterson’s 12 rules for life

Jordan Peterson’s new best-selling 12 Rules for Life: an Antidote to Chaos is different from most self-help books.   The author doesn’t promise happiness or success.  It is a manual for survival in a harsh, unforgiving world.

He teaches that suffering is inevitable, happiness is not a worthwhile goal, and the path of least resistance in life leads to failure, addiction, depression and hatred of oneself and ultimately of the human race.  But he says it also is possible to pull yourself together, listen to your best moral intuitions and live a life of meaning and integrity.

Peterson is a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, and also had a clinical psychology practice, which means that he had an opportunity to test his theories in practice.

He has been in the news for his opposition to his opposition to the revolution in thinking about gender and his defense of academic freedom.

12 Rules made a strong impression on me.  Peterson is the kind of writer with whom I hold imaginary conversations in my mind.  I think he has blind spots, which I will get to, but none that negate the value of the book.

Here are Peterson’s rules.

1. Stand up straight with your shoulders back.
2. Treat yourself like someone you were responsible for helping.
3. Make friends with people who want the best for you.
4. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not who someone else was today.
5. Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them.
6. Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.
7. Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient).
8. Tell the truth—or at least, don’t lie.
9. Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t.
10. Be precise in your speech.
11. Do not bother children when they are skateboarding.
12. Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street.

The key fact about life is that it is suffering, Peterson wrote.  Even the most fortunate can expect to experience either serious illness or the illness of loved ones during our lifetimes and then old age and death.

Be grateful for whatever happiness and joy come your way, he says but make your life a quest for something meaningful, not for happiness.

Face with world standing straight with your shoulders back, he says, which is almost word-for-word something my mother told me when I was a boy.  This body language braces you to face the world and its challenges.  (A good breakfast also helps).

Making yourself strong isn’t everything, but it is the first step to anything.  Being weak and agreeable only sets you up to be a victim.

Look at what you do that hurts you.  Look at what you don’t do that you need to do.  If you are honest with yourself, you know what these things are.

Start with some improvement in your life that you know is within your power to make.  Don’t feel embarrassed if it seems trivial.  Just do it.  And then reward yourself for doing it.

Minor improvement day after day is like compound interest, Peterson wrote.  You’d be surprised how much you can change your life over time with tiny incremental changes.

Commencement speaker: ‘I wish you bad luck’

John Roberts

Chief Justice John Roberts gave a commencement speech this year to his son’s graduating class at the Cardigan Mountain School, a boarding school in New Hampshire for boys in grades six through nine.

The following part was striking:

Now the commencement speakers will typically also wish you good luck and extend good wishes to you. I will not do that, and I’ll tell you why.

From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice.

I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty.

Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonely from time to time so that you don’t take friends for granted.

I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either.

And when you lose, as you will from time to time, I hope every now and then, your opponent will gloat over your failure.  It is a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship.

I hope you’ll be ignored so you know the importance of listening to others, and I hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion.

Whether I wish these things or not, they’re going to happen.  And whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability to see the message in your misfortunes.

Source: Marginal REVOLUTION

Good advice from Penn Jillette

Say what you mean, even when talking to yourself.
==Penn Jillette, Ten Commandments for Atheists

Survivorship bias

Source: xkcd

Click on XKCD for more cartoons and drawings by Randall Munroe.

How to be antifragile

Ian Welsh on happiness

Blogger Ian Welsh says the first step to being happy is to stop making yourself unhappy.

I live in a single room, in a downscale neighborhood.  I sleep on some pads on the floor.  I am in debt, and I have a couple of serious health problems.

I am also happy most of the time.

I’ll be sitting in my garret and thinking, “God, life is amazing.  This is wonderful.”

And I’ll laugh and mock myself, “What’s good about this?  You’re poor, sick, overweight, and broke.”  All that is true, but I’m happy (and my health is improving, no worries, I don’t expect to die soon, though who knows).

So I’m going to give some unsolicited advice on how to be happy even though your life sucks, because, well, I’m pretty good at it.

The first step is to not be unhappy.

(Insert head smacking motion from readers.)

Seriously, though, start there. Or, as I like to say: “The whole of the path is not giving a fuck.”

Run out of fucks.  Do not restock.  Life will seem a lot better.

Please don’t mistake Welsh’s philosophy for indifference to the world or other people.   He is engaged with the world through his excellent political blog.   He is concerned about world events.  He just doesn’t let world events make him miserable.

A king’s commandments to his son

• Don’t build your life on illusions,
• Don’t build your opinion on hypotheses,
• Don’t build your style on imitation,
• Don’t build your image on lies,
• Don’t build your respect on fear,
• Don’t build your dreams on others’ nightmares,
• Don’t build your friendships on benefits,
• Don’t build your heroism on foolish acts,
• Don’t build your kingdom on the backs of the poor,
• Don’t build your palace on the soft sands of injustice.

Source: Nusaireyat.

If I were a prepper … …

Source: Doomsday Preppers.

Two of my favorite bloggers are Dmitry Orlov, who thinks industrial civilization may collapse at any moment, and John Michael Greer, who thinks industrial civilization is doomed to slow decline.

I’m nearly 79 years old, and, at worst, expect to collapse before civilization does.  But suppose I was young, and suppose I took seriously the possibility of collapse of government authority and of the energy, communications and transportation grids.  What would be the best way to prepare?

Stockpile gold?  Stockpile guns and ammunition and practice marksmanship?  Stockpile canned goods?   I don’t think any of these things, in and of themselves, would assure long-term survival.

A 50-dollar gold piece in such circumstances would have less value than a peanut butter sandwich.  Ammunition and canned goods are non-renewable resources.  My chances of survival as a lone individual would be nil.

Much better to learn useful skills, and to treat my family and neighbors in such a way that they would want to keep me alive.

I would learn gardening and keep heirloom seeds.

My motto as a blogger

I AM AN OLD NOBODY AND I LOVE WHAT I DO

hat tip to kottke.org

Tips for first-time wheelchair pushers

1. Communicate.  Ask if there’s anything you need to know first.  NEVER touch or move a wheelchair without permission.
2. Don’t overshoot checkouts and reception desks.  If you are level, your passenger has gone too far past it.
3. Don’t bump your passenger’s feet into people, objects or walls.  Particularly in lifts.
4. Don’t follow anyone too closely. … … Your passenger is closer to them than you are, and seeing backsides that close gets tedious.
5. Watch out for oddly sloping pavements, especially near dropped curbs.  The wheelchair WILL veer sideways into traffic if you are not careful.
6. Look ahead for bumps.  Dropped curbs are often not dropped very much.  Be prepared to walk a long way around via the road.
7. Always approach bumps straight on.  If you are not straight, stop and turn first.
8. It can be easier to go backwards over bumps if the wheelchair has large wheels.
9. Pay attention to the surface you travel over and take the smoother path.  Cobbles can be painful or tiring for someone in a wheelchair.
10. Don’t let the wheelchair run out of control.  Consider taking slopes backwards so you can hold back the wheelchair.  CHECK FIRST!
11. If your passenger says stop, STOP immediately. … …
    
12. Try going through heavy doors backwards so you can push the door with your body.
13. Some wheelchairs have brakes operated by the passenger.  Never assume that those brakes are on or off, always check.
14. If someone speaks to you when they should speak to your passenger, tell them so.
15. Be forgiving of your passenger.  They have no control and that may make them grumpy.  Wheelchair users: be aware that you might be shouting at your assistant more than you realise.
16. If you’re pushing a wheelchair very far then you’ll probably want to get some gloves.

via A Latent Existence.

Hat tip to MARGINAL Revolution.

Marilyn vos Savant on how not to be interesting

Marilyn vos Savant home page.

Marilyn vos Savant Wikipedia article.

How to feed a U.S. family on $30 a week

Could you feed an American family of three, plus a dog, on $30 a week?  I couldn’t.  Joseph Cannon could, and did, but it took effort and ingenuity.  He told how on a post on his web log.

One tip: Hispanic groceries (in California).  Another: Food in bins, not in bags.  A third: Whole chickens on sale.  But read the whole thing.

LINK

The SNAP Challenge: Here’s the Real Way by Joseph Cannon for Cannonfire.

I would like to believe coffee is good for me

Source: Sky Dancing

As an addicted coffee drinker, I am pleased to think that coffee in the amounts I drink is good for me.  Of course addiction is bad even if the addictive substance is harmless.  If I were the survivor of a wilderness airplane crash, I probably would be unable to function because I need a certain amount of caffeine each day to be able to function.

The three pillars of self-improvement

These words of wisdom were written by a young man called Atticus C for his journal, and then posted on BlogTruth.  For his full post, click on Pillars of Self-Improvement.

The passing scene: Links & comments 9/28/14

Emotion Is Not the Enemy of Reason by Virginia Hughes for National Geographic.

All normal human beings are both rational beings and emotional beings.  Someone who claims to be rational and above emotion is simply being dishonest, either with themselves or others, about their feelings.  Someone who claims to be intuitive and above reason is being dishonest, either with themselves or others, about their thought processes.

Rational people direct their feelings toward appropriate objects.  They fear that which is truly dangerous, admire that which is worthy of respect and yearn for that which will make them happy.

This is your brain on narcissism: The truth about a disorder that nobody understands by Sarah Gray for Salon.

Someone who suffers from narcissistic personality disorder has, on the one hand, an enormous sense of self-importance and entitlement and, on the other hand, an ego too fragile to accept criticism or recognize unwelcome facts.

Nations as well as individuals can be narcissistic.  Patriots are willing to defend their native lands.  Narcissistic patriots insist that their native lands are the greatest countries that ever were and any criticism or doubt is by definition disloyal.

Simplifiers and Optimizers by Scott Adams for boingboing.

Do you try to do things the best way, and never get done?  Or do you do things the easy way, and never get an excellent result.  Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comic strip, advises striving for excellence on the few things that are important to you, and looking for the simplest way to get through everything else.

 

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. on taking a moment

Source: Zen Pencils

Time management tips for writers (and others)

Tyler Cowen wrote the following on his Marginal Revolution web log in 2004.

1.  There is always time to do more.  Most people, even the productive, have a day that is at least forty percent slack.

2.  Do the most important things first in the day and don’t let anybody stop you.  Estimate “most important” using a zero discount rate. Don’t make exceptions.  The hours from 7 to 12 are your time to build for the future before the world descends on you.

3.  Some tasks (drawing up outlines?) expand or contract to fill the time you give them.  Shove all these into times when you are pressed to do something else very soon.

4.  Each day stop writing just a bit before you have said everything you want to.  Better to approach your next writing day “hungry” than to feel “written out.”   Your biggest enemy is a day spent not writing, not a day spent writing too little.

5.  Blogging builds up good work habits; the deadline is always “now.”

Cowen was asked recently if he would like to revise the list.  He added these.

6.  Don’t drink alcohol. Don’t take drugs.

7.  At any point in your life, do not be watching more than one television show on a regular basis.

8.  Don’t feel you have to finish a book or movie if you don’t want to.  I cover that point at length in my book Discover Your Inner Economist.

I think I would take back my old #5, since I observe some bloggers who have gone years, ten years in fact, without being so productive.

via Do I wish to revise my time management tips?.