A goal that I’ve gotten better and better at achieving over the years: distraction-free work and guilt-free play. It’s not so much that I want myself to spend a lot of time working and relatively little time playing; it’s easy to try to make yourself work and just spin your wheels and use a lot of mental energy not getting anything done. So I try to monitor my state mentally, and if I’m feeling tired/depressed, I often focus on rejuvenating myself prior to getting things done (funny videos and chatting with friends can be good ways to rejuvenate oneself). I also think in terms of mental contexts, and try to associate certain contexts with different degrees of activation (e.g. I sit in a particular part of my room when I want to focus, and I get up with my laptop and go sit on the stairwell outside before doing something relatively low-focus like checking my email; unrelated tip: try to do high-focus things like study at the beginning of the day (ideally right after turning on your computer in the morning) and leave low-focus things ’till the end of the day; as a general rule, if you’ve got lots of focus/mental energy don’t let it go to waste). Another thing I’ve had success with in the past: if I don’t like my current mental context, I’ll set my computer up for whatever work I’d like to be doing, then I’ll get up, take a short walk, and get to work as soon as I sit back down at my computer.
The guilt-free part is: when you’re taking a break, try to maximize its rejuvenation value and don’t feel guilty about the fact that you aren’t working.
A goal that I’ve gotten better and better at achieving over the years: distraction-free work and guilt-free play. It’s not so much that I want myself to spend a lot of time working and relatively little time playing; it’s easy to try to make yourself work and just spin your wheels and use a lot of mental energy not getting anything done. So I try to monitor my state mentally, and if I’m feeling tired/depressed, I often focus on rejuvenating myself prior to getting things done (funny videos and chatting with friends can be good ways to rejuvenate oneself). I also think in terms of mental contexts, and try to associate certain contexts with different degrees of activation (e.g. I sit in a particular part of my room when I want to focus, and I get up with my laptop and go sit on the stairwell outside before doing something relatively low-focus like checking my email; unrelated tip: try to do high-focus things like study at the beginning of the day (ideally right after turning on your computer in the morning) and leave low-focus things ’till the end of the day; as a general rule, if you’ve got lots of focus/mental energy don’t let it go to waste). Another thing I’ve had success with in the past: if I don’t like my current mental context, I’ll set my computer up for whatever work I’d like to be doing, then I’ll get up, take a short walk, and get to work as soon as I sit back down at my computer.
The guilt-free part is: when you’re taking a break, try to maximize its rejuvenation value and don’t feel guilty about the fact that you aren’t working.
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