A few things that can help (which I do sometimes, but sometimes do just “waste” the interstitial periods).
Keep multiple task lists by granularity, or keep entries on your task list that can be done (or worked on) in short time periods with low cost to switch in or out of.
ABR: Always. Be. Reading/Researching. 15 minutes is enough to remove 1-5 browser “read later” bookmarks. Or enough to read a few more pages of my current novel or lightweight non-fiction.
“Keep multiple task lists by granularity, or keep entries on your task list that can be done (or worked on) in short time periods with low cost to switch in or out of.”
This seems like it will take more time than its worth in the context of the question.
As a one-off, sure. Long term, it may be. I’m currently restructuring my todo list(s) to tag stuff by brain state. (Most of it requires considerable brain capacity, so if I’m exhausted/tired, I tend to scroll Discord or watch Twitch because “I can’t do anything in this state anyway”, which is neither productive nor particularly relaxing.)
Lots of things like watering plants, cleaning the bathroom walls, throwing some cleaner into the sinks / tub / …, taking out the trash, properly archiving last quarter’s stack of records, making backups, etc. are all ~zero-brain activities that (1) I can do when I’m too tired to work productively on other “important” stuff, (2) don’t truly have a fixed schedule and (3) they all have to happen eventually (often recurrently.) Searching for open tasks tagged #brainstate/amoeba is easy once you have the list, explicitly keeping a separate list works too.
If wasted half-hours are actually a common situation, then the overhead of tagging or maintaining separate lists may quickly pay off.
A few things that can help (which I do sometimes, but sometimes do just “waste” the interstitial periods).
Keep multiple task lists by granularity, or keep entries on your task list that can be done (or worked on) in short time periods with low cost to switch in or out of.
ABR: Always. Be. Reading/Researching. 15 minutes is enough to remove 1-5 browser “read later” bookmarks. Or enough to read a few more pages of my current novel or lightweight non-fiction.
“Keep multiple task lists by granularity, or keep entries on your task list that can be done (or worked on) in short time periods with low cost to switch in or out of.”
This seems like it will take more time than its worth in the context of the question.
As a one-off, sure. Long term, it may be. I’m currently restructuring my todo list(s) to tag stuff by brain state. (Most of it requires considerable brain capacity, so if I’m exhausted/tired, I tend to scroll Discord or watch Twitch because “I can’t do anything in this state anyway”, which is neither productive nor particularly relaxing.)
Lots of things like watering plants, cleaning the bathroom walls, throwing some cleaner into the sinks / tub / …, taking out the trash, properly archiving last quarter’s stack of records, making backups, etc. are all ~zero-brain activities that (1) I can do when I’m too tired to work productively on other “important” stuff, (2) don’t truly have a fixed schedule and (3) they all have to happen eventually (often recurrently.) Searching for open tasks tagged
#brainstate/amoebais easy once you have the list, explicitly keeping a separate list works too.If wasted half-hours are actually a common situation, then the overhead of tagging or maintaining separate lists may quickly pay off.