Personal
Productivity
Do the right things, not just more things
Novice
Mastery0%
Novice
Personal
Do the right things, not just more things
Novice
Subdomain
Attention is the real unit of productivity. Where it goes, results follow. Most environments are designed to steal it.
Deep Work vs Shallow Work
Cal Newport's distinction between cognitively demanding, focused work that creates real value (deep) and logistical, reactive tasks that are necessary but not differentiating (shallow).
Open
Single-Tasking
The practice of giving full attention to one task at a time and finishing or intentionally pausing it before switching to another.
Open
GTD
Getting Things Done. David Allen's external-system productivity methodology.
Trusted system
In GTD, an external capture and organisation system your brain can rely on instead of holding commitments in working memory.
Open loop
An uncaptured commitment or unprocessed thought that stays in your head consuming background attention.
Deep work
Cal Newport's term for distraction-free, cognitively demanding work that creates real value.
Shallow work
Logistical, reactive tasks that are necessary but do not require deep concentration and are easily replicated.
Time blocking
Scheduling work into specific calendar blocks in advance rather than working reactively.
Eisenhower matrix
A four-quadrant prioritisation tool sorting tasks by urgency and importance.
Inbox zero
A processing discipline where the email inbox is never used as a storage or task system.
Brain dump
The practice of writing every open loop and loose end out of your head into a capture system.
Weekly review
A recurring session to process all open loops and keep the GTD system current.
Energy management
Managing physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual energy alongside time as inputs to performance.
Cognitive switching cost
The time and accuracy penalty incurred each time you switch between tasks requiring conscious attention.