Recently tried productivity technique called “time boxing”.

It helped me to keep healthy flow in my productivity, life and leisure.

Problem: I used to get stuck on working on one task until I finish it.

Last time I was preparing tutorial on how to use Erzy service I spent countless hours for 4-5 days, stayed up late till 5 in the morning which messed up my sleep cycle. All other tasks were put on hold.

Needless to say it’s very unhealthy and it’s actually not effective, because after 1-2 hours you tend to get unfocused and distructed by all kinds of things.

Solution: Work only in 30 min bursts

I use Pomodoro app to measure exactly 30 min per task.
I turn off all notifications, if someone calls I ignore!
The rest of the world is not important in the next 30 min!
If I finish the task in 30 mins, good. Case is closed!
If task is not finished, I record/save the progress of the task and create new task(with status of previous task).
If I feel like I can finish this task in next 30 mins and there’re no other urgent tasks I go for another 30 min session.
If I cannot finish task after spending 60 mins of focused time - it’s a hard stop! It means I will not finish it today. Move on to next task.

Why does it help?

Focus! It’s proven fact that our brains are able to focus for only 20-40 mins on one thing. If you stay too long on one thing you tend to get distracted by bunch of different thing like:

- “oh I received message notification, must be important! It’s not going to hurt if I peak for 5 seconds”
- I feel thirsty, I'm just going to make drink real quick;
- I’ll just check my social media quickly…I’ve been working for 2-3 hours it’s not going to hurt…end up scrolling feed for 2 hours…
- Mom called, must be very important!.. turn out it was nothing important, but you got distracted and ended up watching some Ted talk on YouTube.

You can afford to postpone everything when you know that you can back to whatever you want in 30 mins.
It teaches you self control.

Feeling guilty for not finishing project. You don’t feel guilty for not finishing up things, because you did finish your task. You constantly get finish stuff. If you paid your full attention to the task and turns out that it takes longer than 30 mins. You still have a result! So you should feel good about the work done and create new task to continue it afterwards.

Endorphin high! You get a little endorphin spike when you finish task. If you finish task every 30 mins you get many endorphin spikes throughout the day! Most people people have to take drugs or alcohol to get high. You will get high of work!

Explanations vs Predictions

Think of explanations and predictions as tools we use to understand the world. Predictions are about guessing what will happen next, while explanations tell us why things happen the way they do.

Let’s use a Polaroid camera as an example. When you press the button on the camera, a picture comes out. Now, how do we explain this? I could make up a story and say there’s a tiny creature inside the camera who draws the picture and slides it out for you. Or, I could tell you about how the camera uses lenses, light, and photo film to create the picture.

Even though these explanations are different, the result is the same: a picture comes out when you press the button. If explanations were only for guessing what happens next, then both stories would be the same since they both get the result right.

But, these explanations are different because of the ideas behind them, which we call assumptions. Assumptions are the things we believe but don’t always say out loud when we explain something.

So, explanations do more than just help us guess what happens next. They give us a better understanding of how and why things happen, using some ideas that we might not talk about but are still important to know. Through explanations, we can dig deeper into understanding the world around us, more than just making good guesses.

#systems #ontology

Check out one of the oldest English language Telegram channels. Author writes about personal growth and road to freedom ✊

When do we need explanations?

Sometimes, things happen that catch us off guard. It's like expecting a sunny day but getting rain instead. During such times, we often find ourselves asking "why?" or "how?"

Let's say, we have a simple idea of how things work. This idea is like a map in our mind. But when something unexpected happens, it's like finding a new street on our map. We might feel surprised, especially if this new "street" was not there before.

A good surprise can make us happy, like finding a hidden $20 bill in an old jacket. Yet, we still wonder how it got there. It’s the sudden, new things that make us want to understand what's going on.

For example, let’s pretend I believed tiny make-believe creatures pedaled inside my car to make it move. This funny idea would stay with me until the day my car stops, and I have to check under the hood. Instead of finding tiny creatures, I see lots of metal parts. I’d be very surprised because this is not what I expected to see. Now, I’d want to know how a car really works.

It's like when we see something new or different, our minds become little detectives, trying to solve a mystery. Whether it's a happy surprise or an misfortune, we just want to understand what happened. And that’s why, when things don’t go as expected, we start asking questions and looking for explanations.

Today begins month of Ramadan.
It’s month when muslim people will be fasting for 30 days.
In Islam fasting is done from sunrise to sundown.
Personally I practice intermittent fasting throughout the year(4-5 days a month) whenever I feel like I’m starting to gain extra weight or I’m feeling inflammation in my body(which usually happens at the same time).

Intermittent fasting is when you don’t eat anything for at least 16 hours, after that your body cells begins to eat the broken/weak cells which can cause all kinds of sicknesses(even cancer).
Some Muslim people like to wake up to eat food before sunrise, personally I think it’s a bad idea for following reasons:
- Going back to sleep right after eating is not good for digestion;
- You’re not going to have good sleep after eating;
- You are going to decrease health benefits from fasting by shorting fasting time(don’t you want to lower chances of getting cancer?!);
- You will actually gain weight instead of loosing if you do that.

Fasting is only hard first 1-2 days after that you get used to it and you actually feel more energetic. I personally like to do something physical when I’m fasting so I don’t think about food, for example house cleaning 🧹

For Muslim i wish not only to be able to keep fast and also mental strength to keep a pure mind (which is a lot harder than not eating).

For non Muslims I suggest to try intermittent fasting if you’re experiencing inflammations in your body.

https://youtu.be/350bk9Ph3ak?si=df5wktiOigkWhK2v

Courage is in far shorter supply than genius.
https://youtu.be/E_vDZqQgmeQ?si=j_L4JzRuc0oH60r8

1983 gramma put me to shame.

https://youtu.be/jbu0kmCeLSI?si=V0ungtEcBOrX0btq

It's gonna get much worse with generative AI
https://youtu.be/5zUndMfMInc

Instead of just adding AI to old products, they create fresh, innovative experiences from scratch. This is leading to a new generation of awesome AI-driven products.

https://youtu.be/HkOJy8rMlMw

We are able to do that now using AI.

Nivi did a great job 👍

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CwiHbIV46Hwdmv9UG-5F4vCv8ymDrEKU/view?usp=drivesdk