<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law#:~:text=Sturgeon's%20law%20(or%20Sturgeon's%20revelation,science%20fiction%20author%20and%20critic.">Sturgeon’s law</a> is a philosophical aphorism that states that 90% of everything is crap. And, of course, you should take this with a grain of salt. “All things — cars, books, cheeses, hairstyles, people and pins are, to the expert and discerning eye, crud, except for the acceptable tithe which we each happen to like.”— From Theodore Sturgeon’s “On Hand: A Book”

Sturgeon’s law 

1. What is the oldest error-free book for X topic?2. What is the newest error-free book for X topic?3. Can I find the book online, for free?

Questions to ask yourself before going out to buy a new book

Assert someone’s credibility & respectability in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academia_(disambiguation)">The Academia</a> is to check their <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-index#:~:text=among%20different%20fields.-,Calculation,with%203%20or%20more%20citations.">H-index score</a>. This represents how many other scientists are citing their paper. a “successful scientist” will have an h-index of 20 after 20 years; an “outstanding scientist” will have an index of 40 after 20 years; and a “truly unique individual” will have an index of 60 after 20 years or 90 after 30 years.

One should read the full article for a detailed view.

Sturgeon’s law is a philosophical aphorism that states that 90% of everything is crap. And, of course, you should take this with a grain of salt. Sturgeon’s law can still be an interesting framework…

productivity

Productivity

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship

books

Books

How to read higher quality books

Content on max-ing motivation and productivity is everywhere. You probably have a mental list of all the platitudes or hacks. Motivational quotes trick us into feeling like we’ve accomplished something.Then why do we have days when we check off items from To-Do's and days when we just can’t get ourselves out of bed on time? And when we do get motivated, why is it so hard to keep it up?

Did you read platitudes today?

Author Robert McKain quoted “Action precedes motivation.”, but we always read that motivation is what makes us act. So what is it? So should I wait for that drive to get stuff done, or not?There exists an elaborate process of brain activity that pushes you to pursue goals YOU REALLY WANT TO ACHIEVE and the performance tasks that are demanded from you irrespective of interest.

Patience or Impulse?

Having resolutions and not following through is not because you didn't have the time. It's the Neurochemistry of your Motivation & Reward Systems.Motivation is <ul><li>A complex process in the brain</li><li>Involves multiple brain regions</li><li>Several Pathways</li><li>Release of Neural Messengers (Neurotransmitters like Dopamine)</li></ul>

80% of NY Resolutions Fail??

Dopamine (DA) is synonymously used with happiness and reward. It helps feel pleasure and relays 'motivational salience'. Motivational Salience means DA<ol><li>Indicates positive rewarding stimuli and </li><li>Responds to negative non-rewarding stimuli like stress</li></ol>This means, that both external environment and mood play a role in your drive to act.

Craving and Prediction of Rewards

DA is released when we work towards something we think is rewarding - a video game or desire for something tasty. DA is released while predicting and craving rewards, not so much while experiencing it. The process : <ol><li>Release in Planning Network in Pre-frontal Cortex (does most of the thinking)</li><li>Release in Motivation Generating Network in Striatum</li></ol>Parts of the striatum read motivational variables & push you to act on them. This can sometimes go awry - depending on the path and timing of this DA release, you may feel motivated to carry on a task like reading a book or you just don’t feel like it.

Quick - Think of cheesecake!

“I only write when inspiration strikes, Fortunately, it strikes at nine every morning.”

Reward/Incentive - achievability of a task and the perceived pleasure/reward from it decides your motivation levels. But the aim is to conquer your goals without waiting for that drive. So what else?<ul><li>Indulge in Challenges/ Competition: Activity of Glutamine and Glutamate determines motivational stamina (our ability to continue a difficult task)</li><li>Unexpected Rewards: Finding money on your walking path one day, will raise your hopes of finding more.</li><li>Habit: Once you start acting on those goals/tasks, a routine will act as a cue for your motivation.</li></ul>

What will boost my motivation?

Ways you can consciously increase and sustain your motivation : <ul><li>Anticipation of Rewards: Visualize a completed task and act towards it, it activates the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex (DLPFC)</li><li>Record your Progress: Track your progress and accomplishments while taking small steps</li><li>Health & Intake: Regular exercise can remodel your entire reward system, allowing increased dopamine release and availability. </li></ul>

Purposeful Self-Motivation

Something we need to know the science of before we blame ourselves for unproductivity. 

Neuroscience News research articles cover neurology, psychology, AI, brain science, mental health, robotics and cognitive sciences in a free, open access magazine.

habits

Habits

scienceandnature

Science & Nature

Finding Motivation the Neuroscience Way

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">People tend to care about something making sense more than they care about something being right.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">It’s why we’re bad at forecasting and easily persuaded and why the economy is driven by stories.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">It’s not your fault. The world is complicated and everyone’s trying to fit what’s going on into the context of their own life experiences.</li></ul>Two factors cause the gap between perception and reality.

Making Sense Is Better Persuasion Than Being Right

The most important events – things that are counterintuitive, disruptive, and swayed by emotion more than calculation – tend to share a few traits that make gathering a good sample of data hard:<ul><li>They’re rare.  </li><li>The data is hard to collect.</li><li>More data intuitively feels better.</li></ul>This is a big problem and there is no solution to it other than giving <a href="http://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/surprise/">yourself room for error</a> in not only in your actions but your beliefs.

Factor 1: The Most Important Events Are the Hardest to Sample

History makes clear that the winner isn’t the person who discovers an idea, but the one who sells it most persuasively.Stories are more powerful than statistics because the most believable thing in the world is whatever takes the least amount of effort to contextualize your own life experiences.People go astray when forgetting that storytelling is like exponential fuel, so a great idea told poorly can be a fraction as powerful as a mediocre idea told persuasively.

Factor 2: We Underestimate how Much More Powerful Stories Are than Statistics

People tend to care about something making sense more than they care about something being right. It’s why we’re bad at forecasting and easily persuaded and why the economy is driven by stories. It’s not your fault. The world is complicated and everyone’s trying to fit what’s going on into the context of their own life experiences. Two big things cause the gap between perception and reality. 1. The most important events are the hardest to sample, so extrapolating their lessons can be misleading. There have been two world wars in the last century. But no one would say, “the average world war lasts five years,” or “the average world war kills 60 million people.” No forecaster would say we’re overdue for a world war based on historic trends. A sample size of two can’t tell us what to expect next. The point may be obvious with world wars. But use a slightly more common case and people start drawing all kinds of false conclusions. Studying things with inadequate samples causes more delusion than intentional deceit. That’s because the ease of explaining things based on what’s readily in front of you meets the intellectual cover of using statistics. The most important events – things that are counterintuitive, disruptive, and swayed by emotion more than calculation – tend to share a few traits that make gathering a good sample of data hard: They’re rare. Ask an economist how many recessions they wish they had to study and they’ll say “ten thousand.” But there have only been 11 recessions since we started systematically collecting good data in the 1940s. That is nothing. If we had as much recession data as we wanted we’d likely realize that half of what we think we know about recessions is wrong. The data is hard to collect. Big surveys are expensive to produce. Gathering a classroom of grad students is cheap and easy. So which do you think happens more? And even when you survey people they often either don’t know the answer but give you one anyways (How much red meat did you eat last year?), or they know the answer but won’t tell the truth (Will you vote for this controversial politician?). This is partly why most studies can’t be replicated. More data intuitively feels better but things change over time, so more data can add in past trends that tell you nothing about what to expect in the future. If something is rare, the tendency is to go way back in history to gather as many examples as you can. But the further back you go, the more likely you are to study a world that operated in a different paradigm. We can study the financial crisis of 1873, but the modern banking system lives in a totally different universe than it did then. Daniel Kahneman is one of the best social scientists of our time. Yet he once admitted: Like most research psychologists, I had routinely chosen samples that were too small and had often obtained results that made no sense. I taught statistics and knew how to compute the sample size that would reduce the risk of failure to an acceptable level. But I had never chosen a sample size by computation. Like my colleagues, I had trusted tradition and my intuition in planning my experiments and had never thought seriously about the issue. That is terrifying. Two things happen when we don’t have good samples for important events. One is that we fool ourselves and are surprised when the world works differently than our data suggested it would. The second is that we can easily fool others, because if you look hard enough you can find a flawed set of data that shows whatever you want it to show. This is a big problem and there is no solution to it other than giving yourself room for error in not only in your actions but your beliefs. 2. We underestimate how much more powerful stories are than statistics. A friend once complained that everything Nassim Taleb has written is a rewording of a Philosophy 101. I don’t know if that’s true, but I’m not bothered if it is because Taleb has done a better job explaining concepts than any Philosophy 101 author before him. And history makes clear that the winner isn’t the person who discovers an idea, but the one who sells it most persuasively. Stories are more powerful than statistics because the most believable thing in the world is whatever takes the least amount of effort to contextualize your own life experiences. People go astray when forgetting that storytelling is like exponential fuel, so a great idea told poorly can be a fraction as powerful as an OK idea told persuasively. The CEO who understands everything about their field except the most important thing – rallying employees behind a mission and vision. The financial advisor who aced the CFA exam but can’t maintain clients’ faith during a downturn. The doctor who knows the cure but can’t get patients to stick to a plan. Even contrarians eventually need to be persuasive. James Grant said: “Successful investing is about having people agree with you … later.” A flaw that frustrates many people is not realizing that virtually every job is a sales job, especially as you move up the ladder: Most careers turn into sales jobs when you get senior enough.— Sam Altman (@sama) December 20, 2017 More on this topic: The Full Reset The Theory of Maybes It’s Hard to Predict How You’ll Respond to Risk

philosophy

Philosophy

problemsolving

Problem Solving

communication

Communication

computerscience

Computer Science

Making Sense vs. Being Right

Deep Work is necessary skill in 20 centuryBut before you perform deep work you have to know certainly what is distracting you and in which you used to procrastinate with.

Know What Is Distracting 

when you realise the things that stopping you from deep work cut of the connection with that things. For example if you used to procrastinate in your phone, when you about to perform deep work shut down your phone for good.

Cut Of The Distractions

In 20 century, you always have to learn new things. Learning won't be never stop, it will become lifetime process. You gotta learn new skills for that if you don't wanna live in cave life you have to perform deep work while you learning new skills, with that learning will be more effective and with the certain amount of time you will master that skills.

Why Deep Work Is That Necessary 

Medication will help you a lot to focus. The one main thing you can't control the monkey in your brain might because of you don't meditate. Try building a habit on meditate with small steps and do it daily.

Meditate Will Help You Focus

If you don’t produce, you won’t thrive—no matter how skilled or talented you are.

What if we perform learning with Deep Work...

education

Learning & Education

Deep Work 

The philosopher Carl G. Hempel, in his 1965 essay “Studies in the Logic of Confirmation,” brought to light a central paradox in the scientific method as it is commonly understood. This is called Hempel’s Ravens Paradox, and it deals with inductive reasoning, which is the first step in any scientific method: Observing and forming a hypothesis.

Hempel’s Ravens Paradox

Suppose you see a raven, and you note that it is black. “Hmm,” you say, “that raven was black.” Sometime later you notice a couple more ravens, and they also are black. “What a coincidence,” you remark, “those ravens are black too.” Time goes by and you see many more ravens. And it happens that all the ravens you see are black. “This is beyond coincidence,” you might reasonably think, and with the instincts of a good and observant scientist you form a hypothesis: All ravens are black.

Inductive Reasoning

There are always limits to an experimental apparatus, even if the apparatus is just a matter of observing as many ravens as possible to check their colour. Nonetheless, we feel justified in saying that each new observation of a black raven tends to confirm the hypothesis, and in time, if no green or blue or otherwise non-black ravens are observed, our hypothesis will eventually come to have the status of natural law.

The Limitation

Logically put, our hypothesis “all ravens are black” has the form of a conditional, that is, a statement of the form “if A then B.” In short, we are saying that if a given object is a raven, then that object is black. According to the laws of logic, a conditional is equivalent to its contrapositive. That is, a statement of the form “if A then B” is equivalent to the statement “if not B then not A.” This rule of logic is incontrovertible.

The Flaw In Our Logic

Our hypothesis “all ravens are black” therefore has the equivalent form “all non-black things are non-ravens,” or more precisely, “if an object isn't black then it is not a raven.” Consequently, if every sighting of a black raven confirms our hypothesis, then every sighting of a non-black non-raven equally confirms our hypothesis.

The Illogical Conclusion

Very well, you might say, but maybe every sighting of a non-black non-raven really does confirm, even if only to an infinitesimal degree, the hypothesis that all ravens are black. After all, if we could, somehow, check every non-black object in the universe, and if none of them were ravens, our statement that all ravens are black would be proved.

The Bottom Line

Hempel’s Ravens Paradox | Platonic Realms

Your calendar can be a tool that protects your focus, defends your productivity, and gives a sense of what you can accomplish in a week. Merge your to-do list with your calendar. Whenever you add something to your to-do list for the week, immediately add the time it will take to your schedule. It will give you an actual picture of what you can accomplish.

Use your calendar for productivity

A focus block is a period of work where you shut out everything, turn off your phone, and pay attention to one task. The key to success for a focus block:<ul><li>No notification sounds or pop-ups.</li><li>The block should have a specific goal in mind.</li><li>Focus on one subject/project, rather than one area to another doing shallow work.</li><li>Train the people around you not to interrupt except for an emergency.</li></ul>

Get deep work done with a focus block

Without lunch blocked off, people often find that they do meetings or eat from their desks. The same can be said for rest and fitness time. Ensure you protect yourself from working during these times by blocking off specific times for it. Having a schedule isn't about doing more work but getting what you want done in all areas of your life, not just your day job.

Block off meals, fitness, and rests in the calendar

Do a schedule prep. Lay out your focus blocks, fitness, meal times, and major tasks into your schedule. Leave lots of room for the unexpected and ensure you're not overcommitting.

Plan your week on Sunday

Try to keep your default meeting length to 15 or 30 minutes. When you constrain time, you focus more. Longer meetings should be the exception, not the rule. For internal meetings, allow people to book based on your calendar. For external meetings, give people access to open spots in your calendar.

Keep meetings short

Some people see their calendar as a weight around their necks. I see it as a tool that protects my focus, defends my productivity, and gives me a reasonable sense of what I can get done in a week…

timemanagement

Time Management

6 Very Practical Calendar Tips for People Who Want to Take Control of Their Time

Having a great assistant can be a game-changer. But learning to delegate tasks can be time-consuming if you don't have a lot of experience. Tree tips can help you save time when delegating tasks to your assistant using a spreadsheet such as Excel or Google Sheets.

Making use of an assistant

Getting everyone on the same page can be challenging if your team has separate to-do lists. A master project list is helpful. Let your assistant own the project list and put everything they do on the list, even small tasks such as checking the mail or paying the light bill. The list can be helpful should your assistant go on vacation or if they are sick.

Create a master project list

If you have several things going on simultaneously, create tabs or sub-lists to keep it all straight. For example, tab names could be active projects, archived projects, ongoing/recurring projects, etc. Within each tab, you will have the project/task name, the date assigned, the date due, and other people involved. Break each list further by giving each one a priority rating. For example, number one for important items, number two items should only be started once number one items are complete, and number three items are as time allows.

Break it down into sub-lists

Use colour to highlight new updates within your master list. For example, your assistant could write all their updates in red, and once you've read them, you can change the colour to black. You can write your notes in a different colour so that your assistant knows that you left a response, and when they're done reading, they can change the colour back.

Colour code it

The goal of doing this is to minimize the number of meetings and back and forth questions.

3 Tips to Save Time When Delegating Tasks

<h3>Clothing choices are a critical component of how we think, behave, and interact with others.</h3> In the shift to remote work, some workers kept their office uniform while others picked comfortable home attire. After two years of working from home, there is still no solution for handling the work-from-home dress code.

Work-from-home dress code

Research shows that clothes influence how colleagues perceive each other and can change how employees think or feel about themselves. It is essential that companies and their workers think critically about the office dress code, and get it right. There's now clear guidance that companies, managers, and individual workers should consider in our new hybrid work reality.

Clothing influences how you are perceived

Enclothed cognition describes how clothing and its symbolic associations affect thought and behaviour. Research found that making small changes to one's wardrobe, such as putting on a lab coat in the lab or wearing a power suit in the office can improve attention or increase one's sense of power. Wearing a suit increases testosterone levels and wearing a nurse's uniform increases empathy.

Enclothed cognition

Research shows that home attire consistently improved authenticity and engagement because workers felt more like themselves and were more engaged and productive at work. Clothing needs to be consistent with the setting in which it is worn. The setting of work matters more for work engagement than the content of the work task. Research shows companies don't have to wonder if they need to end the office dress code. Instead, to help workers bring their best selves to work, managers should encourage workers to wear clothes that fit where their work is being completed.

At home attire

If you’re among those who can still work remotely at least part of the time, you need to reconsider your wardrobe.


remotework

Remote Work

career

Career

What to wear to maximize productivity when you’re working from home, according to science

When you ask most people how they are doing, they will respond by saying they're busy. Being busy is seen as a currency in our society. We've cultivated the myth that busyness is the same as value, which equals worth. While we're struggling to maintain this status, the stress of busyness is leading to major public health concerns. More concerning is that if we think of ourselves as busy, we make ourselves victims. "I have too many things to do that are out of my control. I feel overwhelmed."

Being “busy” wrongly demonstrates value

Messaging and language can shift how you think about things. If we view our schedule as "full" instead of "busy", we can regain control and reframe our entire day. Being "busy" means you're running nonstop. But "full" means it is rich, happy, and content.

Changing our perception

When you view your life as "full" instead of "busy", <ul><li>You become grateful for all the different roles you play.</li><li>You learn how to prioritize. You view everything on your to-do list and decide if it adds to your day being full or detracts from it.</li><li>You take back control of your life. When you live a full life, you're content.</li></ul>

How your mindset can change

There’s a better way to reframe busyness (a negative!) by using different words, this comms exec and self-described word geek says.


artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

You’d be a lot happier if you stop saying you’re so busy

this famous law states that:Work expands to fill the time available for its completion,It means, if you set three hours for writing an article, you will write it in three hours. And if you allocate a week for writing the same article, you will complete it in a week.When you allocate more time to do a task, your chances of wasting that extra time are high.To beat Parkinson’s Law and to be more productive, allocate lesser time to a task than you usually do. Focus on the essentials.

1. Beat Parkinson's Law:

2. Put Your Phone Out Of Your SightWhenever your mind is resisting a difficult task, it will look for a distraction. Your smartphone is the perfect distraction.Because your phone has the ability to distract your mind away from a difficult task to an endless stream of entertainment.Whenever you are starting a difficult task put your phone away from your sight, so you can concentrate on your task.

2. Put Your Phone Out Of Your Sight

There is no doubt that multitasking reduces the quality of your work.If you have more than one passion, distribute them over seven days instead of 24 hours.For example, you can do writing from Mon to Wed, graphic designing from Thu to Sat, and on Sun you can learn to play guitar.

3. Stop Multitasking

4. Stop Social MediaIf you know social media is interfering with your productivity, you should definitely give it a break.Try a seven-day social-media-free challenge.If you use special media, just for entertainment, then there are other less-distractive ways to get entertainment.You know you can keep in touch with your friends and family outside of social media too.

4. Stop Social Media

5. Get a Note-Taking appThe importance of note-taking cannot be overstated.To paraphrase David Allen, our mind is for creating ideas, not for storing them.You need some sort of storage where all your ideas/notes will sit, so you don’t have to start from a blank page.You can take notes in a paper notebook or a digital one. Although, a digital notebook offers more functionality and convenience because you can access your notes on any device anywhere in the world.

5. Get a Note-Taking App

This is how this method works:<ol><li>At the end of each day, write down the six most important tasks you need to accomplish tomorrow. tasks. Prioritize them in order of their importance.</li><li>The next day, concentrate only on the first task. Only move to the second task when you have finished the first one.</li><li>Approach the rest of your list in the same fashion. At the end of the day, move any unfinished items to a new list of six tasks for the following day.</li></ol>

6. The Ivy Lee Method​

7. Morning vs AfternoonDo your most important tasks in the morning. Do less important things in the afternoon.Tasks that require high mental energy, for example, creating a new spreadsheet, writing an article, etc should be done in the morning when your mind is fresh.Set your afternoons for less important and trivial tasks, like reading news, sending emails, etc.In the end, hope you liked these hacks. Got something on your mind, write it down in the comments.

7. Morning vs Afternoon

In today’s fast-paced digital age, you have the tools to accomplish more in less time. But on the flip side, there are countless distractions that drift your attention away from your work and waste your precious time. Learning to focus on the tasks at hand and not give in to distractions is one of the valuable skills in the 21st century. By learning these simple hacks, you can learn to manage those distractions and sky-rocket your productivity.

It means, if you set three hours for writing an article, you will write it in three hours. And if you allocate a week for writing the same article, you will complete it in a week. Moreover, when you…

Simple Productivity Hacks That Actually Work

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