Fair warning: I often struggle with productivity and I definitely can't say that I've got it nailed. That said, for this same reason I think about it quite a bi

Fair warning: I often struggle with productivity and I definitely can't say that I've got it nailed. That said, for this same reason I think about it quite a bit, and I'll use this occassion to articulate some of those thoughts and relevant experiences. Things that I emphasize concerning productivity fall under prioritization and modeling. I mean priority in the most general sense. There's a hundred things that ideally would all be done or experienced, but you only have so much capacity. To deal with that, you have to know what's most important to you. By saying "to you", I'm highlighting that motivations are individual-specific. Sometimes you have to work quite hard to find out what animates you. That's the consciousness aspect of it: seeing the situation and options clearly. The focus part of it is being sufficiently resilient to distractions, without falling into tunnel vision, i.e. balancing between focus and awereness. [Notice: this paragraph is hearsay; should be treated as unverified] I don't usually advertise medication, but under certain circumstances self-medicating with microdoses of lsd has dramatic effects. My impression is that it's very effective treating anxiety induced productivity problems, but it also has other noteworthy effects on creativity and focus in general that are more difficult to articulate (for me, at least). What I mean by modeling may be clarified with the metaphor of zooming. It's about switching between being focused on small scale details and large scale features. Related methods range from formal to informal. Mathematical modeling is a formal instance of this. Computer-assisted proofs or executable specifications are even more formal examples. Noting down what you care about, what affects that, and what in turn affects that and so on is on the informal side of the spectrum. It's about moving from one level of abstraction/detail to another, when appropriate and in the direction (zoom in or zoom out) that's appropriate. Bret Victor wrote about that [0]. He called it the Ladder of Abstraction. Modeling (or zoom as I called it) has a large effect on my productivity. The prospect of dedicating time to thinking about a problem is not satisfying if you're anxious about getting results fast, but it's very effective in the long run. [0] http://worrydream.com/LadderOfAbstraction/ http://worrydream.com/LadderOfAbstraction/