Attention residue is the cognitive state where an incomplete task continues competing for your attention after you've nominally switched to something else. It explains why task-switching costs far more than the interruption itself.
Paul Graham's 2009 essay identified two incompatible ways of structuring time. Fifteen years later, the collision between them explains most of the productivity problems in modern knowledge work.
Body doubling means working in the presence of another person to improve focus and task completion. For ADHD brains, the effect is dramatic and backed by decades of social facilitation research.
Task batching groups similar tasks together and completes them in a single focused block. It works because every task switch costs far more than most people think.
The Eisenhower Matrix sorts every task into four quadrants by urgency and importance. The real insight is not what to do first. It is how much time you are spending on tasks that feel urgent but build nothing.
Parkinson's Law states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. The corollary is equally useful: compress the time and the work compresses with it.
There are actually two different 2-minute rules. David Allen's version is for clearing small tasks now. James Clear's version is for making new habits impossible to avoid starting.
Inbox zero doesn't mean an empty inbox. It means zero mental energy spent on email. Here's what Merlin Mann actually intended, why people fail at it, and how to make it work.
A weekly review is a 30-minute practice of closing open loops, assessing your week, and planning the next. Here's the science, a simple template, and how to actually make it stick.
Single tasking means focusing on one task completely before moving to the next. The neuroscience is unambiguous: multitasking makes you slower, not faster.
The Ivy Lee method is a daily planning system from 1918: write your 6 most important tasks the night before, work through them in order, repeat. Here's the neuroscience behind why it works.
A time audit reveals the gap between where you think your time goes and where it actually goes. Here's the science, a 4-category framework, and a step-by-step process.
The MIT method means identifying 1-3 most important tasks each day and doing them before anything else. Here's the psychology, the criteria, and how to make it work.
Timeboxing means assigning a fixed time limit to every task before you start. It's the simplest way to beat Parkinson's Law and stay in control of your day.
