Table Of ContentTable of Contents
Cover
Part I: Managing Your Attention
Chapter 1: Stop Trying to Manage Your Time
Modern Technology: Advantages and Disadvantages
The Truth about Multitasking
Self-Induced ADD
Information Overload in the Attention Age
The Impact of Focus
Sit! Stay! Sleep.
Stop Working on the Wrong To-Do List
Control Your Attention, Control Your Life
Summary
Quick Tips
Endnotes
Chapter 2: Changing Your Mind: Attention
Management
Solving the Right Problem
Supporting versus Sabotaging
Learning to Incorporate Change
Reconciling Your “Planner” and Your “Doer”
It Matters Where You Start
Attending to Your Goals
Controlling the Details
Being Realistic about “One More Thing”
Summary
Quick Tips
Endnotes
Part II: The Empowered Productivity System
Chapter 3: Empowering Your Productivity
Avoiding the Lion Syndrome
Picking the Right Spot on the Eisenhower Matrix
Summary
Quick Tips
Endnotes
Chapter 4: Controlling the Constant Chatter
Organizing Your Mental Clutter
Gaining Clarity
Five Ways to Organize
Categorizing Avoids Chaos
Getting Specific
Summary
Quick Tips
Chapter 5: Supplementing Brainpower with Technology
Necessary Components of a Good Set of Productivity Tools
Choosing the Most Relevant Tools
Why Tools Are Not Enough
Summary
Quick Tips
Chapter 6: Clearing Your Mind Now
You Need a Vacation. . .
Begin Your Move
Unleashing Your Inner Genius
Manage One Life, Not Two
Keeping Track of It All
Capturing Thoughts
Summary
Quick Tips
Endnotes
Chapter 7: Capture, Store, Act
Getting Started with Electronic PIMs
Setting Up Outlook
Setting Up iCal
Setting Up Google
Summary
Quick Tips
Chapter 8: Clearing Your Space
Eliminating the Three Causes of Clutter
Getting a Grip on Paper by Filing Effectively
Learning a Strategy
Getting the Right Gear
Putting the Pieces Together
Assembling Your File System
Summary
Quick Tips
Chapter 9: Emerging Concepts in Information
Management
Can You Go Paperless?
Ambient Information
Summary
Endnotes
Chapter 10: The T.E.S.S.T.™ Process
Deciding on Action
Delegating Is Empowering
Storing or Trashing
Summary
Quick Tips
Chapter 11: Controlling Your Email
The Role of Email in a Modern Life
Three Types of “Checking” Email
Replacing Your Old Tricks
Developing a Better System
To Get Less Email, Send Less Email
Three Things You Shouldn’t Do
Three Things You Should Do
Assessing the Costs of Your Current Email Habits
Getting to Zero
Summary
Quick Tips
Endnotes
Chapter 12: Defending Your Attention Using
Technology
Breaking Bad Habits
Reducing “Noise” and Exerting More Control
Picking the Right Email Client
Creating Tasks from Email
Control Your Email: Shut off the Automatic Download
Summary
Quick Tips
Part III: Tools for Success
Chapter 13: Mastering Your Technology
Making Better Use of Your Calendar
Knowing the Secrets
A Great Add-On
Being Prepared and Flexible On the Go
Staying on Track
Don’t Take Chances with Your System
Summary
Quick Tips
Chapter 14: Managing New Communication—Social
Media
“Socializing” Communication
Control or Be Controlled
Know What You’re Doing
Summary
Quick Tips
Chapter 15: Implications for Groups and Teams
Productivity and Company Culture
Is a PIM Enough?
Summary
Quick Tips
Endnotes
Chapter 16: Modern Conveniences—Reviews and
Recommendations
Your Portable PIM
Lifestyle, Shopping, and Health
Business and Travel
Miscellaneous
Summary
Quick Tips
Part IV: Appendices
Appendix A: Recommended Book List
Appendix B: Resources
Glossary
Read This First
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Part I: Managing Your Attention
Chapter 1: Stop Trying to Manage Your Time
Chapter 2: Changing Your Mind: Attention Management
Chapter 1
Stop Trying to Manage Your Time In this
chapter
Regaining control of your attention
The lure of multitasking
New kinds of ADD
Focusing and choosing
“Time management” is a twentieth-century term that has far outlived its
usefulness. The longer into the twenty-first century people continue to frame
their productivity in terms of “time management,” the less efficient they will be.
That’s because the traditional tools of time management are a calendar and a
clock. However, rapid technological advances have made our lives far too
complex to manage with these tools. Putting something on your calendar doesn’t
mean it will occur, and “making time” for something doesn’t guarantee that
you’ll have the experience you intended.
For example, say you schedule coffee with a colleague, but while you are
together, she can’t keep her eyes off her mobile device because she’s checking
her email, texting someone, or searching the Internet for the answer to a question
you posed. If she’s doing all that, chances are good that she is not truly present in
her experience with you. In other words, it would probably not be the
meaningful dialogue that you intended when you scheduled the date, but rather
an annoying waste of time. Does this scenario sound familiar? It appears to be a
common occurrence in both social and business interactions of the twenty-first
century; you “spent the time” together, but because at least one person’s
attention was lacking, it didn’t have the desired effect.
It’s hard to blame your coffee guest for her lack of focused attention. Today,
many people carry “the world in their pocket” in terms of Internet access on their
smartphones. With Internet access, you have at your fingertips the answer to
virtually any question that pops into your head, random or otherwise. Whether
you want to know about the weather or the theory of relativity, the answer is just
a few taps away. And not only do you have to contend with your own curiosity
and your own scattered attention, but advertisers know that human beings are
evolutionarily wired to respond to lights, color, sound, and movement, which are
all features that your smartphone offers. Every business in the world is currently
studying how to use your smartphone to direct your attention to its service or
product.
Advertisers attempt to steal your attention in myriad ways: music and
messages played in public places, on-hold advertising, scrolling marquees,
commercials and product placement in television, radio, and movies. Many of us
make the advertiser’s job easier by frequently having a screen in front of us, so
that we are constantly subjected to banner advertising on virtually every single
web page, in-app advertising on handheld devices and tablets, and even
messages in our car from our navigation system or in-vehicle security device!
Matt Richtel, technology writer for The New York Times, calls this “screen
1
invasion.” Unfortunately, this invasion of screens, and the resulting distraction,
is the cost of indulging in the conveniences and technological progress of the last
50 years.
Given all these demands on your attention, this book proposes that how you
spend your time only matters to the extent that you also apply your attention.
The more I study productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness, the more I am
convinced that the secret to defending against the constant demands on your
attention is learning control—and the most important place for you to exert
control is over your own attention. When you control your attention, you control
your life. In the twenty-first century, “time management” and “information
management” are no longer as important as attention management.
This chapter illustrates why this issue has serious implications for your
productivity, and how this shift in your thinking from time management to
attention management affects your effectiveness. This chapter also teaches you
how and why to exert more control over your own attention.
Modern Technology: Advantages and
Disadvantages New communication
technologies are vastly changing the
landscape of human interaction. Social media
