Avoiding busyness while being productive: How people manage it
When I was writing REST, one of the surprising things that emerged from my research was that people who have a lot of leisure are really well-organized and spend some of
“We need to start viewing time for reflection as a necessity, not a luxury”
In a 2015 interview, David Ryan Polgar explains how busyness interferes with creativity: We need to start viewing time for reflection as a necessity, not a luxury. Unfortunately, we
John Littlewood’s advice to mathematicians: 4-hour days, acquire the art of “thinking vaguely,” and “work all out or rest completely”
Cambridge from the bell tower at St Mary's Church I've quoted from this before, but I love John Littlewood's essay “The mathematician’s art of work,” In this extract, the
“vacation is serving their business, and their productivity, and their success at their work”
“If a vacation is done well, it gives your ego all this extra time to refuel, by not trying to manage your brain, not trying to be on
“let yourself be ‘lazy’ enough to only focus on what’s critical”
Good advice from Bill Gates (whose "think week" tradition earns him a place in REST): “Bill Gates once said he liked hiring smart, lazy people because they know
“Enjoyment comes in the highest degree not from going out to seek ‘fun’ and trying to chop it out of life with an axe,”
From Bertie Forbes, “Recreation,” in Keys to Success: Personal Efficiency (New York: B. C. Forbes, 1918) 222-230. If you want to accomplish the largest amount of work of which you
“the man or woman who has not learned to pursue helpful recreation is deficient in education”
While success ostensibly is won during working hours, in reality it is most often won during non business hours, the hours that are spent away from the bench
“Real recreation quickens aspiration”
Whatever dissipates physical or mental power obviously never re-creates. Many eminent men have found almost all the recreation they required through switching from one activity to another, through
“It is no use saying to the tired ‘mental muscles’… ‘I will lie down and think of nothing'”
One of the best things my wife and I did in London last year was visit the Churchill War Rooms. I had just come from LSE, where I
“What do I want to do more of with my nonworking time?”
Good advice from Laura Vanderkam: Instead of resolving to achieve work–life balance, it’s better to ask this question: What do I want to do more of with my