only when we pay attention to something that our brain actively encodes it into memory.

The remaining box on the chart is purposeful work—the productivity sweet spot. These are the tasks we’re put on earth to do; the tasks we’re most engaged in as we do them; the tasks with which we make the largest impact. Very

When I finish that first read, I go through the book a second time, rereading just the highlighted parts so I can really process the most valuable nuggets. If I can, I’ll annoy someone nearby by sharing these bits so I can process them again even more deeply.

Setting specific intentions can double or triple your odds of success.

Scatterfocus is always intentional.

with attention becoming a rare commodity, fewer people are able to devote themselves to reading without distraction.

They’re with each other in person, but their attention is elsewhere.

Comparing Gollwitzer and Brandstätter’s two participant groups is where things get interesting. A remarkable 62 percent of students who set a specific implementation intention followed through on their goals. The group that did not set an implementation intention fared a lot more poorly, following through on their original intention a third as

You’re most likely to procrastinate on tasks that you consider boring, frustrating, difficult, ambiguous, or unstructured, or that you don’t find rewarding or meaningful.