Neal Stephenson - Why I Am a Bad Correspondent
nealstephenson.com
Neal Stephenson - Why I Am a Bad Correspondent
Scottish crime novelist Ian Rankin, describing the onslaught of the mundane that so often keeps him from his writing: “The phone rings, the doorbell sounds, there’s shopping to be done or an urgent email demanding a reply.”
This state of fragmented attention cannot accommodate deep work, which requires long periods of uninterrupted thinking. At the same time, however, modern knowledge workers are not loafing. In fact, they report that they are as busy as ever. What explains the discrepancy?
There’s no reasonable definition of productivity that shouldn’t also apply to John McPhee, and yet nothing about his work habits is frantic, busy, or overwhelming. This initial insight developed into the core idea that this book will explore: perhaps knowledge workers’ problem is not with productivity in a general sense, but instead with a specific
... See moreInstead of writing or editing my novel, which has been gathering dust since its manuscript assessment over a year ago, reading a book, playing a board game with my kids, exercasing and whatever … I’m here trialing apps and tinkering with my notes.
Even though Bertrand Russell says (and I like to believe it) , “The time you enjoy wasting is not waste
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