In Daily Rituals, Mason Currey catalogs a variety of eccentric, mind-transforming routines developed by dozens of great thinkers and creators.

The problem is that the home is filled with the familiar, and the familiar snares our attention, destabilizing the subtle neuronal dance required to think clearly. When we pass the laundry basket outside our home office (aka our bedroom), our brain shifts toward a household-chores context, even when we would like to maintain focus on whatever

As the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard argues in The Poetics of Space, we shouldn’t underestimate the ability of our surroundings to transform our cognitive reality. In discussing the role of a home, for example, Bachelard famously quipped, “Inhabited space transcends geometrical space.” The stairway is not simply a collection of raised steps,

The economic activity in which knowledge is transformed into an artifact with market value through the application of cognitive effort.

A philosophy for organizing knowledge work efforts in a sustainable and meaningful manner, based on the following three principles: 1. Do fewer things. 2. Work at a natural pace. 3. Obsess over quality.

The use of visible activity as the primary means of approximating actual productive effort.

The relentless overload that’s wearing us down is generated by a belief that “good” work requires increasing busyness—faster responses to email and chats, more meetings, more tasks, more hours.

This is what ultimately matters: where you end up, not the speed at which you get there, or the number of people you impress with your jittery busyness along the way.

A slower approach to work is not only feasible, but is likely superior to the ad hoc pseudo-productivity that dictates the professional lives of so many today.