I learned this principle of daily project limits from my doctoral adviser at MIT, one of the founders of the study of distributed algorithm theory, and a massively productive scholar. She was often incredulous at my attempts to switch back and forth between multiple academic papers, or to combine book writing with computer science thinking in the s

The problem with deploying this stress heuristic, of course, is that you don’t start turning away incoming tasks until you find yourself already creeping up to the edge of unsustainable workloads. It ensures that you’ll remain permanently in this exhausting liminal space that immediately precedes the overhead tax tipping point.

You need to feel sufficient personal distress to justify the distress saying no might generate in the other party.

At moderate workloads, this effect might be frustrating: a general sense that completing your work is taking longer than it should. As your workload increases, however, the overhead tax you’re paying will eventually pass a tipping point, beyond which logistical efforts will devour so much of your schedule that you cannot complete old tasks fast eno

Strive to reduce your obligations to the point where you can easily imagine accomplishing them with time to spare. Leverage this reduced load to more fully embrace and advance the small number of projects that matter most.

But recall that busy Jane Austen was neither happy nor producing memorable work, while unburdened Jane Austen, writing contently at quiet Chawton cottage, transformed English literature.

It was only when, through circumstance and contrivance, her obligations were greatly reduced that Austen was able, finally, to complete her best work. —

1. Do fewer things. 2. Work at a natural pace. 3. Obsess over quality.

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