The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption

For this book, I worked in 15-minute work intervals with 2-minute breaks three times an hour, and a 9-minute email check at the end of every hour. I stretched, used the restroom, or otherwise didn’t look at the screen for the full two minutes, I found this helped my mind reflect and decompress, so that I could get back to writing. Sometimes those t

So if you’re working on complex problems, and feel that you must work longer than five-minute intervals, initially, then do it. But for a few hours, or even a solid day, give the 5:1 setting a shot. You might find that you get more minutes out of your day in the long term that way. Remember, we’re starting off easy so that you don’t get discouraged

also did only four hours in a row of this focused task work at a time, followed by at least an hour break

It’s likely your mind will beg for you to work on a problem for longer than five minutes. In some cases it might be right, but stick with the program if you can. Even experienced marathon runners often run less distance than they can, so that they can train up for speed and better endurance; similarly, we’re starting off at five minutes to make it

Now, we’re going to start off slow. Try working in five minute intervals, with a one minute break in which you can do anything — check Facebook, deal with Twitter, or check your phone for text messages — anything you want, except check your email (we’ll get to that in a minute). In one hour, try working like this five times, then pause your timer.

Kickstarter lets you see what some people (the self-selecting group that uses the service) are passionate about — whether it’s building the world’s largest database, performing analysis of hip-hop music, or writing a guidebook to breakfast joints in Columbus, Ohio. It lets you browse local projects, too, so you can see what kinds of things are star

Mass affirmation is the refined sugar of the mind — I’m not talking about the kind of relatively rare positive affirmation you get from friends or family, telling you that you’re loved and respected. Rather, it’s the mass affirmation: the affirmations you get that aren’t intended for you specifically, the stuff that television is best at, but also

Now sometimes this won’t work for you — you may want to pay more attention for longer spurts of time.

Readability charges a minimum membership fee of $5.00 per month that you can increase to however much you want. It takes 30% of the membership fee as its own, then allocates the remaining 70% to the content providers that you read through the service. It’s an invisible, transparent way to support content providers without having to wade through adv