add 9db45ab6

9db45ab6.md

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+---
+date: 2020-11-09T16:48
+tags:
+  - productivity
+---
+
+# focus requires a rigorous contract
+
+Balancing many disparate tasks is good for my morale ("Wow! If I get bored with
+this one thing, I can just do something else!"), but feeling "behind" is most
+decidedly _not_ good for my morale.  Timeblocking and scheduling are great, but
+they require _discipline_. I like to think that I am effectively entering into
+a short-term contract with myself. If the terms aren't clear, the chances of
+failure go up (significantly). Interestingly, I think this scenario represents
+a conflict of interest: I am basically the party responsible for _monitoring_
+that contract, as well as the one actually executing the work.
+
+Besides having a clear plan (a statement of work) I think the next biggest
+concern involves distractions. In my experience, you can't get rid of
+distractions, but you can be judicious about _what_ distractions you choose to
+entertain. That gets to the same end-goal of choosing _when_ to focus on
+distractions, but puts a different emphasis on the problem.
+
+The "hard" part (to me) is that developing the intuition of what to do (and
+when) is much easier said than done. Maybe because it is a constantly moving
+target?

index.md

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----
-tags: [home]
----
-
 # index
 
 experiment(s) with a public notebook.
 
-[[[z:zettels]]]
+[[[z:zettels?timeline]]]