Mind Management, Not Time Management: Productivity When Creativity Matters (Getting Art Done Book 2)

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We’re constantly bombarded with advice on how to manage our time more effectively to achieve our goals.

However, using our time well is only a part of the equation, the other part is ensuring that our minds are able to do their best work within that time, and that different creative activities require a variety of environmental optimizations. His preferred Deep Work style is what Cal Newport’s Deep Work by Cal Newport would probably deem monastic.Instead of struggling to get more out of your time, start effortlessly getting more out of your mind. Mind management is very interesting and the thoughts on it in this book are similar to ones I’ve developed over the years.

Questions about how to sustain such a systematic approach amidst the messiness of life came up for me as I read. A final imperfection is that any book dealing with the mind should account for psychological challenges that hold us back.

We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Sleep-A one-hour increase in average daily sleep raises productivity by more than a one-year increase in education. So when it gets tired, it’s hard for you to think about the overarching purpose of what it is you’re doing right now, or to keep yourself from checking Facebook and Twitter every 2 minutes. Make time for planning: Making planning a separate, dedicated activity has two benefits: 1) You can do it when your mental energy for planning is high (I like Sunday evenings), so that you do better planning, and 2) It frees up your precious prefrontal cortex to do other activities — since the planning and prioritization has already been done.

For example, when we're planning to make a presentation, it's important to know if we're in a state where we're good at handling details or if we're feeling creative and can generate new ideas. Procrastination does in fact arise from the failure to make a project clear, which simple steps can overcome, but it can also come from a deep rooted fear linked to a childhood trauma. Instead of looking at being productive by the clock, the book talks about using each state to the optimal.

The Seven Mental States of Creative Work: Starting with the ideas from Deep Work, but realizing there were different flavors, David has done the experimentation and verification in his own life, confirming what he was finding with other creators and teachers and scientists along the way, and given us the fruit, that we can apply in our own lives, experimenting and tweaking as he encourages us. By carefully organizing your tasks, and managing your schedule so that you tend to the right task when you have the right energy, your busy schedule can accommodate more productivity than you otherwise thought possible. My one takeaway from this book is that I wish it was a bit more organized, it felt a bit all over the place although the content was great! The goal of mind management is to align your mental state with work that needs to be done, while also allowing your mind to do the work that it wants to do. As I mentioned at poing 1 for the productivity advice I would give 5 stars - despite in some points its more good collection (and connection) which was already said in other forms.