"By allowing yourself to occasionally hit the pause button and step away from the constant pressure, you create space for growth and creativity. By doing less today, you can do more of what matters tomorrow."

"Stop yourself from overcommitting. Limit the list of projects you're working on and get comfortable with saying 'no.' Ask yourself: If I had to pick only one project to put all my energy into, what would that be?'"

"By sketching out the paths ahead, you can work out which one you really want to take."

“The journey to alignment is not one with a clear end-goal. It's a never-ending process. As we navigate the laboratory of our lives, we must be willing to embrace experimentation - and to learn as we go."

“The secret to productivity isn’t discipline. It’s joy.”

“If you can make your work feel good, then productivity takes care of itself.”

“If the treatment isn’t working, question the diagnosis.”

“Slowly, and then all at once, I started to doubt all the productivity advice I had absorbed. Did success really require suffering? What was 'success' anyway? Was suffering even sustainable? Did it make sense that feeling overwhelmed would be good for getting things done? Did I have to trade my health and happiness for, well, anything?

It would take me a few months. But I was stumbling my way to a revelation: that everything I'd been told about success was wrong. I couldn't hustle my way to becoming a good doctor. Working harder wasn't going to bring me happiness. And there was another path to fulfillment: one that wasn't lined with constant anxiety, sleepless nights, and a concerning dependence on caffeine.

I didn't have all the answers, not by a long shot. But for the first time, I could make out the beginnings of an alternative approach. An approach that didn't hinge on exhaustingly hard work, but on understanding what made hard work feel better. An approach that focused on my well-being first, and used that well-being to drive my focus and motivation second. An approach I would come to refer to as feel-good productivity."

“Feynman was not alone. To my knowledge, at least six Nobel Prize winners attribute their success to play.

James Watson and Francis Crick, who discovered the structure of DNA in the 1950s, described the generative process they used to come up with the structure as 'constructing a set of molecular models and beginning to play.'

Alexander Fleming, the scientist who discovered the antibiotic penicillin, once described his job as 'playing with microbes.' Donna Strickland, the 2018 Nobel laureate in Physics, described her career as 'getting to play with high-intensity lasers.'

Konstantin Novoselov, who shared the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics for helping discover graphene, put it most simply: 'If you try to win the Nobel, you won't,' he reflected. 'The way we were working really was quite playful.'"

“As a fourteen-year-old, there’s nothing more exciting than killing monsters and going on quests (actually, as an adult that still sounds pretty appealing)."

“The study showed that people were a whopping 30 percent more likely to recall a fact they found interesting, rather than a fact they found boring. But what was perhaps more surprising was what was going on in people's brains at the point that they recalled these facts.

When they were given a brain scan, their neurological activity was quite different when they were asked a question they were curious about: they seemed to receive a hit of dopamine.

Dopamine is one of our feel-good hormones, and it also activates the part of the brain responsible for learning and forming memories. So for the study participants, engaging with their curiosity made them feel good - and they in turn became better at retaining information."

“And if you were approaching writing a book sincerely rather than seriously, you might decide to throw a detailed homage to World of Warcraft into the very first chapter - illustrating to your future readers that even when creating something as significant as your first book, you can treat the process with levity.

By doing so, you'd hopefully help the text create a sense of fun, even while holding forth on the science of productivity. You might end up able to stress less and play more."

The Vicarious Mastery Experience: “This is when you witness or hear about someone else's performance related to a task that you're going to undertake yourself. You see other people's examples, and it boosts your confidence."

“And in my new life as a writer, I find that watching, listening to, and even conducting interviews with successful authors does more to boost my own feelings of 'I can do this' than almost anything else."

“This concept is today known as the "Benjamin Franklin effect.' It suggests that when we ask someone for help, it's likely to make them think better of us. It's the flipside of the transformative effects of helping others: we can ask others to help us, which will help them feel better, too."

“People are more eager to help than you think. We have by now repeatedly seen how energizing it can be to make others smile, to teach, and to mentor. Even so, a lot of us underestimate how willing other people are to help us. According to the academics Francis Flynn and Vanessa Bohns, people tend to underestimate the likelihood that other people will agree to help us by up to 50 percent."

“Asking for help in-person was approximately thirty-four times more effective.”

“We’re much more likely to underestimate how much communication we need to do than overestimate it."

"When you think you've communicated plenty, you almost certainly haven't."

"The one thing you can be certain of is that some plans won't go according to plan. So you need to plan for that too. As General Eisenhower said, 'No battle was ever won according to plan, but no battle was ever won without one.'"

"Time is always already running out."

"Think of time blocking as a budget for your time."

"The key is to create a balance that works for you - your ideal week reflecting your priorities, ambitions, and personal circumstances.

You might never actually stick to your ideal week; that's what I mean when I say it's 'ideal.' Inevitably, things will come up that blow you off track - and that's okay.

Time blocking isn't about creating a rigid schedule that stresses you out; it's about providing structure and ensuring there's dedicated time for what matters most to you. Once you have that, the fog of uncertainty will be that bit clearer."

“But what we’re afraid others will notice about us - our mistakes, small missteps, our worst qualities - aren't typically what we notice in others. When we look at ourselves, these things seem a lot bigger and more important than they really are."

“In 2016, researchers combined 138 studies consisting of almost 20,000 participants to conduct a meta-analysis of its effects. They found that tracking progress, whether through writing down progress goals (like whether you completed the training sessions you aimed to do) or writing down output goals (like your 5km time), dramatically increases your chances of actually attaining that goal."

“Tracking your progress helps you identify any areas where you may be falling behind, or where you need to make adjustments. By monitoring your progress, you can identify patterns, habits, or obstacles that may be hindering your progress."

“Life is better with friends around.”

"Humans are social creatures, and we're desperate not to let one another down. If you might skip a gym session when you're the only person involved, it's much harder to skip when your friend is outside your apartment early in the morning looking irately at their watch."

“I find that the best accountability buddies meet five criteria: being disciplined (they must stick to what you've agreed to), challenging (they know what it means to help you move on to the next level), patient (they don't jump to conclusions or rush you into making decisions), supportive (they're there with words of encouragement), and constructive (they must know how to give you honest feedback and constructive criticism)."

"Wohl realized that his students' damaging cycle of productivity was caused by them beating themselves up. Whenever they failed to study, they would spend days telling themselves they were bad students. And this shame made them even less likely to study in the future."

"I forgive myself, now I can study."

“Procrastination isn’t something we can always control. Forgiving ourselves is something we can. You can focus on the small losses. Or you can celebrate the small wins. By accepting and forgiving our inevitable tendency to procrastinate - and celebrating the little victories instead - we can begin to conquer its hold over us."

“It’s so tempting to think, 'Six weeks from now, my schedule is going to be totally clear, so I'll definitely have time and energy to do this thing.' You won't. In six weeks, your life is going to be just as busy as it is today. If you wouldn't say yes to something happening tomorrow, you shouldn't say yes to it in a month or more."

“Within every day, you need time for a break. And more time than you might imagine. In fact, the people who seem to get the most done are often those who've turned doing nothing for large chunks of time into a fine art.

In one study, the software company Draugiem Group set out to find out how much time people spent on various tasks and how it related to each worker's productivity. The workers who were most productive were not the ones who chained themselves to their desks. Nor were they the ones who gave themselves a healthy-sounding five-minute break every hour.

The most productive workers gave themselves an almost unbelievable amount of time off: a work-to-break ratio of fifty-two minutes of work to seventeen minutes of rest."

"Nature replenishes our cognitive abilities and boosts our energy."

"If you're looking for a simple and easy way to immediately feel rejuvenated, just try taking a walk - no time limit, no distance to reach, no place in particular to go. If you can, take your stroll through a park, or a forest, or just a particularly verdant street. If you want, bring a friend.

It may not be the four hours that Thoreau recommended, but even a ten-minute stroll down the block during your break might be enough to change your day - and your life - for the better."

“Ultimately, it's only by continually evaluating what works for you that you'll work out how to feel better in the long run. Productivity is an evolving field, and you're evolving too. There's still so much to discover.

Yet as you apply these principles to your life, you'll uncover the insights, strategies, and techniques that work best for you. They may well be more useful than mine, especially because they came from within you.

So enjoy the process. And as you go, remember that this process isn't about striving for perfection. It's about strategically stumbling your way to what works. Learning from your failures and celebrating your successes. Transforming your work from a drain on your resources to a source of energy.

It's a difficult mindset to adopt. But when you've adopted it, everything changes. If you can tap into what makes you feel most energized and alive, you can get anywhere. And you can enjoy the journey too."

"But of course, none of this would have been possible without the love and support from my family. My grandmother Nani, who taught me the English language and infused me with a passion for learning, deserves a special mention. Your inspiration, love, and endless encouragement have been pillars on which much of my life stands.

Last but certainly not least, my mother, Mimi: a single parent who uprooted her life multiple times to give Taimur and me an exceptional education. Your sacrifices, work ethic, and boundless love are the undercurrents of everything I do."

“Infinity Pools are apps and other sources of endlessly replenishing content. If you can pull to refresh, it's an Infinity Pool. If it streams, it's an Infinity Pool. This always-available, always-new entertainment is your reward for the exhaustion of constant busyness."

“When you schedule something, you're making a commitment to yourself, sending yourself a tiny message that says: 'I'm going to do this.'"

“Product designers like us have spent decades removing barriers to make these products as easy to access as possible. The key to getting into Laser mode and focusing on your Highlight is to bring those barriers back."

“You are where you are and what you are because of yourself. Everything you are today – or ever will be in the future – is up to you. Your life today is the sum total of your choices, decisions, and actions up to this point.

You can create your own future by changing your behaviors. You can make new choices and decisions that are more consistent with the person you want to be and the things you want to accomplish with your life.”

“You came into this world with more talents and abilities than you could ever use. You could not exhaust your full potential if you lived 100 lifetimes.

Your amazing brain has 100 billion cells, each of which is connected to as many as 20,000 other neurons. The possible combinations and permutations of ideas, thoughts, and insights you can generate are equivalent to the number one followed by eight pages of zeroes. According to brain expert Tony Buzan, the number of thoughts you can think is greater than all the molecules in the known universe.

This means that whatever you have accomplished in your life to this date is only a small fraction of what you are truly capable of achieving.”

“Make developing new habits a regular part of your life. Always be working on developing a new habit that can help you. One new habit per month will amount to 12 new habits each year, or 60 new, life-enhancing habits every five years.

At that rate, your life would change so profoundly that you would become a whole new person, in a very positive way, in a very short period of time.”

“There’s a reason why you can’t find a wall clock in a casino to save your life - those folks stealing your money do not want you to be aware of the passing of time.

And that tells you something useful right there: you want to be very aware, all the time, of the passing of time. It is to your advantage to be very conscious of the passage and usage of minutes and hours.”

“It is very important that you have a CLOSED Door Policy. You need some times when everybody knows - because of the closed door, red light, stuffed purple dragon in the hallway, whatever - that you are 100% uninterruptable. And if you want to sit in there and take a nap, you go right ahead. It’s none of their damned business.”

“When you’re up to your neck in alligators, it’s difficult to remember that your original objective was to drain the swamp. And, having been up to my neck in alligator-filled swamp water more often than I like to remember, I know just how tough it is to keep at least one eye fixed firmly on your list of goals. But that’s EVERYTHING.”

“The truth is that you are living in a system that is pouring acid on your attention every day, and then you are being told to blame yourself and to fiddle with your own habits while the world's attention burns."

“Imagine you bought a plant and you wanted to help it grow. What would you do? You would make sure certain things were present: sunlight, and water, and soil with the right nutrients. And you would protect it from the things that could damage or kill it: you would plant it far from the trampling feet of other people, and from pests and diseases. Your ability to develop deep focus is, I have come to believe, like a plant.

To grow and flourish to its full potential, your focus needs certain things to be present: play for children and flow states for adults, to read books, to discover meaningful activities that you want to focus on, to have space to let your mind wander so you can make sense of your life, to exercise, to sleep properly, to eat nutritious food that makes it possible for you to develop a healthy brain, and to have a sense of safety.

And there are certain things you need to protect your attention from, because they will sicken or stunt it: too much speed, too much switching, too many stimuli, intrusive technology designed to hack and hook you, stress, exhaustion, processed food pumped with dyes that amp you up, polluted air.

For a long time, we took our attention for granted, as if it was a cactus that would grow in even the most dessicated climate. Now we know it's more like an orchid, a plant that requires great care or it will wither."

“With this image in mind, I now had a sense of what a movement to reclaim our attention might look like. I would start with three big, bold goals.

One: ban surveillance capitalism, because people who are being hacked and deliberately hooked can't focus.

Two: introduce a four-day week, because people who are chronically exhausted can't pay attention.

Three: rebuild childhood around letting kids play freely - in their neighborhoods and at school - because children who are imprisoned in their homes won't be able to develop a healthy ability to pay attention.

If we achieve these goals, the ability of people to pay attention would, over time, dramatically improve."

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”

#1: "If I'm going to spend at least (approximately) 40 years working, wouldn't it serve me well to find out whether it's possible to make my working hours more enjoyable? More effortless? More joyful?"

#2: “How confident do I actually need to feel to get started with this?” 

#3: “Would I be excited about this commitment if it was happening tomorrow? Or am I only thinking about saying 'yes' to it because it's easier to make it a problem for my future self?"

#4: “What would this look like if it were fun?”

#5: "It's one week later, and I haven't actually started the task I intended to start. What are the top three reasons why I didn't get around to it? What can I do to help mitigate the risk of those top three reasons derailing me?"

#6: "Who can I ask for help in sticking to this commitment?"

#7: "Where is the lesson in this failure and where is the benefit?"

#8: "Will this matter in 10 minutes? Will this matter in 10 weeks? Will this matter in 10 years?"

#9: "Is there any sense in trying to be more productive at work, without uncovering the ultimate purpose toward which I'm exerting so much effort in the first place?"

#10: "If most of my assumptions about productivity could turn out to be incorrect, what else could I be wrong about? What haven't I even considered yet? What else is worth a second look?"

"Judge a man by his questions, rather than by his answers."