Build Systems That Work With Your Brain

Nothing here is a memory problem. Knowing what to do and doing it are two different jobs, and it is the second one that goes wrong.

So stop asking yourself to remember. Put the thing where you will trip over it. One list, not five. The note on the door, not in an app you have to remember to open.

Working next to someone makes starting easier. In the room, on a call, or a stranger on a video.

We will be straight about why: the research is thin and points both ways. What it has going for it is that it is free to try, and one session tells you whether it is yours.

You are not avoiding the task. You are stuck on its first second.

Shrink it until it is not worth arguing with — open the app, find the number, put the shoes by the door.

Then say when and where. A plan with a time in it survives the day; one that says later does not.

An hour does not feel like an hour, and no amount of discipline fixes that.

Put time where you can watch it run down: a clock with hands, a timer that empties. Then write down what things actually take. Most people find it is the estimate that is wrong, not the speed.

The afternoon crash usually starts the night before. If your nights run late, hold the time you get up steady, not the time you go to bed.

And spend your good hours on the work that needs them. Admin at 10am spends the sharpest hours you get on the cheapest thing you do.