The better way is to plan ahead and schedule your day. Surely this will force you to do the work?īut this isn't fixing the underlying problem: you stopped because you didn't know what to do next. The common advice is to block social media, or unplug the internet, or move to a cabin by a lake.

Thinking about the next action is hard, so we don't do it in the moment. Your brain would rather default to another immersive, rewarding state, like scrolling through reddit. Switching from an immersive flow state, to a more cognitive planning state, takes some context switching. In the moment, you should've picked the next action instead of picking which website to check.īut thinking about the next action is hard. You were on a roll, and then your brain shut off. You find yourself checking facebook, twitter, email. You're unstoppable.īut then you finish an action, and you're not really sure what to do next. The work is stimulating and you feel like you could do this all day. Have you ever been in flow? Each action comes smoothly, step-by-step. The philosophy I outline in this article meshes well with Sunsama. Update Jan 2020: I now use a tool called Sunsama instead of the workflow described below.

Google calendar and todoist