Short teaser

Have you ever heard the story of the procrastinating robot on Mars?

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A post shared by Charlie Peterson🤷🏻‍♂️ (@thatmakessensetome)

Expanded story

Hundreds of people asked me to elaborate on the strategies.

Thrashing refers to the computational process of using 100% of your CPU power to decided what task to do and move stuff around without making progress on it and getting stuck in a loop, a computational loop.

Dictionary definition:

thrashing /thrăsh′ĭng/   [Wikipedia]

  • Action of the verb to thrash.
  • A beating, especially a severe one.
  • (slang) A heavy defeat.
  • (computing) Excessive paging within virtual storage, causing priority inversion.

Techniques

You can use techniques to optimise the small finite amount of executive energy you have to work with or expand and increase the amount of executive energy you have available.

optimise executive energy expand

The “brain dump”

Your scheduling algorithm is overwhelmed, you don’t have the abilitiy to pick a task, so in the Head Clearer section you write down every single thing that’s in your head. And you try to distinguish everyhing that is in your head, the Head Clearer, [from] what you are about to do Now.

And the rule is that you can’t write anything into the Now box until you’ve scribbled every last thing that is in your brain in this particular thrashing session.

Optimise existing executive energy

Core tools:

  • KT - Kill Task (5:00)
    • Decide what you’re definitely not doing today
  • RT - Random Task (comment1)
    • Roll a dice or use a random number generator or somehow just pick something
  • OA - Order Assigned (comment2)
    • Prioritize the oldest assigned task
  • OD - Order Due (5:22)
    • Which of the tasks influence if you have to do other tasks?
    • Do in order so you potentially kill other tasks
  • HF - Helper Function / NTS - Name the steps (7:39)
    • Break down tasks in smaller incremental steps

Focus tools:

  • Blitz - Hyperfocus on purpose (10:31)
  • HF - (see above)
  • DND - Do Not Disturb mode (10:26)
  • FTD - Follow The Dopamine (10:14)

Support tools:

  • EA - [effective action]??? (comment3 4)
  • BD - Body Doubling (comment5)
  • NTS - (see above)
  • JS - Just Start (10:14)

Not in the template:

  • Pajama videos / Mar the Canvas (10:44 and comment6)
    • Mess up on purpose in the beginning to get over perfectionism

From the comments:

  • ≤ 5 min (comment7)
    • If it takes 5 min or less, do that task now

Expand and increase executive energy (9:10)

  • M - Mindfulness (9:28)
  • PMR - Progressive Muscle Relaxation (9:34)
  • B - Breathing (9:46)
  • RAIN - Recognize, Accept, Investigate, Non-judgement (9:48)

  1. “@ThatMakesSenseToMe: Random task is like what it says. Roll a dice or use a random number generator or somehow just pick something. Even if it doesn’t make sense to do it first, once it’s done, you’ll have a little bit more brain space, and are less likely to end up thrashing.” ↩︎

  2. “@ThatMakesSenseToMe: Order assigned means to prioritize the oldest assigned task. In my example I have two client tasks and a brand deal. The brand deal started last month and the client tasks started this week. So instead of thrashing, trying to decide which client is most important, or assign would have me do the oldest task. Then the next oldest, then the next.” ↩︎

  3. “@macgoo1: EA - ??? (Essential/efficient/effective action?)” ↩︎

  4. “@ThatMakesSenseToMe: EA is lost to time.” ↩︎

  5. “@ThatMakesSenseToMe: BD is body doubling.” ↩︎

  6. “@ThatMakesSenseToMe: If I could add a new one it would be “Mar the Canvas” aka mess up on purpose at the beginning to defeat perfectionism.” ↩︎

  7. “@denini3972: +one from me: >=5min - if it takes 5min or less, do that task now.” ↩︎