“Repetition is a neon sign that points to busywork. Manually composing and sending a variation of the same email every quarter is not the best use of your skills. Of course, this doesn’t apply to recurring work that requires creativity or strategy, like writing a monthly newsletter for your top clients.”
Aytekin Tank, Automate Your Busywork (Page 42)
“Technology has rapidly exacerbated the loneliness problem, with one study cited in the report finding that people who used social media for two hours or more daily were more than twice as likely to report feeling socially isolated than those who were on such apps for less than 30 minutes a day.”
Amanda Seitz
“No one will eliminate busywork for you. It’s your responsibility to create space in your work(day), and automation can make it happen.”
Aytekin Tank, Automate Your Busywork (Page 29)
“It will feel great to check off each item [of your to-do list], they say. When you reach the end, you’ll be free, they say. But the truth is there is no end.”
Aytekin Tank, Automate Your Busywork (Page 17)
“Before I could even begin to eliminate my busywork, I had to set boundaries—which was hard. I turned off notifications when I left work and kept them off at home. I had to learn how to consciously switch my mind away from work. But over time it got easier. I didn’t cringe every time I said ‘no’ or ‘tomorrow, not today.’ These might not sound like big steps, but when you’re in reaction mode, doing anything with intention can feel revolutionary. I also realized that boundaries prioritize your attention. Instead of responding to an email the moment it hit my inbox, I chose to continue the critical work I was currently engaged in.”
Aytekin Tank, Automate Your Busywork (Page 16)
“Of course, trimming ones’ to-do list reduces stress. But for some the idea of automation adds stress, since many people worry that humans will be replaced by an army of robots. But automation isn’t necessarily about replacing humans—it’s about handing off mindless, time-consuming tasks so that we can focus on the work machines can’t do.”
Aytekin Tank, Automate Your Busywork (Page 10)
“Your productivity is not the problem. Many of us have absorbed the message of productivity culture that says success requires a superhuman work ethic. When exhaustion and overwork are normalized, it’s easy to drive yourself into the ground and think it’s your fault you haven’t yet created the optimal morning routine or applied enough time hacks to tame your to-do list. But your productivity is not the problem; the problem is thinking you need to personally do every iota of work that lands on your plate.”
Aytekin Tank, Automate Your Busywork (Page 5)
“Turning repetitive tasks into automated digital processes frees your brain for the essential, creative work. And you don’t need to hire a team or spend money on expensive new products. Automation is accessible to anyone who wants to take advantage of it. With a little effort, anyone can automate.”
Aytekin Tank, Automate Your Busywork (Page 1)
“Brains sabotage the most beautiful ideas. So, when you ask me: how can I do work I love—while also maybe traveling more and enjoying my life and learning the bagpipes and doing the kinds of creative projects I dream about? I’ll tell you what the first question is: Can you do what is necessary? Can you silence your brain long enough to actually attempt something great?“
Ash Ambirge
“There are three strands, present for most everyone: Power (sometimes seen as status, or the appearance of status); Safety (survival and peace of mind); Meaning (hope and the path forward). The changes in our media structure, public health and economy have pushed some people to overdo one or the other and perhaps ignore a third. When a social network finds your button and presses it over and over, it’s hard to resist. New cultural forces catch on because they hit on one or more of these. And politics is understood through this lens as well. See the braid and it’s a lot easier to figure out why we might be stressed.”
Seth Godin
“Time assets vs. Time debts. Time assets are choices that save you time in the future. Think: saying no to a meeting, automating a task, working on something that persists and compounds. Time debts are choices that must be repaid and cost you time in the future. Think: saying yes to a meeting, doing sloppy work that will need to be revised, etc. Time assets are an investment. Time debts are an expense.”
James Clear, Blog
“We can never watch the same show twice. We can never listen to the same song twice. We can never get the same piece of advice twice. Because our experiences, our tastes, our understanding of the world has changed. But, those second and third and fourth encounters–those re-introspectings–are actually where the real insights and breakthroughs can come from. That’s when we can really get it. That’s when we might really come to get ourselves in the process.”
Ryan Holiday
“Your picture-perfect postcard beach doesn’t move me. What I want is to come alive when I see you. I want to feel like I am seventeen again, and I am swinging on a rope swing under an old elm, and you are teasing me about my dress, and the light is hitting your hair, and you smile back at me like maybe I could be the one, and I manage to say something witty, and you laugh—and oh, your laugh is the closest I’ve ever been to god—and every good sense I have is lost in this moment, in this tiny razor-thin sliver of time, when you and I are human poetry, and dandelion cotton balls blow across the wind, and the sun starts to set, and we both look at one another and think things that neither of us will ever say, but will feel for the rest of our lives, every time we pass the park on Church Street, and remember how it felt, to be free. This is why you travel.”
Ash Ambirge
“I remember the day quite clearly. My brother and I were in the front yard playing basketball, as we often did after school. My father drove up on his motorcycle, coming back from work, and said, ‘I have some good news guys. I have decided to order cable TV.’ Our life changed. We went from about 4 stations to over 60 stations overnight. In the following months, my brother and I played basketball together less often, and as more kids in the neighborhood also got cable, there were fewer evenings when we were all out playing hide–and–go–seek in the neighborhood. I learned that every new offering both gives something … and also takes away.”
Soren Gordhamer
“Consider the difference between saying ‘I am sad’ and ‘I feel sad.’ Similar as those two statements may seem, there is actually a profound difference between them. ‘I am sad’ is a kind of self-definition, and a very limiting one. ‘I feel sad’ suggests the ability to recognize and acknowledge a feeling, without being consumed by it. The focusing skills that are part of mindsight make it possible to see what is inside, to accept it, and in the accepting to let it go, and, finally, to transform it.”
Daniel J. Siegel, Mindsight
“Writing in a journal activates the narrator function of our minds. Studies have suggested that simply writing down our account of a challenging experience can lower physiological reactivity and increase our sense of well-being, even if we never show what we’ve written to anyone else.”
Daniel J. Siegel, Mindsight