We used to make to-do lists so long they needed their own to-do list. Every morning we’d write down fifteen things, feel productive for about four minutes, and then by noon we’d done three of them and hated ourselves a little. The list wasn’t helping us do more. It was helping us feel behind. So … Read more
It was a Sunday. We slept in, made coffee, watched part of a show, scrolled our phone, ordered lunch, scrolled some more, and by four in the afternoon we were so tired we could have gone back to bed. And we remember thinking, tired from what? We didn’t do anything. This is one of the … Read more
We used to think we were good at multitasking. We were proud of it. We’d eat lunch while answering emails while half-listening to a podcast, and we’d tell ourselves we were being efficient. What we were actually doing was doing three things badly and enjoying none of them. The moment we really understood single tasking … Read more
Last year we sat down to read a novel — something we’d done happily our whole life — and couldn’t get through three pages without reaching for our phone. We’d read a paragraph, feel a twitch, and suddenly we were checking the weather, then email, then a video about a guy restoring an old axe. … Read more