humans are really not built for first principles analytical thinking. even smart people find it incredibly exhausting. what we consider analysis is usually anxious panicking and avoiding something or the other. it is clear we are going to be massively outclassed in this soon
first of all, what you say AI will never be able to do it can do right now if you'd pay for the subscription dumbass
To be taken seriously, not every claim in the claim cloud has to be true. Being directionally right is hard enough on its own.
But you see, the problem is this claim-maker is somewhat of a crackpot.
Not because of the validity of their claims, but because of how the claims and the claim-maker's relationship to them interact with the world.
Let me introduce the element of time to illustrate this interaction:
Over time, the original claims can become arguably more true, or arguably more wrong.
Claims rarely stay static, especially because there are subtle forces at play here: elasticity and ego.
The crackpot subtly or not so subtly makes changes to the original claims: they become narrower, wider, or more convoluted, depending on how the events in the real world pan out.
Therefore, through the claim-maker's ego and the elasticity of the wording, the claim cloud drifts from t0 to t1, toward whatever version looks most true in hindsight.
To be fair, one claim in the cloud may turn out prescient.
Most of the cloud was still misleading in its original form.
The pattern kicks in when that one true fragment gets used as retroactive redemption for the whole cloud.
The original claim cloud evaporates and explodes at the same time.
The one correct claim launders a whole cloud of bullshit.
The cleanest example of this pattern is the retroactive redemption of anti-vaxxers.
Anti-vaxxers put out a whole cloud of claims: microchips in the shot with Bill Gates tracking you, armchair-expert biology like wild mRNA theories, and so on.
Then the big claim that vaccines were the devil's way of controlling your biology narrowed down to one defensible fragment: the shots could cause heart inflammation in young men.
That turned out to have a real basis: rare cases, mostly in young males, usually mild and self-resolving (and generally lower risk than the myocarditis you'd get from COVID itself).
Of course, now the anti-vaxxers ride the victory lap, as if they were right all along.
## II
Likely reasons the pattern exists:
- The obvious point: people don't only want to be right, they want to have been right all along.
- Status is involved as well. If the claim-maker is a public thought leader with fans, the audience starts defending the thought leader, not just the claim.
- The argument gets hotter, because admitting you were wrong now means admitting it to yourself, to your opponent, and to the people who liked you for being right.
- There's [research showing that we reconstruct our memories without noticing](http://www.self-definingmemories.com/bias_and_constructive_processes_in_a_self-memory_system.pdf): your current knowledge, beliefs, and feelings quietly reshape your memory of what you used to think and say.
- It's just easier to elaborate and convolute why you were right than to accept you were wrong.
- It's also why arguing rarely works: [persistent disagreement tends to run on self-favoring priors and self-deception](https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/deceive.pdf), not a shared hunt for truth.
- Knowing something other people don't know is weirdly affirming for crackpots and conspiracy theorists alike.
## Related
- [The Exemption Outsourcing Pattern](/exemption-outsourcing)
- [All In All, Another Brick In The Motte](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-brick-in-the-motte/)
- [Scott Alexander on Gary Marcus](https://www.astralcodexten.com/i/167709461/in-memoriam-your-last-set-of-goalposts-gone-but-not-forgotten)
- [Gwern on Gary Marcus](https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/v8yyv6/somewhat_contra_marcus_on_ai_scaling/ieixnwm/?context=2#thing_t1_ieixnwm)
- [roon on Gary Marcus](https://x.com/tszzl/status/2057680411317411883)
- [Gary Marcus on Gary Marcus](https://x.com/GaryMarcus)
----
# Performance mantras
Most advice on performance will only help you to get better incrementally. Here are some mantras I think are undervalued for true breakthroughs 🧘.
## Linear
```text
performance
^
|
| *
| *
| *
| *
| *
| *
| *
| *
| *
| *
*-------------------------------------------------------->
```
There are three ways to go faster linearly: doing less in the same time, doing the same in less time, or splitting the work across people.
Therefore, the obvious ways to increase performance are:
1. doing fewer things
2. doing each thing faster
3. splitting the thing across workers
Think of a cashier.
They can scan faster, or, seeing the same item six times, scan it once and key in a quantity of six.
Cashier scans faster = increased performance through doing the thing faster.
Cashier scans one item and enters quantity six = doing less work.
Now think of a classic team setting. If you are collaborating, do the blocking part first and send it out. They can work on their part while you work on something else. You split the work.
**Mantras**:
- do less
- do it faster
- do it in parallel
## Phase transition
```text
performance
^ *
| *
| *
| *
| *
| *
| *
| *
| *
| *
| *
| *
| *
| *
*-------------------------------------------------------->
```
The best way I can describe phase transition is "you become so good you gain a new capability".
Doing the thing so well that it opens up completely new levels of performance.
This is my favorite zone, if you are super skilled you can get away with so MUCH.
As a personal example, I trust myself to come up with interesting talking and teaching points in real time, so I can prepare little for lectures I give, cutting my preparation time non-linearly.
But my favorite example comes from sports: when an offensive player in football is devilishly fast, they gain the capability of outrunning the defense.
Once that threshold is passed and that capability is gained, the player scores much more.
There's also a slightly more system-y example.
As alluded to in my [bureaucracy post](/bureaucracy-and-envy), there's a narrow time window where you can act upon unbureaucratized opportunities, so if you are fast, you don't have to go through bullshit process.
In network science you would call this passing of the threshold a [phase transition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_a_random_network#Examples_for_occurrences_in_nature), hence the name.
**Mantras**:
- do it so well it feels unfair
- do it at the exact right time
## Exponential
```text
performance
^
|
| ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣀⣀⣀
| ⠀⠀⠀⠰⡿⠿⠛⠛⠻⠿⣷
| ⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⣀⣄⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣀⣀⣤⣄⣀⡀
| ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⢸⣿⣿⣷⠀⠀⠀⠀⠛⠛⣿⣿⣿⡛⠿⠷
| ⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠘⠿⠿⠋⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣿⣿⣿⠇
| ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠉⠁
|
| ⠀⠀⠀⠀⣿⣷⣄⠀⢶⣶⣷⣶⣶⣤⣀
| ⠀⠀⠀⠀⣿⣿⣿⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠙⠻⠗
| ⠀⠀ ⠀⣰⣿⣿⣿⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣀⣠⣤⣴⣶⡄
| ⠀⣠⣾⣿⣿⣿⣥⣶⣶⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠿⠿⠛⠃
| ⢰⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡄
| ⢸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡁
| ⠈⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠁
| ⠀ ⠀⠛⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⠟
| ⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠉⠉⠉
|
*-------------------------------------------------------->
```
Here the diagrams break down, because you stop asking how to solve the problem faster.
It's trivial to graph exponential curves, but they'd miss the point.
You get exponential gains by changing the thing instead of trying to speed up things.
Question the problem at hand, why this thing is in this shape, and why this work needs to happen at all, and if it shouldn't all be scratched and rethought.
Hard to talk about it, but psychologically you can achieve this by [raising your ambition](https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/10/high-return-activity-raising-others-aspirations.html), using [different time and task management systems](https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/03/20/running-a-software-business-on-5-hours-a-week), and [being willing to throw away](/three-things-i-believe) old things/thoughts of yours.
Be [meta-rational](https://tim.blog/2020/05/09/tyler-cowen-transcript/#:~:text=Could%20you%20elaborate%20on%20meta-rationality%20please): work on different problems, delegate the rest, and get comfortable not doing things.
My exponential gain was quitting video games and that is the boring half of the story. The real move was the leftover energy: I pointed the same restless, nervous, slightly deranged ADHD engine at talking to AIs (plural) all day instead (with the explicit goal of producing an artifact at the end of the day, every day).
Same horsepower, new direction.
**Mantra**:
- do something else
----
Three things I believe
============================
strongly:
- You don't have to justify why it's ethical to consume, *if* you won't be changing your shopping habits anyway, same-day deliver stuff to your house guilt free.
- We can get better at everything at once, we can be healthier, happier, wealthier, more spiritual -- there's no reason to take it one by one, reality is compounding.
- Related: accept the inevitable crashdown of your personality, optimize your recovery time, and you'll come out stronger.
----
# Repeating the phrase "taste is the differentiator" will not benefit you
AI has a new fool's trap each year.
In 2022, the critique was that it was just a glorified autocomplete.
In 2023, that it hallucinated too much.
In 2024 and 2025, that LLMs weren't truly intelligent, just stochastic parrots.
This year, the year of the Lord 2026, the fool's trap is: "AI lacks human judgment, taste is the differentiator".
Don't buy into this year's fool's trap. As Nadia Asparouhova wrote in [The tyranny of ideas](https://nadia.xyz/ideas), "Ideas ride us into battle like warhorses." The people who repeated the previous critiques were tyrannized by their ideas of incompetent AI and rode to war with a foolish strategy.
In hindsight, it was cope. Some criticism was warranted, but it was cope nonetheless. Cope against accepting the ruthlessly inevitable forward march of this transformative technology.
As Tyler Cowen says, [solve for the equilibrium](https://marginalrevolution.com/?s=Solve+for+the+equilibrium)! Don't drag this year's cope into your thinking.
Even the most profound truth too cheaply repeated is LinkedIn-level insight.
The better question is: where does AI have better taste than me? Which areas should I completely delegate to AI, so far as to accept everything the AI does in those areas, even when it overrules my taste?
----
Just stop using these
==================================================
phrases that never achieve anything, ever
- `if everybody would just`: "If your solution to some problem relies on `If everyone would just…` then you do not have a solution. Everyone is not going to just. At not time in the history of the universe has everyone just, and they’re not going to start now."^[squareallworthy on Tumblr.]
- `can't you just`: Belittling, either shows you disrespect the person or disrespect the problem they are dealing with, replace it with "is ... possible?" or 100 other phrases
- `i just find it funny`: The passive aggressive classic, I just find it funny how everyone hates hearing this phrase, but loves repeating it
Yes, you probably got it, these are all unjustified usages of `just`.
----
On snobbery
==============
I'm a MacBook snob, I have declined attractive job offers because they only allowed Windows machines for work.
That admitted, I am **very** afraid and cautious about becoming a snob in other arenas.
When it comes to coffee, I can enjoy third-wave, we-paid-5k-for-the-coffee-machine-and-grinder-each coffee, and I can also enjoy microwaved water infused with cheapo instant coffee.
Same with music: I lovingly bop my head to the most mind-blowing live concert setups, then bop just as happily to a 360p YouTube recording of the same concert.
Arguably, I enjoy coffee and music more than the coffee and audio snobs do.
Or more precisely, I have a wider range: snobs have fenced themselves into enjoying only the *crème de la crème*.
*instant coffee fukn slaps.*
----
# roon on historic times
the thing about living through history is, they don’t prepare you for how cringe it’ll all be
| Fluid | Base oats | Topping 1 (fruit) | Topping 2 (seeds/nuts) | Topping 3 (extra) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oat milk | Rolled oats | Blueberries | Chia seeds | Goji berries |
| Water | Instant oats | Banana | Flaxseed | Honey |
| Soy milk | Steel cut oats | Apple | Walnuts | Cinnamon |
| Coconut milk | Overnight oats | Mango | Almonds | Cocoa powder |
| Almond milk | Raspberries | Pumpkin seeds | Peanut butter | |
| Strawberries | Hemp seeds | Protein powder |
Skipping an activity you swore to do is such a normal thing that I don't think I need to further explain the matrix and its implications.
Some days, you skip the habit because of low motivation.
There's a better way to frame the problem, in which *skipping* the habit is the ultimate enemy.
This is the framing of the no days off principle — do a little even on days with no motivation.
Here is the decision matrix with the new framing:
Let's reframe the good sleep habit we want to achieve with this new matrix.
The first insight is the trick of having good sleep is not really waking up early, but going to sleep early.
But life happens, throughout the year you won't always control when you sleep.
You can, however, always wake up at 7am.
So let's reframe the habit to "Wake up at 7am each day".
Of course, of course, getting 7-8 hours of sleep is the gold standard.
But! Internalize that the gold standard isn't always possible, and skipping the habit is *the enemy*.
So wake up at 7am, even if it means less sleep.
In fact, we know that being [regular in your sleep cycles might be more important than getting the perfect amount of sleep each night](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352721823001663).
Reframing the other habits: exercise (a little) each day, write (a little) each day.
That way you stay in motion, you beat the enemy.
If you haven't done exercise, just go out and do a little — just do some pushups, man, if you really have no time.
You will notice that you will exercise more regularly, and once you started with just a few pushups, you'll likely do more.
Instead of defining your habit goals as "exercise more" or "lose x amount of weight", rather write them as doing something every day, and never stop.
You also compound if you do it every day, and long-term, a little gain beats a loss.
No excuses!
----
On online psychopaths
======================
*Why giving good universal advice can be bad* or *I wish I could pre-filter psychopaths*
In person, I tune advice to whoever I'm talking to, as advice is context-dependent.
On the internet, advice I give is more universal and boring, as [context is scarce](https://infovores.substack.com/p/context-is-that-which-is-scarce).
And even the universal, boring advice has exceptions.
"Just talk up people on the street" is a potentially life-changing activity, unless you're socially awkward and/or considered creepy-looking.
If you are unable to walk, "Take a long walk to clear your head" is useless.
The above examples are mostly harmless offenses, though.
There's a worse category: advice that becomes dangerous in the wrong hands — a.k.a. psychopaths.
"Look up which conferences someone attends and show up, people love to hear you came for them" is good networking advice.
"Be persistent about meeting them, sending multiple follow-ups if you must, it usually works for me" is great communication advice.
Both tips become stalking instructions for a psychopath.
This is a genuine problem.
I've heard podcasters say they never discuss stalkers on air.
Psychopaths are mimetic—talking about psychopathic acts motivates them.
So adding "unless you're a psychopath" to advice doesn't help.
Even worse, it invites the psychopath.
So you're left with two options: don't give advice, or give it knowing the wrong person might take it to heart.
**Related**
- [The Exemption Outsourcing Pattern](/exemption-outsourcing)
- From [Ruminating on read receipts](/read-receipts): "Except in psychopath ex or dysfunctional family circumstances, I believe turning off read receipts does a person more harm than good."
- [Death Grips - Giving Bad People Good Ideas](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvxkEvM81tU)
----
# Two tweets for twenty-sixteen
If I'm leaving 2025 with any core reflection, it's that I increasingly believe that the world has no place for those who lack conviction, that mistakes are forgiven while tameness is ignored, that perfection loses to done every time, that commitment and tenacity and audacity and self-promotion and risk-taking compound more than anything, and that all of this always starts with one very achievable next step that looks like a cliff but is much closer to the ground than you realize.
quit brainrot. unfollow trolls. read essays. go down rabbit holes. have a calendar. maintain a todo list. read old books. watch old movies. turn on dnd. walk with intent. eat without youtube. chew more. train without music. plan for 15 mins. execute. organise your desk. take something seriously. read ancient scripts. act fast. find bread. eat clean. journal. save a life. learn to code. read poetry. create art. stay composed. refine your speech. optimise for efficiency. act sincere. help people. be kind. stop doing things that waste your time. follow your intuition. craft reputation. learn persuasion. systemise your day (or don't). write. write. write. write more. iterate violently. leave your phone at home. walk to the grocery store. talk to strangers. feed the dogs. visit bookstores. look for 1800s novels. experience art. then love. sit with a monk and offer them lunch. don't talk shit about people. embody virtue. sit alone. do something with your life. what do you want to create? turn off your mind. play. play a sport. combat sports. notice fonts in trees. fall in love. notice patterns on a table. visualise it. talk to people with respect. don't hate. be loving. be real. become yourself. cherrypick your qualities. discard the useless. rejections aren't permanent. invite what aligns. accept what does not. read great people. be different. choose different. do great work. let it consume you. lose your mind. value your time. experience life.
When people encounter something like this, a fork happens: some get offended, some don't.
Most non-offended people agree with the opinion or simply scroll past.
It's the offended people who are more likely to engage with the post.
The offended can be split into two groups again:
Here's the part I find interesting:
Someone from that small minority replies, explaining how the observation doesn't apply to them.
The majority, the ones it does apply to, then rally behind that reply/comment.
The majority latch onto the exception case that doesn't apply to them.
I call this pattern the *Exemption Outsourcing Pattern*.
A pattern where people avoid being uncomfortable by hiding behind someone else's valid exemption.
This happens because dismissing the original opinion [is cheaper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_demand) than changing behavior.
Once you zoom out a little, you notice this pattern everywhere.
[Simpson's paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox) is an example from the statistics world.
From the legal world there is the ["Hard cases make bad law"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_cases_make_bad_law) concept.
----
On deathbed advice/regret
=========================
A common social media trope is [posting advice](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/23/regrets-people-have-at-end-of-lives-says-doctor-what-we-can-learn.html) [from people on their deathbed](https://www.reddit.com/r/Adulting/comments/1agyho8/what_do_people_regret_once_theyre_on_their_death/).
Usually about things they didn't do.
"I should've been more there for my loved ones" is a classic tune, "I should've cared less about what other people think" is another hit, usually culminating in the banger conclusion of "I should've done [a super specific personal thing like opening up a hobbyist store or buying a house in their favorite hinterland]."
I don't value this kind of advice much, it's too cheap.
Just like complaining is just so cheap.
Maybe there are good reasons at the time to not tackle the thing they are regretting, or they were too whiny in the first place to do [transformative things](/evaluating-big-life-choices).
I think that's my biggest problem with deathbed regrets, it feels like time-travelled whining about your life situation.
When chronic whiners annoy you — those who love non-stop complaining more than solving — mention that their complaint just became a top deathbed regret candidate.
Or you can be polite and internalize that you are probably gonna hear about the same person on their deathbed advising the exact opposite of what they're doing now.
That way you can be just like me and whine about other people's whining.
So yeah I don't value regrets packaged as advice, especially from people who never acted on their advice — a.k.a. people on their deathbed.
"The uncaught fish is always a big fish" is the appropriate Turkish saying^["Kaçan balık büyük olur"] that captures my mood.
Better advice comes from things people *actually did*.
This is fundamentally because [advice doesn't work that well](https://dynomight.net/advice/), but being a role model does.
Anyway, "be less on social media" is another advice/regret I am sure will be on people's lips on their deathbeds.
I'm sure because I hear it a lot.
People are aware of this regret pre-deathbed and free to act on it now.
Or they can just post on social media about deathbed regrets.
**Related**
- [The Deathbed Fallacy](https://web.archive.org/web/20241206224438/https://www.hjorthjort.xyz/2018/02/21/the-deathbed-fallacy.html)
----
Evaluating big life choices might be overrated
==============================================
*Two simple observations and my own two cents*
> Rational choice models of decision-making suggest gathering information on options and then proceeding with the option that best fits a person's current preferences and values. Paul argues that such a decision-making process is not possible for some options, called "transformative experiences", because the experience fundamentally transforms the person experiencing it. Paul offers a hypothetical example of a decision to become a vampire. Because a person would be fundamentally transformed by becoming a vampire, they cannot possibly know in advance what being a vampire is like. Other vampires might offer information, but their advice is likely shaped by their own irreversible choice. In this situation, a fully informed comparison of preferences and values is impossible.
~ [Wikipedia summary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformative_Experience) of L. A. Paul's "Transformative Experience"
Folks, you've heard it, evaluating too much doesn't only lead to [analysis paralysis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis_paralysis), it also sometimes just isn't possible .
The question remains: why should you do something you can't evaluate?
> [Steven] Levitt invited individuals who couldn't make up their minds about matters both major (like divorce) and minor (such as changing hair color) to avail themselves of a randomized coin toss.
>
> ...
>
> Individuals whose virtual coin turned up heads were 25 percent more likely to make a change than those whose coin flip yielded tails. And, based on what they reported in two follow-up surveys over a six-month period, the nudge of a coin toss was just what these participants needed. Regardless of their responses to the coin tosses, participants who decided to make a change reported that they were substantially happier than those who did not.
~ [Summary of Working Paper 22487](https://www.nber.org/digest/oct16/change-or-not-change-just-flip-coin?page=1&perPage=50), National Bureau of Economic Research
I have never ever regretted big life choices, even if they didn't work out.
Quitting a job with no money and no backup plan taught me a ton: I improved my network, learned how to ask for favors and introductions, and started to hustle.
I learned I can go bankrupt and the value of social welfare systems.
Next month I am joining a startup with all the responsibilities I wish I had in my previous job.
Let this post be the coin flip for your life choices.
------------------------------------------------------
----
Bureaucracy enables envy, envy begets bureaucracy
=========================================================
The classic explanation of growing bureaucracy inside an organization is that the people who benefit from the processes (i.e., bureaucrats) have an interest in perpetuating the growth.
This is probably true, incentives are superpowers and all that.
I'd like to add an often neglected point to the discussion: people who don't benefit — who hate the bureaucratic processes — also push for more bureaucracy.
Here's an analogy.
During the 2008 housing crisis, many Americans were furious that their neighbors might receive mortgage relief they themselves didn't get.
[This resentment helped fuel the Tea Party movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement#First_national_protests_and_the_birth_of_national_movement).
The same psychology applies elsewhere: "I had to work hard, why should others get [UBI](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_income)?"
Or: "I suffered through a brutal exam, so future lawyers should too." And it applies to bureaucratic processes too.
Being denied something by bureaucracy creates a kind of mini trauma, one that resurfaces when people see others slipping through gaps the bureaucracy hasn't yet reached.
The people then pressure the powers that be to close the gap, to formalize the exception, to make others suffer the same process.
Of course, there are legitimate reasons to formalize things. But we should also admit that 'this isn't fair to the group' often masks 'this isn't fair to me'.
----
Against auto-update
=======================
People flip out over rearranged or occupied desks at work.
Someone moved their stapler, shifted their monitor, took their place, and suddenly it's a whole thing.
I, personally, can handle an occupied or rearranged desk.
I flip out over rearranged apps.
Software usually comes with the "automatic update" setting on by default.
You probably know what I'm going to advocate for.
In my opinion, this setting should almost always be turned off.
**Reasons against auto-update:**
- I don't know what changed. The "here's what's new" popup appears when I open the app to *do* something, so I immediately click the popup away. I'm more likely to actually read what's different when I consciously update.
- Many new changes aren't *really* beneficial, sometimes software just gets strictly worse and your muscle memory becomes a liability.
- Downgrading is hard, sometimes impossible — iOS for example won't let you go back.
Of course, everything is a trade-off.
One reason web applications are popular is because they basically force every user to auto-update.
**Reasons for auto-update:**
- Security updates
- The "app version not supported" screen is annoying and you might be forced to update at an inconvenient time
The security argument is strong, however, software providers pivoted to either using a different update channel for critical security fixes or they stop supporting vulnerable apps outright, which is sane behavior.
In that sense, the "app version not supported" banner might be a good thing, heh.
The tradeoff is worth it in my eyes.
Since turning auto-update off, I have more calm about my frequently-used apps and I don't flip out about someone rearranging my apps.
**Related**
- [Enshittification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification), although I am not as pessimistic as Cory Doctorow about the state of software
- ["Let that be a lesson to you, son: never upgrade."](https://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2008/03/10.html)
----
Timeboxd
=========
*We fetishize time, let's put it in a nice dress*
Getting more done with less is knowing which tasks to delegate (to AI) and which tasks not to do at all.
In other words, extreme clarity on the stuff you ought to do, and extreme focus while doing it.
The most fundamental way I achieve clarity is by typing down everything, literally everything I do and think about.
That's a story for a longer post.
This post isn't about my typing tips; it's a tribute to the timebox.
And the focus you can achieve with ~dot~ it.
The gist of timeboxing is that you define a task time and set aside a limited amount of time to solve it.
Here lies the first benefit of the timebox: actually thinking through what you want to do right now, and how long it should take.
Just scribbling down things on the task at hand gets you much closer to working tidy.
There are many posts and theories about maximum timebox efficiency, but I keep it lightweight.
I use [Session](https://www.stayinsession.com) as my timeboxing app of choice^[You can simply do this with alarm clocks, or even just a watch, keep it lofi].
Mostly because when the timer for the timebox starts, there's a delightful animation to guide your breath: