Show HN: HN-Inspired Book: Mind Management, Not Time Management
10 years ago, I got a book deal to write <i>Design for Hackers</i> – thanks to the Hacker News community.<p>Nothing I had learned about productivity prepared me to write a book.<p>I then dug into the science behind creativity. I wrote a blog post which led to collab. with Dan Ariely on Timeful, which Google bought.<p>After more experimentation, this week I self published, <i>Mind Management, Not Time Management</i>.<p>The gist:<p>- “There’s only 24 hours in a day”. What it really means is “time management” is squeezing blood from a stone.<p>- You have to be creative to stay relevant in the robot apocalypse.<p>- We know from the work of neuroscientists Konious and Beeman that insightful thinking is unique. Promoted by a relaxed mood. A fragile state: Hard to get into, easy to ruin.<p>- We have “peak” and “off-peak” times of day. It’s the off-peak times when you’re more creative.<p>- 4 stages to creativity: Preparation, Incubation, Illumination, Verification. Respect these stages.<p>- Work with natural cycles in the day, week, month, or year to go through the 4 stages. (Use night’s sleep as Incubation.)<p>- Organize tasks not by project but by mental state. Seven mental states I use: Prioritize, Explore, Research, Generate, Polish, Administrate, Recharge.<p>- Not all hours are equal. There aren’t 24 hours in the day – there’s an hour here or there for various mental states.<p>- Harness cycles, work by mental state, build systems that account for Incubation.<p>- You want creative systems to be antifragile. Leave slack for chaos, be ready to capture the opportunities chaos presents.<p>I put up a sample of the first chapter on my website. That’s over here: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;kdv.co&#x2F;mmtint<p>There’s a little more in the free Kindle sample, which is available here: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;kdv.co&#x2F;mind<p>Take a look. Does this sound like something that could help you with creative work? Any methods you&#x27;ve found that work for you?