Name: How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life
ISBN: 9780451167729

What Hacker News says

pdfernhoutJun 2018

I agree information overload is a huge problem these days. I'd be curious for a list of the professions you had in mind (perhaps you mean librarians http://disciplineoforganizing.org/ or professionals working in the "Seven Tribes" of Intelligence https://phibetaiota.net/about/ or like Doug Engelbart worked towards with Augment/CoDIAK/OHS http://www.dougengelbart.org/about/vision-highlights.html )? Maybe Musk does need to adopt better intelligence augmentation tools for the challenges he faces? But if so, he is not alone.

Here are my own 2010 suggestion for helping deal with information overload: https://web.archive.org/web/20130514103318/http://pcast.idea... "This suggestion is about how civilians could benefit by have access to the sorts of "sensemaking" tools the intelligence community (as well as corporations) aspire to have, in order to design more joyful, secure, and healthy civilian communities (including through creating a more sustainable and resilient open manufacturing infrastructure for such communities). It outlines (including at a linked elaboration) why the intelligence community should consider funding the creation of such free and open source software (FOSS) "dual use" intelligence applications as a way to reduce global tensions through increased local prosperity, health, and with intrinsic mutual security."

Another version of that proposal: https://web.archive.org/web/20160206184804/https://www.newsc...

Some thoughts by me on applying that to health sensemaking: https://web.archive.org/web/20161104203536/https://www.newsc... https://github.com/pdfernhout/health-decision-support-tools https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1897006&cid=34459370 https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/openvirgle/QukA-eEPX... https://www.changemakers.com/morehealth/entries/health-sense...

Anyway, still plugging along on all that in some of my spare time.

Another aspect of the challenge is having a mind tuned for a scarcity of something like information being having difficulty coping with an abundance of it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_Stimuli "Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose is a book by Deirdre Barrett published ... in 2010. Barrett is a psychologist on the faculty of Harvard Medical School. The book argues that human instincts for food, sex, and territorial protection evolved for life on the savannah 10,000 years ago, not for today's densely populated technological world. Our instincts have not had time to adapt to the rapid changes of modern life. The book takes its title from Nikolaas Tinbergen's concept in animal ethology of the supernormal stimulus, the phenomena by which insects, birds, and fish in his experiments could be lured by a dummy object which exaggerated one or more characteristic of the natural stimulus object such as giant brilliant blue plaster eggs which birds preferred to sit on in preference to their own. Barrett extends the concept to humans and outlines how supernormal stimuli are a driving force behind today’s most pressing problems, including modern warfare, obesity and other fitness problems, while also explaining the appeal of television, video games, and pornography as social outlets"

"The Acceleration of Addictiveness" http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html "Already someone trying to live well would seem eccentrically abstemious in most of the US. That phenomenon is only going to become more pronounced. You can probably take it as a rule of thumb from now on that if people don't think you're weird, you're living badly."

"The Pleasure Trap" http://web.archive.org/web/20160418155513/http://www.drfuhrm... "Tragically, most people are totally unaware that they are only a few weeks of discipline away from being able to comfortably maintain healthful dietary habits -- and to keep away from the products that can result in the destruction of their health."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orienting_response "In his 2007 book The Assault on Reason, Al Gore posited that watching television affects the orienting response, an effect similar to vicarious traumatization."

And how this overload is even harder on young children, as described by Victoria L. Dunckley, M.D.: https://drdunckley.com/reset-your-childs-brain/ "Because electronic screen media is unnaturally intense in terms of sensory, cognitive, and psychological input–designed to keep the user engaged–it tends to overstimulate nervous system. The brain interprets all this stimulating input as a form of stress. ... Over time, these changes lead to chronic stress, resulting in blood flow shifting from the more developed part of the brain (frontal lobe) to the more primitive parts of the brain. Because the frontal lobe governs emotional regulation, attention, creativity, and social behavior, any of these areas can become impaired. Chronic stress also raises cortisol levels, which complicates frontal lobe functioning even further. High cortisol impairs the hippocampus (needed for memory), disturbs sleep, and eventually causes atrophy (shrinkage) of the brain. ..."

More and more we need a browser-like tool to protect us from the web and (anti-)social media. These would be tools that are designed to work within human limitations. They would help people deal with being sprayed in the face with a firehose of information designed by highly-paid specialists to trick us and exploit our basic reflexes for someone else's gain (e.g. filtering out or summarizing news tickers or videos with scene changes every few seconds that exploit the orienting response, or summarizing those clickbait headlines tuned to exploit our primal drives, and so on).

Something like uMatrix is just the beginning. It shows where browser vendor's loyalties are (even Mozilla's) that such tools do not come built in. Very recently there is the Brave browser with some ad blocking and also Google turned on a limited default adblocker within Chrome -- but those are small steps and don't address the bigger picture of information overload even when not looking at obvious ads.

People need a whole suite of related FOSS tools for dealing with the web, email, social media, and so on -- to help filter and organize it for ourselves according to our own priorities and respecting our human limitations.

I comment from my bias as a software toolmaker though. Alternatively, a high level of self-discipline and healthy routine can also help manage information overload. And the professionals you reference probably can supply some of that (e.g. Alan Lakein's 1973 classic on setting priorities "How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life").

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pjmorrisMar 2017

'The New Whole Earth Catalog', Stewart Brand, editor. Browsing the great, independent, Goering's bookstore just across the road from UF was my pastime of choice in the early 80's. TNWEC became my card catalog for the rest of the store, and turned me on to an attitude of practical self-improvement. Just one of the many finds inside was 'How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life' by Alan Lakein, which, almost single handedly, saved my college career through a little simple prioritization and organization.

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cghOct 2012

Fully agree. Prioritised to-do lists changed my life. There's a helpful little book, "How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life" by Alan Lakein that lays it all out. Highly recommended, although it dates back to the '70s so some of the work examples used are, er, anachronistic.

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waivejJul 2012

I would read about Buckminster Fuller. He had the same goal. For example, "Critical Path" is a good start.

Another book to consider is "How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life" by Alan Lankin.

Invest time to understand yourself. This could be learning about Zen/Buddhism or just taking time out to journal, take walks, etc.

As a member of Hacker News, you might want to look for "worthwhile problems" to throw your energy at. Good problems need to be hard enough to be interesting and help enough people but still be attainable.

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dimitarJul 2010

There is a great self-help book I can recommend: 'How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life' by Alan Lakein

Its about planning and he gives a lot of useful tips, both long-term and short term.

see the discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1023655

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nato1138Apr 2010

'How to Get Control of your Time and your Life'; can anyone recommend an equally wonderful book -- but for personal finances?

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