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Rest/Recovery days is a wonderful framework, one that will replace my current system of designated “autonomy days” and “obligation days”. For me I categorized days around agency, how much control did I have to choose tasks and which order I did them in. Which worked wonderfully when I chose wholesome tasks, but would go poorly when I chose too many insubstantial activities.
Speaking as someone who has a purely theoretical understanding of parental productivity. I would say that it’s possible to use ideas like batching when you have children, but the efficiency is going to be lower than if you didn't have kids. But because your time is much scarcer, minimal gains can still be very valuable.
Most of the successful examples I’ve run across have been people using batching and productivity systems to make the time they spend away from their children more productive.
An interesting exception I remember is a family that taught their children that if they needed to signal for attention while their parents where talking. They should hold their parents elbows, and the parent would acknowledge they understood by placing their hands over their child's hand. That way the parent could break the conversation at a more natural point and swich contexts more smoothly.
This actually reminds me of a saying: "People will retreat to their strengths". Most of the time using what your good at is the fastest way to overcome a problem. It's a heuristic that works well for 95% of everyday problems but can sabotage you when confronted with especially hard or novel situations.
It seems like the important skill that this post alludes to is knowing when to apply your current skills to a problem vs. going out and putting in the hard work to acquire a new skill.
A very interesting technique, I especially like the examples of what reviews will say about each type of book.
Lets see if I can create a few example lists from my library:
Experiencing Flow
What Book: Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
How Book: Joy on Demand: The Art of Discovering the Happiness Within Book by Chade-Meng Tan
Why Book: Trying Not to Try: The Art and Science of Spontaneity by Edward Slingerland
Having low conflict romantic relationships
What Book: The Usual Error by Kyeli Smith and Pace Smith
How Book: It's Not You, It's the Dishes by Paula Szuchman and Jenny Anderson
Why Book: Loving in Flow: How the Happiest Couples Get and Stay That Way by Susan K. Perry