The fear of missing out (FOMO) is one of the primary reasons I get distracted and further procrastinate.
I often don’t start something because it will take 30 minutes and I’m worried that maybe I can use that 30 minutes to do something better. I’ll end up spending 30 minutes worrying about missing out on doing something better when I could have done the thing.
That’s the FOMO I’m talking about.
Assigning time and rigidly scheduling is the death of my productivity. Too much scheduling is a fragile way of living. One distraction or unforeseen event and the day is off the rails.
Better it is to set aside work blocks when you know that for 50-60 minutes you will do personal projects, or that big business project you’ve been working on, or maybe 60 minutes to workout, and so on.
When you do something you love, you don’t worry about how much time it’s taking. You just start doing it and you usually end up doing it for much longer than you expected. So why not start using that approach with work?
No rigid time window, but a loose block of time when you pack in as much work as you can.
You will not worry about “losing time” and you will also see that you pack in much more work. When you schedule 30 minutes for a task, it will take at least 30 minutes. When you don’t assign a time, you’d be shocked to find you can get it done in 15 minutes.