• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
Break the Twitch

Break the Twitch

Own Your Attention, Build Better Habits | Minimalism, Habits, & Focus

  • Articles
  • Newsletter
  • Collective
    • Sign In
  • Members
  • Show Search
Hide Search

Break the Twitch Articles

Q&A Workshop with Productivity Expert Shawn Blanc [Member Content]

Written by Anthony Ongaro

Productivity expert and entrepreneur, Shawn Blanc, shares his productivity tips, tool recommendations, and advice on entrepreneurship with the community in this member-only live Q&A workshop recording. 

Hey there! Access to this post and video is available only for active Attention Collective members.

If you’re already an active member, just sign in and you’re good to go.

Instantly unlock this content, digital co-working sessions, the massive audio course library, and more by becoming a member of our intentional community today. Check out the Community page for more details.

Cheers,
Anthony

A Minimalist Productivity System For Improving Your Attention Span

Written by Anthony Ongaro

Productivity. Systems. If those words don’t get you all kinds of riled up, I don’t know what will. Kidding. Unless you’re a total productivity nerd, these words probably elicit a reaction that would more quickly have you click away from this article than anything else.

I’ve explored about three million different systems for tasks and productivity tracking and find that most of them get way too complex, way too fast. It’s always exciting to find or start some new solution with big promises of time savings. What usually happens is it gets too complex too fast and it all explodes—which just leads to giving up on it completely.

The most important part of any system is for it to not get too overwhelming so you actually, well, use it. After some experimentation, I’ve landed on a more simple and minimalist productivity system for improving your attention span by distributing different types of tasks throughout the day.

Subscribe to my YouTube channel for the latest videos!

What “productive” even means

First, what does “productive” even mean? When I say “productivity,” I don’t mean just work and how efficiently you can do it—I mean it in a holistic, life sense.

I view productivity more like “single tasking” — meaning how focused on any one task are we? It could be rest, maintaining the household, getting exercise, playing a game, or working! Rest or play can be just as productive if it’s needed because they recharge us so that we can have more productive work times.

I’ve tried productivity systems by some other guys in the productivity YouTube space, like Just Joe Lee, Thomas Frankly, and Matt D’Avella, and most go into much more detail than I need. So here’s what I ended up doing that seems to work very well without taking up more time than doing the actual work.

A more minimalist productivity system

Per the image above, there are four different categories—Connect, Maintain, Rest, and Work.

Connect is what it sounds like, time reserved for connecting with colleagues, family and friends.

Maintain is all the household or maintenance activities that are simply a part of life—such as cleaning the house, cooking, running errands, etc.

Rest includes play, self-care, meditation, naps, and any kind of reflection.

Work is what we normally think of when it comes to productivity—focused, dedicated work time.

An example of how this might work in practice.

Typically my workday starts with making coffee in a more mindful way. I consider it as a ‘rest’ activity since it’s a peaceful and meditative routine for me. Coffee in hand, I then hop into a BTT Community focus group session to get into actual work for 90 minutes.

I often will then take a short break to play a chess game after the focused work session to recharge a bit. Especially with the pandemic, I always try to make sure I have enough ‘connect’ sprinkled throughout my week, like a call I had recently with my friend Cait Flanders about her newest book.

However, I also make sure there aren’t too many Connect activities during the day since all that talking doesn’t usually get much done. I then have another Work block like writing a newsletter next on the calendar, followed by Maintain activities such as making food or exercising.

Note that the blocks on the calendar don’t need to be perfect. The idea is that you’ll generally have an idea of how your day and week are balanced between the different categories of Connect, Maintain, Rest, and Work. The categories might overlap a bit for you, and that’s okay! You can even change them up.

The why behind the minimalist productivity system

Why is this even important? The reason why I do this minimalist productivity system is because of what I call the Fire Bucket theory.

Imagine there’s a fire burning and so you fill a bucket and start dumping the water on it—that’s doing the Work in this example. But unfortunately, you’re going to run out and have to go get more water eventually. In this situation, many of us keep trying to put out the fire with an empty bucket.

In some cases, it can get to the point where some of us may try to put out the fire with a bucket itself. It never really works (unless there’s a super small fire remaining), and now you have a damaged bucket that won’t even hold water anymore.

What we need to do instead is break up the process. Take a step back from the Work, get more water, and then return back to the fire. It’s going to be so much more effective than chopping trees with a dull axe if you prefer the “Sharpen the Axe” analogy instead—it’s the same kind of idea.

Keeping the system flexible and sustainable

Splitting up your day in the four categories of Connect, Maintain, Rest, and Work, helps you to keep that balance for yourself. It helps you to continue to prioritize the activities that often get de-prioritized when life gets busier. We will have more focus and energy to give to our work when we split our days and weeks up.

This minimalist productivity system is meant to be flexible. Every day is different for me; I don’t have a perfect 5-day work system. What this system allows me to do is build out an entire workweek. That way, I can schedule out work and other categories and then write in my notebook what I’m actually working on.

Because let’s face it, the work is never ever done. For our emotional and mental health, it’s more sustainable to have the work scheduled throughout the week along with rest, connection, and other activities.

How To Know If Meditation Is Working

Written by Anthony Ongaro

In this video, I share a story about the answer to a question I asked when I was a 12-year-old, and how the wisdom can help you understand whether meditation, or any other habit, is working for you.

Subscribe to my YouTube channel for the latest videos!

Whenever I hear someone say something that creates a profound impact on my life, I do my best to let them know. Amusingly, it’s often something that the person doesn’t even remember saying. Meanwhile, I’d been thinking about that moment pretty regularly for ten-plus years.

There is wisdom anywhere we choose to see it, sometimes we just have to change the context up a bit.

[Read more…] about How To Know If Meditation Is Working

Building an Attention Practice with Anthony Ongaro [Member Content]

Written by Anthony Ongaro

Your attention is every moment of your existence. What does attention mean to you? Where is your attention going? What is your attention trying to tell you? In this member-only workshop video, I share tips on building an attention practice to love and better own our attention. 

Hey there! Access to this post and video is available only for active Attention Collective members.

If you’re already an active member, just sign in and you’re good to go.

Instantly unlock this content, digital co-working sessions, the massive audio course library, and more by becoming a member of our intentional community today. Check out the Community page for more details.

Cheers,
Anthony

Minimalism Is Not The Answer

Written by Anthony Ongaro

Subscribe to my YouTube channel for the latest videos!

When it comes to living a life of contentment, minimalism is a common contender for the heavyweight title. The movement to surround ourselves with things that spark joy has furthered this perception—that simply getting rid of enough clutter and only having the things we loved would be the key to success.

While there is some truth to that, there’s an even more profound opportunity hidden in minimalism itself.

Two Reasons Why Minimalism Is Not The Answer

An answer would mean it’s a proposed solution to a question.

When used effectively, minimalism is not a solution. In fact, there are very few solutions at all when it comes to changing your life in meaningful ways.

We’ve all tried time and time again to set goal posts for when we’ll allow ourselves to feel like we’ve “made it.” Time and time again, those goal posts just keep moving further down the field as we set higher or different standards for what it’ll take to find contentment.

Over the last six years of exploring this, I’ve found minimalism to be the same. There’s no magical point where your house starts to look like the magazine covers we covet. There’s no number of items one should own that contains the keys to eternal bliss.

Minimalism is not the answer because it’s not an answer at all.

Minimalism is a question. In a life so easily filled with overwhelm, clutter, chaos, and exhaustion—one where digital devices and marketing messages use every possible strategy to capture moments of our precious attention—we must ask ourselves a question.

We must ask a question of which there is no singular “good” answer. Looking at minimalism as a process, one that helps us remove the clutter that keeps us from a meaningful life, we can ask that question. With regularity.

The most beneficial aspect of spending six-plus years asking this question is not a bare household with two cereal bowls and two spoons with which to eat every meal. It’s not owning less than 100 items, either. Both of these scenarios are not even remotely true for Amy and me.

The most beneficial aspect of asking this question with regularity is that it reinforces and affirms one essential fact: That our attention has immense value.

We have less attention than we do time, and our time is limited—so to embrace minimalism in a way that forces us to ask, “What do I want to pay attention to?” is to live the question of minimalism.

Six years in, I’m still discovering and uncovering things about myself about ways I have allowed clutter to hide for decades. I’ve increasingly gained a greater understanding that my false first steps were not just careless purchases but rather attempts to personally feel like enough.

It’s painful, yes. There’s a reason we bury ourselves in this clutter—coping with the overwhelm of the world at large. But, so far, it’s worth it—and I encourage you to explore what answers might come from asking: minimalism?

You can read more about the Break the Twitch approach to minimalism in these other posts:

  • The 70/30 Principle (How Minimalism Works)
  • 10 Minimalism Guidelines
  • What Is Minimalism?

Fostering Creativity and Play (and Why It’s Important) [Member Content]

Written by Anthony Ongaro

In this recorded live workshop video and accompanying resources only for community members, Gary Ware shares the importance of play and strategies to foster more creativity and play in your life.

Hey there! Access to this post and video is available only for active Attention Collective members.

If you’re already an active member, just sign in and you’re good to go.

Instantly unlock this content, digital co-working sessions, the massive audio course library, and more by becoming a member of our intentional community today. Check out the Community page for more details.

Cheers,
Anthony

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Go to page 4
  • Go to page 5
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 43
  • Go to Next Page »

Copyright © 2021 Ongaro Media · Resources · Privacy Policy · Disclosure · Archives

  • Articles
  • About
  • Newsletter