Task management if determining if a task needs to be done.

Time management is determining when these tasks need to be

done in your schedule.

If you feel you are overwhelmed with your tasks, here are some guidelines you can follow.

After using the Priority 0+1 system to prioritise your tasks, if you have many high priority tasks you:

 Straight-away complete tasks that you can finish within 2mins.

 Use a system called ETF – Eat the Frog. You first do the tasks that you don’t want to do.

 Bottlenecking – identifying tasks connected to future tasks. This usually involves multiple people and may not appear to
be a high priority at first, but are important in moving forward to do future tasks.

Dr Justin’s App Stack

As a tech-oriented person, I have experimented with using virtually every popular productivity app out there. This is my current
stack that I have installed on my devices, or have used in the past to great effect.

Unfortunately, it would take hours to go through exactly how I have set them all up and integrated them with each other to
make it flow seamlessly, but part of the process is seeing what works for you and doing some tinkering.

For beginners, all you need is an app for task management and prioritisation, and a calendar app for scheduling. Don’t get
intimidated by my list.

Task Management and Prioritisation

Asana or Amazing Marvin
I currently use Amazing Marvin as it is extremely powerful and easily the most customisable and fully featured. It is also the
 most research-based and is the only app I have found that can keep up with the level of optimisation I strive for, but it can be
overwhelming for beginners. It may also be excessive for those who aren’t productivity maniacs or have lots of tasks to
prioritise.

On the other hand, Asana has a free plan that is excellent for task management. I used Asana for years before switching to
Amazing Marvin and would still happily use it again if I needed to.

Notion is commonly used for task management, but it is very unoptimised and falls far, far, far behind both Asana or
Amazing Marvin.
Task Management and Prioritisation
Asana or Amazing Marvin
I currently use Amazing Marvin as it is extremely powerful and easily the most customisable and fully featured. It is also the
most research-based and is the only app I have found that can keep up with the level of optimisation I strive for, but it can be
overwhelming for beginners. It may also be excessive for those who aren’t productivity maniacs or have lots of tasks to
prioritise.

On the other hand, Asana has a free plan that is excellent for task management. I used Asana for years before switching to
Amazing Marvin and would still happily use it again if I needed to.

Notion is commonly used for task management, but it is very unoptimised and falls far, far, far behind both Asana or
Amazing Marvin.
Ideas Collection, High-Level Project Management and “Second Brain”
Notion – it requires a bit of set-up but is currently the best way to store ideas. If you don’t have lots going on though (I
typically have around 20-30 projects, 200+ tasks and potentially unknown hundreds of ideas at any given point), you can just
use Google Keep, available on all devices.
Creating Focus and Removing Distractions
 I use BlockSite with my students because the settings can be password protected by my email address.
However, there are many site blockers out there which may be better for you.

Focus timing with 5217 on Android or web browser

I have also used Tide (on both Android and iOS).

I currently use Relaxio for white noise generation – I like the flexibility of being able to create exactly the type of white noise
for each situation.

For mindfulness meditation, even though I was trained in meditation from a young age, I still use Calm religiously and have
also tried Insight Timer, both are good, though I prefer Calm and still recommend it to my students and clients in the first
instance.
Habit Creation and Tracking
Remente is my recommended app due to its feature-set and flexibility, though Fabulous is also fantastic for total beginners.

Some Notion set-ups work, however I feel that the experience is less integrated.
Scheduling and Calendars
I use Google Calendars as a base because of its ability to cross-synchronise across virtually every calendar service.

On my phone, I use Business Calendar 2 for Android, which I have found to be the most fully-featured and versatile, while
also looking good as a widget (which is important to me). New calendar apps are always popping up so there may be better
ones out now.

On my Windows devices, I use OneCalendar.

Time Tracking
 Boosted for Android, Toggl for iOS

This doesn’t matter so much – it’s more about finding something that is fast and effective for you. The most important thing is
the ability to start and stop tracking with minimal delay. If it takes 20 seconds and 4 taps every time you start tracking, that’s
too long and you’ll eventually feel too lazy to track consistently.

Finding an app that is fast (like Boosted) has allowed me to track almost every single day for almost 3 years, after at least 3
previous years of inconsistent tracking with apps that took too long.
One of my non-urgent, important projects is always up-skilling and learning. My specific learning strategy is quite complex,
however for interest, I use Blinkist, Audible, podcasts, and physical books in simultaneous combination.

Attention Management is the system that I use on a daily basis, including when things become hectic! It allows me to work at
high-efficiency in virtually undisrupted flow for 10 to 12 hours with minimal rest.

Alongside strong prioritisation and finely-tuned, individually optimised processes, it allowed my overall productivity to be much
higher than most of my peers all throughout university and doctor-life, often drawing the question of “how do you manage to
do so much?”

The best part is that it was actually easier and significantly less mentally intensive than trying to achieve the same through
conventional time management.
Attention vs time
A lot of people think about their schedule in terms of time where activities are slotted in but a higher level of management is not
focusing on these things but rather focusing on your attention.
Any task you do requires you to pay attention to it. Therefore, conventional time management is just an indirect (less effective)
form of attention management. By focusing out attention on… attention itself, we are able to manage our tasks and
activities directly without relying on time-blocks to “schedule” the tasks in.
How does it work?
In a nutshell, we simply flow from task to task, keeping an eye on where our attention is and adjusting it to wherever we intend it
to be. If we finish a task “early”, we move onto the next one. If we finish a task “late”, we move onto the next one once we’ve
finished.

To do this, we need a very high level of attention awareness.

Why does attention management work?

Setting times
Lets say that we set 3pm to 4pm as a study block. What is the relevance of studying for 1 hour? What if you are at 60% efficiency
and focus? What if you waste 20 minutes procrastinating? What if you get distracted so much that you only get 45 minutes of
real work done? Did we succeed? And if not, where do we draw the line for “this was good enough for 1 hour?”

Isn’t it much more meaningful to say “study the 3rd unit of biology to an 80% level of depth”?

Setting tasks
So if we set an intention to complete a task, like “study the 3rd unit of biology to an 80% level of depth”, we might naturally
estimate it to take one hour and schedule it for 3pm to 4pm all the same.

But what if it takes longer? We now need to reschedule – or we use the “buffer time” we scheduled in. What if we finish early?
The unexpected gap in time (including the buffer time) is unused – we now add a decisional delay in figuring out what to do in
that time.
So regardless, what dictates when we move from task to task is our attention anyway. Let’s look at the same situation
through the lens of attention management.
The task is to study the 3rd unit of biology, same as above. While studying, we notice where our attention is. When we get
distracted, we bring ourselves back with our focus techniques. Once we finish, we move onto the next planned task.

Simple.
But what about Parkinson’s Law?
Read about Parkinson’s Law on Wikipedia.
Parkinson’s Law says that any activity or task fills the time given to it. If we have an essay due in 2 weeks, it takes us 2 weeks. If
it’s due in 2 days, it takes us 2 days. The difference in quality? Insignificant. This is why so many of us leave assignments to the
last minute – because we know we can do it and the result will be much the same.

I’m a big fan of Parkinson’s Law, but you can still use it with attention management.

Simply set an estimated time to complete your task and set a timer. Your goal is to finish it in that time. If you finish early, move
to the next task. If you finish late, then clearly Parkinson’s Law wasn’t enough to boost your focus anyway – there was no
obvious gain, but no loss either.

The long-term benefits of attention management

I have been experimenting with the hypothesis of attention management as an alternative for time management for several
years. During this time, I have found unexpected massive benefits.
1. You develop a much keener sense for your own attention, helping you to reduce distractions and procrastination, since
you catch your focus drifting immediately

2. You will find it easier to focus because you are so used to shifting and adjusting your focus
 3. You will work faster and be less stressed. Flow-state is a state of deep focus and concentration that uses energy and
cognitive resources very efficiently. Attention management means that once you enter flow, you never have any need to
exit to make new decisions, re-evaluate, or reschedule. This allows you to not only work faster immediately, but it trains
your brain to enter flow states faster and maintain them for longer.

Using attention management, you will find gaps in your schedule where you can be more productive, which ultimately saves
time for later. This is the fastest possible way to complete tasks and produce the most meaningful spare time for you.

Task
Attention management is an advanced “time management” skill. While it took several years of experimentation for me (with no teacher), I
suspect it will take at least a few weeks for you.

Be patient and use this worksheet to help you get started.

The multipass system uses the swiss-chees model that has been introduced to you earlier. The different passes are like the
different layers in the swiss-cheese model and enables you to cover almost all the material in just a few days.

If this is done at the start of the school year, you can use the remaining months of the school year to relax and get a perfect
score!
This cramming system uses everything you have learned so far. The bear hunter system is still used to learn primarily, while the
multipass system only controls the order and time in which you study.

You can think of the relationship between the BHS and the multipass system like a sports match. The BHS would be all the
techniques you and your team are using to make sure you win the game. It’s the strategy, the passing, the running, the fitness,
the tactics and skill with which you play. The multi-pass system is how often you play games, in what order you play them, and
how long the “championship” lasts – 2 weeks or 10 months?

Use the BHS as a foundation for all your techniques, which we can modify and adapt into systems like the multipass to make it
more suited to learning in sprints.

There are two ways to do the multipass system:

1. Inquiry-led multipass: Each pass is what you are curious about. This is the most enjoyable, natural and something easy
to apply if you have mastered the Bear Hunter System.
2. Objective-led multiplass: Each pass covers the easiest learning objectives. This is not as comprehensive as the inquiry-
led multipass, however it is better to use this if you need to be very strategic with your time.
Both ways of the multipass system focus on the logic and concepts layers of learning first. You have to always remember never
to fixate on the details first, even when you are cramming!

This is the conventional way of cramming and it will result in lower retention rates and efficiency rates, which will result in much
more time being invested in order to be exam ready. Also, it’s just not practical to remember all the details, hoping that the
same question will pop-up in the exam.

The multipass system will prepare you for your exams better as most questions are derived from logic and concepts, which
makes it much easier to deal with those ‘curveball’ questions that people think are hard, when it’s actually just a question based
on logic and concepts.
The Bear Hunter System (and other high-efficiency inquiry-led systems) also naturally incorporate ‘interleaving’ which further
helps you to tackle curveball questions.

The BHS helps you understand the topic, which will aid you in writing an essay but it doesn’t help with the technical aspects of
actually writing the essay.

Technical preparation is not about finding the points to write but rather gathering your points that you would know from the
BHS and structuring it in a way to make it sound good and convincing.

Quite often it’s students’ conceptual understanding that is lacking rather than their technical preparation so you have to make
sure that you understand the topic first before looking into technical preparation.

Structuring essays: ReCOVer System

Recall
After applying the BHS, we should have a deep and heavily connected knowledge of the topic itself. In this step, we will recall all
the relevant points with respect to our essay question stem.

You can express this as a mindmap with the stem in the middle and relevant points branching from the centre.

During exams, you should spend up to 10 minutes on this step.

Struggling with this step indicates a superficial or rote-learned material, rather than highly connected material learned
through the BHS.
Chunk
Once we have all of our relevant points down, go through the list and remove any points that are of weak significance with
regards to the question stem.

Once obviously low-yield points have been removed, identify chunks by grouping together the points that relate to the same
underlying theme or reason for importance. This should be relatively easy if you have learned the material using the BHS, to
begin with.

You may have already created chunks in the first step, if this is the case, look for more chunks. While we are used to looking for
4 or more branches in learning, when it comes to essay writing, we want to aim for 3 points or less to make sure our essays are
concise.

In the exam, spend up to 5 minutes at this step.

If you struggle with this step, you have almost certainly learned the material too superficially with a strong chance of
inadequate chunking or relationship-focused learning earlier on.
Order
Arrange your biggest chunks and major sub-chunks (if any) into an order of main ideas. This is the order in which you will write
your essay, starting with an introduction that cleanly covers the main ideas and how you will flow between them, leading
subsequently from one important chunk to the next, unravelling each chunk as you go with the supporting evidence and
statements within each chunk and every paragraph (or multiple paragraphs per chunk if your essay is long).

Try to order the chunks logically so that more basic understanding is presented earlier in the essay.
As you can see from the table below, the total number of points to be discussed in an essay becomes overwhelmingly large later
in academic life. However, this basic structure of essay writing is effective even for the highest level.
 Sub- Points Per Total Discussion
Level Chunks Chunks Chunk Points Essay Length

High school 3 to 5 0 or 1 2 to 4 12 to 20 Approx. 2000 words

Early university 5 to 7 1 or 2 3 to 5 20 to 40 Approx. 3000 words

Late university 5 to 7 1 to 3 4 to 7 40 to 70 Approx. 10,000 words

Academic publication or Approx. 30,000 to 100,000

thesis 5 to 10 2 to 4 5 to 10 50 to 100 words
The trick to doing this step correctly is if you can look at your order of chunks and sub-chunks and feel that your points are
being delivered very logically with the key understanding being met in the best possible sequence.

If you feel like the organisation of chunks is messy, it is highly unlikely that your essay will sound good. Furthermore, you are
likely to waste significant time during the writing process from trying to figure out how to structure your points and references
mid-sentence.

It’s like seeing a blue-print for a building that looks really messy, but still expecting it to be easy to actually construct the building.
If even the plan looks bad, it’s unlikely that the execution will be better. If it is, then it would certainly be slower and less accurate.

Once you have a good overall structure, you can proceed to the next step.

In an exam, spend up to 5 minutes at this step.

If you struggle at this step, you may have inadequate chunking, potentially due to inadequate chunking during the
initial learning of the material, or potentially due to inadequate chunking in the previous step. Alternatively, if the
chunking is adequate (for essays, remember this is usually when each chunk has no more than 3 points), you may
simply require more practise of this process.
Verbalise
The final step is to take your order of chunks, sub-chunks and points and string them into statements and sentences.
Depending on your technical writing skill and mastery of the language, this may be the easiest step since you already know what
you want to say and how all the supporting statements and evidence fit into the bigger points (chunks).

If you have many points, you may want to create bullet-points first in the same order, and then turn the bullet-points into
sentences. You will be unlikely to have time to do this in an exam, but exam essays tend to be much shorter with fewer points,
so it is also less likely that you will need this extra step.
In an exam, your remaining time is spent at this step, excluding time for review.

If you struggle with this step, you may have a lower level of language mastery (which requires more focused practice at
the desired level of mastery), or there may be a problem with any of the previous steps.
Problem felt Likely cause(s)

Lacking evidence to support points, or feeling the need to waffle Recall step inadequate or learned too superficially
due to inadequate meaningful statements. initially.

Unsure how to use points you’ve recalled to support major Inadequate chunking or lack of relationship-based
themes or conclusions. learning initially.

Inadequate ordering of chunks or sub-chunks.

Unsure how to navigate from point to point, or feeling like you Inadequate ordering can also happen due to inadequate
don’t know where you are taking the essay direction. chunking also.

Difficulty with making the sentences flow together in a pleasing Inadequate language mastery.
and natural way, while not having any of the other, above
 Problem felt Likely cause(s)

issues.