Algorithms to Live By by Brian Christian

He argues that your most valuable tasks are almost always the most difficult to complete-as a result, most people procrastinate on these major tasks, filling their time with easy busywork that ends up accomplishing very little. In the productivity bestseller Eat That Frog!, Brian Tracy places even more importance on the need to weigh your tasks by value. The authors argue that you may choose to use this algorithm if you require motivation, or if you’re stressed and overwhelmed by a large quantity of tasks. Then, you should simply work at any given time on whatever gives you the most value per hour.Īnother scheduling algorithm Christian and Griffiths recommend is “Shortest Processing Time,” which tells you to work on whatever task will take the shortest time to complete. By dividing this weight by the amount of time it’ll take you to complete the task, you can easily calculate how much value you’re generating every hour that you’re working. They advise you to assign a “weight,” a numerical measurement of value, to every item on your to-do list. Likewise, the authors state that your optimal scheduling algorithm differs based on your goals and priorities.Ĭhristian and Griffiths assert that most of the time, your highest priority is to complete whatever tasks earn you the most value. Computers use algorithms chosen for their specific needs to determine what tasks to focus on first. Unlike in other chapters, Christian and Griffiths don’t offer a single algorithm to handle scheduling.

Organizational Algorithms Algorithm #5: How to Schedule Your Time In general, removing things in your life that don’t add value is a more sustainable path to happiness than constantly trying to add bigger and better new pleasures.

Goods like luxury cars, fancy homes, and picturesque vacations do nothing but distract us from the things in life that offer the most value, like personal health, loving relationships, and a sense of contribution to others. Modern humans have a tendency to overfit, trying to make themselves happier by adding more to their lives instead of focusing on the few factors that matter. In Minimalism, Joshua Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus apply this logic to life itself. Christian and Griffiths assert that to conquer overfitting, you must focus on what matters and ignore everything else.

Algorithms to Live By by Brian Christian