Daniel Levitin

Approximating involves making a series of educated guesses systematically by partitioning the problem into manageable chunks, identifying assumptions, and then using your general knowledge of the world to fill in the blanks. ”

What music is better able to do than language is to represent the complexity of human emotional states. ”

The rest-seeking procrastinators would generally rather not exert themselves at all, while the fun-task procrastinators enjoy being busy and active all the time but have a hard time starting things that are not so amusing. ”

Procrastination comes in two types. Some of us procrastinate in order to pursue restful activities - spending time in bed, watching TV - while others delay difficult or unpleasant tasks in favor of those that are more fun. ”

If you're studying from a book and trying to listen in on a conversation at the same time, those are two separate projects, each started and maintained by distinct circuits in the brain. Pay more attention to one for a moment and you're automatically paying less attention to the other. ”

People who organize their time in a way that allows them to focus are not only going to get more done, but they'll be less tired and less neurochemically depleted after doing it. ”

The obvious rule of efficiency is you don't want to spend more time organizing than it's worth. ”

I don't think we should have less information in the world. The information age has yielded great advances in medicine, agriculture, transportation and many other fields. But the problem is twofold. One, we are assaulted with more information than any one of us can handle. Two, beyond the overload, too much information often leads to bad decisions. ”

We need to blinker ourselves, to better monitor our attentional focus. Enforced periods of no email or Internet to allow us to sustain concentration have been shown to be tremendously helpful. And breaks - even a 15-minute break every two or three hours - make us more productive in the long run. ”

One big promise of the Internet was that it would be a great democratizing force, allowing us to become exposed to new ideas that we might not otherwise encounter in our town, workplace or social circle. ”