Productivity glossary
20 terms you see everywhere, explained without jargon.
- Deep work
- Uninterrupted focused work.
- Cal Newport's concept: 60-120 minute blocks with no notifications, dedicated to deep thought. Rarer than shallow work, more valuable.
- GTD
- Getting Things Done, Allen's method.
- Five-step system: capture, clarify, organize, reflect, engage. Core idea: your head is for having ideas, not holding them.
- Zettelkasten
- Slip-box of linked notes.
- Luhmann's method: each idea becomes an atomic note linked to others. Knowledge emerges from links, not hierarchy.
- Cognitive load
- What your brain carries at once.
- Limited working memory capacity. Past 4-7 active items, quality collapses.
- Spaced repetition
- Recalls at the right interval.
- Reviews spaced out (1, 3, 7, 21 days). Beats passive highlighting.
- Pomodoro
- 25 minutes work, 5 minutes break.
- Cirillo's method. Useful to start, not for everything — real deep work exceeds 25 minutes.
- Second brain
- External system that holds what you can't.
- Popularized by Tiago Forte. Notes, PARA, CODE. Noctely is an active form of it.
- PARA
- Projects, Areas, Resources, Archives.
- Four-folder system by Tiago Forte. Universal across tools.
- Decision fatigue
- Exhaustion after too many choices.
- After 40-60 micro-decisions a day, quality collapses. Hence "decision burnout".
- Context switching
- Hidden cost of multitasking.
- Each switch costs 15-25 minutes of refocusing. More destructive than the duration itself.
- Flow
- State of total absorption.
- Csikszentmihalyi's concept. Requires calibrated challenge and immediate feedback.
- Backlinks (notes)
- Automatic links between ideas.
- Each note shows what cites it. Surfaces the shape of your thinking.
- Atomic note
- One idea, one note.
- Zettelkasten principle: many small notes beat one long one. Linkable, reusable.
- Weekly review
- Ritual that keeps a system alive.
- Without review, every system dies. 30 minutes Friday or Sunday is enough.
- Eisenhower matrix
- Urgent × important.
- Four quadrants to prioritize. Useful surface tool, insufficient for strategic decisions.
- OKR
- Objectives and Key Results.
- Google/Intel framework. One qualitative objective, 3-5 measurable results. Quarter-friendly.
- Shallow work
- Emails, replies, admin.
- Necessary but low-return. Cap at 30% of time if possible.
- Kanban
- Columns: to do / doing / done.
- Flow visualization. Caps work-in-progress to avoid saturation.
- Time-blocking
- Plan blocks, not tasks.
- Each calendar block = one intention. Fights "I didn't have time."
- Active note-taking
- Notes that come back at the right time.
- Difference between archiving and thinking with. Noctely favors the second.