@Louisa- Thanks. I would be happy to have the comments here! But yes, it seems Fast Co decided the comments in general weren’t adding much to the website. It’s interesting to think that a lot of sites have decided that the discussion can just take place on social media.

Cal Newport talks about this in Deep Work – the idea of a “block schedule” where you plan out your work day in advance by the half hour, filling each slot with big tasks and interspersing them with the little stuff like email catchup, errands etc.

For someone like me who vastly overestimates what I can get done in a day (and forgets that some days are 5 hours of meetings), this is useful because I can see on certain days that some things just don’t FIT. I do this in a paper planner (in pencil) rather than in my “calendar of record” which is Outlook for work. I need to have this on paper in front of me.

@Byrd – that is a tricky one. I mean, yes, obviously, you are smart! Maybe something along the lines of “Thank you, I love what I do.” or “That you, it’s a wonderful and fascinating field.”

@Christina – I think “thank you, I appreciate your saying that” works in most situations. It’s true that the listener is probably appreciative!

@GradStudent – I do think many of us try to figure out how to sound humble, but also accept a compliment graciously. I think it’s important to realize that the virtue of modesty/humility is shown in many ways, not just the “aw shucks it was nothing” when paid a compliment.

@Nina- this is a good point – try complimenting others and see how they take it, and how that feels to the comment giver. It’s a good shift in perspective!

@Rinna- I think the idea is that people often put things on their “to-do” lists that they don’t intend to do. If you put it on your calendar, it is more likely to get done. However, I don’t really have that issue. If I put it on my weekly priority list, I do really intend to do it, so I don’t need to schedule every minute. If it is a particularly busy week I will look at my calendar and think, roughly, about when things might happen but I think this particular system is as much about creating accountability as anything else. And, I’d add, in order to know what you need to schedule you need to think about it. You may as well write that down somewhere and, wow! We have a to-do list. Even if we don’t intend to call it that 🙂