For all of our complaining about the term, knowledge workers have no agreed-upon definition of what ‘productivity’ even means. - Cal Newport

We tend to place a lot of emphasis on our circumstances, assuming that what happens to us (or fails to happen) determines how we feel. From this perspective, the small-scale details of how you spend your day aren’t that important, because what matters are the large-scale outcomes, such as whether or not you get a promotion or move to that nicer apartment. According to Gallagher, decades of research contradict this understanding. Our brains instead construct our worldview based on what we pay attention to.

the skillful management of attention is the sine qua non of the good life and the key to improving virtually every aspect of your experience.

Richard II’s famous lament: “I live with bread like you, feel want, / Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus, / How can you say to me, I am a king?”18