Going into your emails and messages and entering reactive mode creates attention residue for the rest of the day, which impairs your ability to concentrate on complex projects.

Research from the University of Pavia in Italy showed that subjects who alternated between a 5.5 second inhale and 5.5 second exhale experienced improved blood flow to the brain, lower heart rates, and a stabilized nervous system, which indicated their bodies were performing at peak efficiency.

Working on a project every day makes you more likely to get started, less likely to be interrupted, and more likely to have great ideas.

Approaching several hours of work feels overwhelming, which leads to avoidance, and when you know you have several hours of work you tend to believe that delaying an hour isn't a big deal.

The speaker's ritualized sequence is: feel watch buzz at 5:15 a.m., then step out of bed and put on the same hoodie and sweatpants, then walk to the fridge to grab the same Topo Chico carbonated water, then walk upstairs to sit in the same chair and open a new word document to continuously type questions for one minute.

If you want optimal productivity and creativity, you should create a personalized sequence of actions that reliably triggers a deep and creative work state.

The core message from 'Manage Your Day to Day' by Joselyn Gely and 99u is about making the four critical choices for optimal productivity and creativity.

'Manage Your Day to Day' has an impressive collection of ideas from some of the best minds in the productivity space and is highly recommended.

These four choices should dictate your day-to-day work schedule to enhance your focus and creativity.

To optimize productivity and creativity, you should begin with strict discipline, then let your mind create freely—that is, you should be rigid about the process but flexible about execution.

If you plan to work every day, even just for a few minutes, you create a work cadence and create momentum you can bring into the next day, which helps you bypass procrastination.

When you work a little every day, it's far easier to temporarily block out distractions since most things that demand your attention can wait 30 to 45 minutes while you put in your project work.

The more frequently you work on a project, the more your subconscious works on tackling problems related to your projects between work sessions, which leads to more creative insights.

You must divide your total time to complete a project across several days and put in at least 15 minutes of project work every day no matter what.

Work life oscillates between two modes: reactive and creative. In reactive mode we respond to problems and requests from others; in creative mode we temporarily block out the world and focus on creating original work.

People tend to gravitate toward reactive work because checking email is like pulling a slot machine lever: we never quite know if our inbox will be full of boring messages or exciting developments until we check it.

When you start answering people's requests, part of your mind is left thinking about what you just said, what else you could have said, and what people's responses might be.

We must give our highest priority projects our freshest attention, and that occurs in the morning when distractions are minimal and a full night of sleep has just restored our ability to focus deeply.

You must be purposely neglectful in the morning: you must postpone your responses to so-called urgent requests.

If you want to achieve optimal productivity and creativity, create first and react second.