Reference

Glossary

Twelve terms that recur across the journal, defined the way the desk uses them rather than the way a textbook would.

Advancing goal

The single outcome that makes a week worthwhile if it moves. One per week, written as a sentence, kept visible on Wednesday when plans quietly die.

Attention residue

The part of a previous task that stays loaded after you switch away from it — the reason a two-second glance at a message can cost several minutes of re-reading.

Batching

Grouping the same kind of small work into scheduled windows (three inbox windows a day rather than forty glances) so the number of reloads collapses even though total time does not.

Block

An uninterrupted stretch aimed at one piece of work. Ninety minutes is the realistic unit in a shared room; four silent hours is a fantasy that makes routines fail.

Floor

The one thing that must be true by the end of a bad day. Naming it removes the worst version of a day where much happened and nothing that mattered did.

Parking

The place new arrivals go during the week so they can be acknowledged without being promised. Reviewed once a week and mostly deleted.

Re-entry line

The single sentence you write about where you were before answering an interruption. Ten seconds of writing against several minutes of rebuilding.

Shutdown note

Five lines written at a fixed time at the end of work: what moved, what is stuck, tomorrow's first task, promises with dates, and how the day felt.

Self-interruption

Switching away without anyone asking you to, usually at a lull or a stuck sentence. Roughly half of all interruptions, and the half that responds to friction.

Size tag

Small, medium or large instead of a minute estimate. Easier to get right, and it forces the honest conclusion that a large item means the day holds one thing.

Slack

The fifth of the week left unallocated on purpose, so that the plan absorbs what arrives instead of becoming wrong by Tuesday.

Threshold resistance

The reluctance that lives at the start of a task rather than inside it, which is why shrinking the unit to fifteen minutes so often works.