Beautiful Brain Operating System

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Beautiful Brain Operating system

A guide to live a more efficient and meaningful life, focused on people with ADHD.

José Miguel Santos

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👋 Intro

My name is José Miguel Santos, founder of

Beautiful Brain⁠

. After spending 10+ years working in Product Management for companies like Google and DoorDash, I became a dad and decided to change my lifestyle to spend more time on what matters more to me (wife and son).

One big part that helped me was creating my operating system. I have ADHD, which makes it hard to make me accountable, especially in a freelance setting. As it could be helpful to others, I decided to publish it. I will keep it updated as it evolves. I spent months researching the latest research on productivity and happiness and boil down to a system that works for, and might serve as inspiration for yours.

⁉️ Why use this doc?

Do you feel your life is disorganized? Do you feel you are not living up to your full potential? With this document you can create your own operating system to live a more meaningful and productive life.

The operating system is a framework that allows me to accomplish the following in regular basis:

Organize my list of things to do effectively week by week - I have a reasonable plan of what I need to accomplish each week

Plan the week know what to commit and what I cannot)

Prioritize what is important (focus)

Aim for the right balance, not perfectionism (for tasks that I love), but also not “do the minimum” (for tasks I don’t like, specially if that might cause me or others trouble later)

Get the most important things done every day - I am productive and able to complete the most important tasks each day

Able to start and complete tasks, even if they don’t look interesting (reward myself?)

Have time awareness of how long each task takes

Resist impulse to do other tasks / procrastinate

Plan and complete long term projects - I am capable of stay on track and deliver big projects

Have a longer term view of what I want to accomplish

Do steady progress on long term projects

Capable of finishing long term projects

The operating system helps me:

Reduce feelings of overwhelm

“I have too much to do”

“I committed to too many things”

I am realistic about what I can commit and how much time it takes

Reduce procrastination

“I don’t feel like doing it”

“The task is too big, and don’t know where to start”

I have a good definition of what I need to do

Reduce anxiety

I plan ahead

I am able to drive urgency and start things well before deadline (don’t leave things for last minute)

I understand when I need to put extra mile vs when I can take off earlier

I face my anxiety (face the things that I don’t want to do but must)

Reduce perfectionism

I know when 80% is enough and when you need better quality

I share my work well and often

📝 Doc Breakdown

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ADHD my life⁠

- how to get the basics right on your mind and body, that are fundamental for the rest to come to fruition.

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Operating Cadence⁠

- the day to day, week to week rituals and some tools to overcome when things go off-track.

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Project Management⁠

- how to manage longer term projects, from planning to keep accountability.

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Tools⁠

- collection of tools that helped me be productive and tools that I want to experiment with.

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Research notes⁠

- links and notes of some of the research that helped me.

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