All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone. – Blaise Pascal
The average smartphone receives 49 push notifications per day.
That’s a push notification every 20 minutes during the 16 hours we’re awake.
In our Age of Distraction, it takes guts and grit to sit in a room, with only our thoughts for company, to ponder a problem for hours on end.
It feels uncomfortable. Unnatural even.
But have you ever tried it? Maybe it’s worth a shot?
I used to worry about repeating concepts and ideas on this blog.
What if readers got bored? What if posts became tedious?
However, daily writing has taught me the importance of the old adage “repetition is the mother of all learning.”
Without careful and deliberate repetition, we’re likely to forget our learnings and miss out on their benefits.
One example of repetition in my posts is on the topic of doing the basics well. See “Great advice, usually ignored”, and “Take the stairs, eat more veggies”.
I have a hunch I will still find these ideas relevant and useful in 10 years time, so why not dedicate the time and effort necessary to perfect them?
In any project or endeavour, you can only optimise for 2 out of the following 3 options:
You can get something done cheap and fast, but it’ll be poor quality.
You can get something done fast and well, but it’ll cost you.
You can get something done well and cheap, but it’ll take time.
Perhaps our biggest challenge is to realise and accept that we can’t have it all; that perfection is unattainable.
Perhaps the trade-off liberates us, by forcing us to decide what is most important.
Perhaps the constraint is what we need for magic, creativity, and resourcefulness to emerge.
Here’s a thought experiment to help us reflect on how we invest our limited time and resources.
Before we launch into it, I need to define our shared definition of “investing”: investing is putting limited resource (e.g., money, time) into something today with the hope of a future return (e.g., profit, new skills).
With that said, here we go.
What if you could invest in one, and only one, of the following three options:
Which single investment pathway would you choose?
Of course, in reality, we can choose multiple pathways at the same time, but the thought experiment forces us to consider what we value most.
Now, compare your answer to how you actually spend your time and resources.
Personally, I aim to spend as much time on Number 3 as possible.
Money, jobs, and financial security can fade as quickly as you can say “recession”. But good character and wisdom can’t be stolen.
Maru and I went to Secret Cinema yesterday, and it did not disappoint.
The idea is simple: imagine stepping into your favourite film, dressing up as one of the cast, and participating in the story.
“Casino Royale”, “Moulin Rouge”, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”, “Romeo and Juliet”, and “Back to the Future” are some of the films they’ve re-created for live audiences.
The whole point of Secret Cinema is for it to be, well, secret. So out of respect for their work and for future potential Secret Cinema goers, I won’t go into the specifics about our Casino Royale adventure, but I do have two reflections on the overall experience:
These two reflections left me with one overriding thought: if you’re going to do anything, anything at all, you might as well do it well.
One way I keep up the daily blogging streak is by writing one day ahead.
For example, my ideal day-to-day workflow is:
I don’t always write and post to this rhythm, but when I do, I avoid the in-day stress of needing to produce something under time pressure.
Without this pressure, my mind is at ease and is better able to explore ideas to write about.
At that point, it’s fun rather than an obligation. Which is an important requirement of mine to make this blogging habit worth it.
The interesting thing is the volume of output (a post per day) is the same regardless of the workflow I choose. But the daily writing experience is significantly better when the posts are ready one day ahead.
This concept can also be applied to other areas of our lives. A simple example is my mornings are much better if I pack my bag for work the night before.
Could any of your activities benefit from being done, or prepared for, one day ahead?
When we’re faced with a tough decision, a typical reaction is to 1) seek advice from others, and then 2) analyse which path to take.
However, we eventually need to leave the shelter of others’ advice and make a decision for which we alone will be responsible.
That’s scary.
Its scary because it’s comforting and reassuring to lean on the advice of others.
But placing reliance on others only gives the illusion we made a decision.
Setting clear limits for our reliance, and knowing when to assume full responsibility for a decision, is essential to being able to live with any outcome.
Have you ever forgotten to charge your phone before leaving home, so you plug it in for 10-15 minutes, hoping it’ll have enough juice to get you through the day?
When in low-battery mode, we only use our phone for essential activities, such as navigation or important messages.
This may work for a day, but if repeated day after day, we end up with 2 problems: 1) we don’t get to use our phone’s full capabilities, and 2) it harms the long term health of the battery.
A phone is replaceable, but when we apply this concept to our lives, specifically our minds and bodies, it takes on a new meaning.
Consistently refusing rest and rejuvenation by getting “just enough charge” is unhelpful and unhealthy in the long term.
It’s not sometimes, it’s regularly, that we need a full recharge.
I recently came across this profound and pithy idea: whatever you’re not changing, you’re choosing.
It’s a challenging reminder to think just as hard about inaction as we do action.
The power of this idea is in its broad applicability.
For example, it’s applicable to our diet and exercise habits, to tough decisions in the work place, and even through to how we respond to large-scale social justice issues, like the Climate Crisis.
Even if we convince ourselves we’re not choosing, we still are.
H/T Laurie Buchanan
As London drizzled during my walk home last night, I saw a drenched food-delivery driver race by on his moped.
On rainy evenings, the demand for food-delivery increases.
At the same time, food-delivery riders choose not to work due to dangerous conditions and the high probability of being cold and wet for hours on end.
It’s the gig economy version of Newton’s Third Law of Motion: every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
High demand for food delivery and a low supply of delivery riders creates tension.
To ease this tension, food-delivery companies react in three ways, 1) they charge an additional fee (surge pricing) for each delivery to artificially lower demand, 2) they offer wet-weather bonuses to drivers to keep up delivery productivity, and 3) they make consumers wait longer for their food.
But no matter how hard these companies try, when it rains, no one wins. Not the customers, riders, or the food-delivery companies.
With our own products and services, we may not be able to avoid some lose-lose situations either. But it’s better to know they exist, attempt to anticipate them, and have avoidance strategies in place for when they hit.
“Never ask the barber if you need a haircut” is a popular saying from legendary investor, Warren Buffett.
When making decisions, it’s natural to look to the advice, experience, and expertise of others to help us form our judgements.
But we should remember to scrutinise both 1) the advice itself, and 2) the credibility of the advice giver.
We often forget number 2 and treat all advice equally.
In the case of the barber, it’s easy to see the connection between the “you should get a hair cut” recommendation and the barber’s monthly pay check.
However, in most situations, the conflict of interest is not so clear cut. But simply being aware of it can help improve the quality of our decision making.
I arrived at work this morning to these pears.
Small. Odd. Weird.
But wonderful.
These pears are from Oddbox, a company that buys the produce that big-chain supermarkets won’t accept. They then package and deliver direct-to-consumer or to businesses, like Bulb.
I had no idea that the UK throws out over 3 million tonnes (£4 billion worth) of produce per year; just because it doesn’t conform to a specific shape or size.
That’s nuts! In fact, it’s enough food to feed 20,000 people for a year.
Oddbox refuses to accept the “this is the way it’s always been” excuse. With some common sense, good branding, and some smart logistics, they’re doing something to make things better.
Here’s to them.
In the last two months since I’ve started daily blogging, one of the questions I’ve received is, “How do you find the time to write something everyday?”
So I thought I’d share one specific change I’ve made to my daily habits to create time for writing.
When I started daily blogging, I looked at how I spent my time each day, and tried to shift moments of consumption into moments of creation.
When on the tube heading into work, instead of trying to listen to music over the screeching of London’s northern line, I ditch the headphones, reflect on the previous day, and note some ideas down on my phone.
I used to skip my lunch break, but I now take 15 minutes once I’ve finished my meal to build on what I wrote that morning.
Finally, when I get home, I’ve replace what used to be Netflix time with wrapping up the blog post for the day, and getting into bed a little earlier with a book.
I realised it was so easy to be in a constant state of consumption, and I have simply tried to balance some of that with deliberate creation time.
I’m also just happy to be putting original content out into the world again. This blog is the first time since vlogging on the Mississippi that I’ve been publicly sharing ideas, and the meaningful email conversations I’ve had with readers to date have made it all worth it.
I recently came across this great Twitter thread started by Y Combinator Chairman, Sam Altman.
It’s odd how the best advice is often so simple that it’s ignored. Maybe it’s because the advice seems boring, or that it is hard to keep up simple and good habits.
I’ve been reflecting on this phenomenon in the last few months, and have written about it before in take the stairs, and eat more veggies. No doubt it will be something I’ll continue to think and blog about in future.
I hope you enjoy reading through the ideas in Sam’s thread.
A local cafe near work had a broken card machine this morning.
Scrappily printed “Cash Only” signs were stuck to the entrance door and to the tills.
Realising I had no cash on me, I slowly began to turn around and leave when the manager asked me, “Do you work around here?”
As I nodded, and he replied with, “Well, why don’t you take what you need and come back later to pay?”
No questions asked.
When things go wrong, someone gets to allocate responsibility and risk.
Today, the manager could have passed the broken card machine burden to me. However, he chose to assume responsibility and take the risk that I wouldn’t come back to pay. The funny thing is he earned more trust from me today than if the card machine was working perfectly.
Even if it’s broken, there are still opportunities to build trust.
This links back to a previous post about taking it on the chin.