#90 Envision, want, choose

ByLukas
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First I envision a future me. Who do I want to be?

Then every single day, every single moment, I choose to take actions that turn me into that person I want to be.

If I don’t consciously choose my actions in the present moment that contribute to my vision, and I’m led by old unconscious patterns, beliefs, and habits instead, my visions will remain imaginary.

And if I never take the time to envision who I want to be, how do I know which actions to choose?

First envision what you want. Then choose to make it happen.

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    #18 Practicing neglected skills – Reps hidden in plain sight

    ByLukas

    In his book The Art of Learning (and his podcast episodes with Tim Ferris), Josh Waitzkin, former chess player and martial artist, introduces the concept of “hidden reps” when learning something new:

    I think that where the really potent, low-hanging fruit hanging in plain sight lie are in the thematic, are in breaking down the learning process into the core principles or themes you want to work on and doing reps of those. Those are just invisible to people in plain sight.

    Josh Waitzkin on the Tim Ferris Podcast: https://tim.blog/2020/03/14/josh-waitzkin-transcript-412/

    In other words, find “neglected skills“: situations you don’t often find yourself in and where you haven’t developed a lot of trust and confidence in your abilities yet.

    Then isolate and practice them until you develop confidence and trust for that particular neglected skill.

    For example, when working on his chess game, instead of practicing the “openings” like everybody else, Josh would isolate the “end games”(the final part of a chess match) and practice only these.

    Most people wouldn’t think of doing that; they would always start at the opening (that’s where a chess match starts, after all) and practice the end game only as an afterthought, deep into their practice session when they had already spent all their energy on the opening.

    By cutting out the opening entirely during practice sessions, Josh got a lot more “hidden reps” with the end game than his competitors, which led to a big competitive advantage.

    This might seem obvious, but in my experience, it’s really quite counterintuitive not to start at the beginning when practicing a skill.

    For example, when learning a new guitar piece, it feels strange not to start at the beginning but to pick out a difficult part and practice that over and over again. It’s not impossible, and many teachers will tell you to isolate difficult parts, but my (and many other students’) first instinct would always be to start at the top, over and over again.

    Which begs the question:

    Where else are we “starting from the top” over and over again, instead of finding and isolating the neglected skills?

    Neglected skills and hidden reps examples

    Some examples of how I’m trying to integrate this principle into my life:

    1. By the end of a yoga session, my muscles are so fatigued there are certain poses and moves I just can’t execute anymore with proper technique. Over the long run, this leads to an imbalance; I get good at the poses that appear early on in the session, and neglect the ones later in the session.
      To counteract this, I sometimes do separate sessions where I isolate those “neglected moves”. Suddenly, they become much easier, and I learn to execute them with proper technique.
    2. I’ve been writing and journaling every day for almost 2 years now. Those reps have trained me to get over the bump of the empty page, open the floodgates, and generate many ideas and insights.
    3. Out of all that writing and journaling, I barely ever created anything “publish-worthy”. Now I’m writing a daily blog post, which trains me to take the ideas I’m generating anyway, and turn them into something I can publish.
    4. Instead of publishing one long post a week – or once every couple of years like some book authors – where I’d only rarely experience that feeling and fear of “putting something out there”, I decided to publish something every day, even if it’s very short. Daily short form posts give me seven times more publishing practice than one long weekly post.
      I’m 15 days in and already notice I’m developing much more trust in myself that I’m capable of publishing something every day and there’s always something to write about. Even when I decide on a different schedule in the future, I’ll have much more experience in putting content out regularly than someone with a lower-frequency schedule.

    In sum

    Neglected skills are everywhere. No matter what you’re trying to learn or achieve, creating the circumstances where you can identify and isolate them, then put in the hidden reps, will pay big dividends.

  • #27 Appreciating the meaningless melody of a foreign language

    ByLukas

    Learning a foreign language is both a frustrating and liberating experience.

    We can focus on the frustration of not understanding the words the way we understand our mother tongue. Or we can realize that without the words, we are free to fall back on other ways of capturing and understanding meaning.

    A crying baby can be soothed by words it does not yet understand, because she senses what’s behind the sounds, lets the meaningless melody cradle her to sleep…

    Similarly, we don’t always have to know what’s behind the words, as long as we make an effort to understand the meaning behind the sounds.

    Hearing a foreign language brings us back to that wordless world the way we experienced it as a newborn, before we tried so hard to put everything within and around us into language.

    It makes us remember, there’s more to life than our words will ever allow us to express. And somehow, that’s a soothing thought.

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    How Replacing Productivity by Traction Leads to a More Fulfilled, Creative Life (the Productivity Trap)

    ByLukas

    Many of the articles on this website touch on the concept of productivity. And yet, I have very mixed feelings about the word. There’s something aspirational about it, and at the same time… it feels dirty.

    Whenever a word triggers me like that, I like to do do an exercise to figure out what’s causing it. First, I write down all my instant associations with the word, without thinking too much. (For example “productivity is…” or “productivity means…”. No thinking allowed, just instant writing.)

    Then I look for patterns or insights in what I wrote.

    (This is a fascinating exercise. I suggest you try it with “rich people are…” and see which instant associations bubble up. It might not be pretty.)

    As always, the instant association exercise did its job. In this post, you’ll read what it brought to light, how I managed to reframe productivity as traction, and how that reframe might help you live a more creative and more fulfilled life, too.

    The Productivity Trap: Does productivity mean maximizing economic output?

    The instant association exercise revealed that my biggest problem with productivity is that I (and many others) often mix it up with “economic productivity.” In other words: maximizing economic output every day. Or less euphemistic: working 10-12 hours a day.

    What about “producing a lot in as little time as possible?” At first sight, that looks like a good thing, right?

    But here, too, there’s a lot of pressure to maximize output without regard for rest and recovery.

    For example, let’s say you’re a master of deep work, and you finish a job that is supposed to take 8 hours in 4 hours.

    For many people, that means “Great, now I have 4 more hours left to do something productive“. And they end up working 8 hours anyway. Or 10 (better do something “productive” at night than watching TV for 2 hours!)

    This is a typical productivity trap. It’s a monster that’s never satisfied, creates a lot of pressure and leads to burnout.

    A healthier way to achieve a lot

    Luckily, there are other and healthier ways to be focused and achieve a lot. I like how Nir Eyal frames it in his excellent book “Indistractable“:

    On any given day, your mission is to do the things you set out to do.

    Sounds simple, but it’s a massive mindset shift.

    To understand why, we need to take a look at the concepts of traction and distraction.

    The magic of traction and distraction

    At any given time in your day, if you’re doing what you set out to do, no matter if it’s work, play, going for a walk, or taking a nap, you’re gaining traction. In other words, you’re moving towards the goal you set.

    If you’re not doing what you set out to do, you’re getting distracted. You’re moving away from the goal you set.

    Simple, right?

    The only prerequisite is that you choose what you want to gain traction towards. You have to deliberately decide what you’re going to do, create, work on, or play with.

    Traction is inclusive of ALL your daily activities, work or not

    The nicest part about this approach to “productivity” is that it allows, includes, and even encourages what many people classify as as “non-productive downtime.”

    For example, you can consciously decide to write two hours a day. Then, if you end up actually writing during those two hours, you’re gaining traction towards that goal.

    But you can also consciously decide, in advance, to watch a 1-hour series afterward as a reward for your hard labor.

    And if during that time you set out to watch that series, you actually watch the series, guess what: you’re gaining traction towards that goal too!

    If you set out to meet with friends, or have a romantic date night… and you follow through… yep, now you’re gaining traction in that domain too.

    The same goes for spending time with your kids, and anything else you consciously decide to do in any given day.

    If you adopt this new traction mindset, everything I described has now become “productivity”.

    Traction increases integrity, self-trust and self-esteem

    Now, why is this important?

    Simple. if you consciously choose what you’re going to do, no matter if it’s work, play, relaxing,… and you then follow through…

    That shows integrity.

    You show yourself you can do what you set out to do. You keep your promises to yourself.

    And that increases your self-trust and self-esteem.

    That’s right: saying you’re going to watch an episode of your favorite series and then doing that (without feeling guilty) can increase your self-trust as much as saying you’re writing a blog post and following through!

    That might sound weird, but that’s how it works. It’s just a healthier way to look at your daily activities.

    Added benefit: the more self-trust and self-esteem, the less inner resistance you’ll feel to living the life you want to life. Read more about that here.

    2 Essential conditions to make Traction work

    Here’s what’s important to start taking advantage of the power of traction:

    • Consciously decide what you’re going to do on any given day: work, play everything. If you don’t, the habits you created unconsciously over the past years will take over and pull you toward activities you want to avoid.
    • Avoid overpromising things you’re going to accomplish in one day. If you overpromise and it’s impossible to fulfill that promise to yourself (or others), you lower your self-esteem. If you do this every day, you’ll end up losing all trust in yourself. You’ll develop a belief that you’re unproductive, lazy, not reliable. In reality, you’re making unrealistic promises to yourself.

    A better way to manage projects without overpromising: timeboxing

    With practice, you’ll get better at estimating the time needed to complete a project you can create a realistic calendar.

    But sometimes, it’s hard to predict how long a project will take.

    If that’s the case, I recommend “time boxing”: adding a set block of time to your calendar to work on a project.

    Once the time is up, you stop working on that project.

    It doesn’t matter how much you achieved. As long as you worked on the project during that time block, you’ve gained traction. (If you ended up doing something else or you got distracted halfway through, that’s a different story.)

    In the end, it’s all about being honest with yourself and finding uninterrupted blocks of time to work.

    Step-by-step plan to start gaining traction

    Here’s how I recommend you get started with traction, without overdoing it (remember, keeping your promises to yourself and your integrity is vital):

    1. Decide on 1-2 projects you want to spend your time on a given day (work, play, relaxing, friends,… anything)
    2. Find uninterrupted time in your calendar where you can do that thing. 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 60 minutes… find what works in your current situation.
    3. Add it to your calendar. Make sure to think through any possible distractions that might come up (your phone, kids, meetings,…) and prevent them from pulling on your attention during your chosen time block.
    4. When the time comes, work on the project you set out to do.
    5. When time’s up, stop working, no matter how much you did.
    6. Afterwards, review. How did it go?
      Did you do what you set out to do? Did you get distracted by anything? Could you prevent these distractions from happening in the future? You might have to change your environment. Put away your phone. Choose a different time with fewer distractions.
      Did you overpromise to yourself? Were your expectations for what you could achieve in this time block unrealistic? Was the time block was too short or too long? If necessary, adapt the time blocks and lower your expectations for the next time to avoid disappointing yourself again…
      Keep in mind: repeatedly letting yourself down is bad for your integrity and self-esteem.
    7. The next day, plan another uninterrupted block of time, this time adapted based on your experiences with the first block.
    8. Keep trying and adapting.

    Practicing traction this way will help your self-esteem, integrity, your trust in yourself. You’ll also get more done in less time. Because this is a plan that works long-term. It builds discipline. It helps you create a life you like and feel good about in the long term.

    Final thoughts: replace the word, not the meaning.

    Whenever a word becomes cluttered with negative connotations, I give myself two choices.

    Either I train myself to redefine the meaning of the word and replace the negative connotation with something more positive. That’s the hard way.

    Here’s the easy way: I replace the word itself with a brand-new concept with no negative associations.

    Productivity becomes traction.

    Controlling becomes channeling. (Blog post coming soon).

    Failure becomes lesson.

    You get the idea.

    I suggest you take the easy way and replace your goal of productivity with traction.

    It’ll save you a lot of time and frustration.

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    #185 Priorities

    ByLukas

    We all want to avoid doing things that make us miserable.

    Yet avoiding them often takes the shape of prioritizing them.

    “I’ll do this unpleasant thing first so that I can get to the fun stuff.”

    Unfortunately, it seems to be a rule that the more unpleasant tasks you cross off your to-do list, the more unpleasant tasks appear on your to-do list.

    Sometimes it makes sense to do the essential things first, even if that means you keep the unpleasant things on your to-do list.

    This is not a free pass to avoid unpleasant things and only do something you like.

    It’s about doing the things that matter, regardless of whether they’re pleasant.

    It’s about coming to terms with the fact that you’ll probably always drown in chores and busy work to do, then doing the important stuff anyway.

    Journaling question of the day:

    Where are you prioritizing and attracting things that make you miserable instead of doing the work that matters?

  • #378 Don’t negotiate yourself out of your dreams

    ByLukas

    You usually make a plan in a moment of motivation and clear thinking, where everything seems possible.

    But you’ll have to execute the plan in a variety of situations, including harsh conditions.

    Remember this: difficult moments pass, just like easy moments.

    Every moment passes, but your plans and dreams will still be there.

    Don’t negotiate yourself out of your dreams based on a difficult moment.

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