#351 Slow and steady

A memory is what we decide to remember from an experience – and what we decide to delete and forget.

Intuition is the instant hunch we get after we’ve repeatedly created memories from experiences; the moment we don’t need the conscious memory anymore.

A small (or unrepresentative) sample size leads to inaccurate intuition.

If I’m betrayed three times in my life and have created strong memories around that, my intuition whenever meeting anyone else may be that they’ll betray me too. Three bad experiences have shaped, and skewed, my relationship to billions of others.

How to develop accurate intuition?

The more memories we create, the bigger the “sample size” for our intuition to emerge from, and the smaller the weight of “outlier events” (like being betrayed).

The more deliberately we create these memories, the more deliberately we hone intuition.

Create more memories. And create them deliberately.

Not all tasks and activities we must do feel fulfilling or rewarding. There’s no way out of busy work.

But we can avoid prioritizing and attracting it to the expense of work that matters.

Enter the hour of misery.

One hour of busy work and chores a day.

60 minutes. Not more. But also not less.

If, after 60 minutes of misery, you feel like you should do much more, it’s time to realign priorities.

Delegate.

OR come to terms with the fact that you’ll never finish the pile of busy work tasks – then carry on with the important stuff anyway.

After all, tomorrow’s another day.