Author: brianjohnson

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Of an Abundance of Time

I swear I already wrote this post, but I think it might just be that I have a note to write it laying out and just never got around to it.

I’ve determined that it’s very important for me to feel like I have an abundance of time. The moment I feel like I don’t, I get anxious and unhappy.

Much of this connects to general anxiety and the rest mostly relates to something I’ve brought up before which is that “freedom” has historically been a value I subconsciously lived by. If anything at all impinges upon my freedom (in this case by taking up too much time) I start to get stressed because I’m no longer living up to my values.

This has caused me to resist beneficial routine and avoid committing to good things that would take a lot of time.

But at the same time, it’s not all bad. I think I’ve always understood the premise of this blog post at some level and – as a result – have typically not remained in a state where I have no free time for too long.

Over the last year, on average, I’ve improved my energy levels greatly and have also initiated two different acquisitions in my business. The result is that I have more work to do but am also capable of working more.

Some of that is great. But it can’t go on forever. I don’t want to immediately expend all of my new-found energy on work.

Instead, I need to consistently spend some of it on improvements to my business so I can outsource more of the work or make processes more efficient so I’m not doing as much.

As I gain more energy, I want to also feel like I have more freedom with my time to do whatever I want. I need to plan days and weeks where not much is going on.

Because at the end of the day I’m just much happier when I have that abundance mindset with regard to time.

 

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Maybe It’s Beneficial when Pleasurable Things aren’t Pleasurable

I wrote this prompt for myself a while ago and am only just now writing about it, probably having a very different perspective on its subject matter.

Some background is in order.

Over the last handful of years, I’ve been working very hard on myself. I’ve been trying to figure out why I feel the way I do about things, how I can improve my mood and motivation, and just generally figure out a lot of things out.

And I’ve had a lot of luck!

The most obvious thing is that I have sleep apnea which I’m now treating, of course.

But in a way, I’m almost thankful that I have it, because it made me feel bad enough that I went searching for the causes of my problems and ended up working through a lot of personal things along the way. I feel that I’m generally stronger and better off now than I was at any point. Without sleep apnea, I may have never figured out some of those things because they wouldn’t have been bad enough to even look for.

Something I’ve learned is that if you have a lot of unresolved problems or you are living with a bad set of values, you’re bound to stop enjoying things. If you go long enough without dealing with your problems, eventually you spend all your time pushing those feelings down, and the net result is that you don’t feel much of anything anymore, other than maybe anger.

And I think that’s a sign.

Your body is warning you that something is going on and you need to deal with.

In a more direct and literal sense, it may just be that you’re triggering a stress response all the time and that shuts down many functions, resulting in anhedonia and other physical problems.

Regardless, the cause is unresolved problems or living poorly in some way, and the solution is to figure those things out.

Once those problems are gone, you should go back to normal and start feeling things properly again.

So basically what I’m saying is: if you stop getting pleasure from normal things, that isn’t the entirety of your problem. It’s just a symptom; a result.

It’s a warning sign that there is something else you need to deal with.

When stated this way, it’s clear that things like drugs, sex, or risky behavior that briefly makes you feel alive are not the solution. They might briefly make you feel better but they are just a band-aid.

You should have been feeling good to begin with. If you’re not, there is a reason. And you have to deal with that reason.

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We Focus on the Things We Think We’re Good at, and we Judge That Based on Comparisons to Others

I had a sort of epiphany today. I’ve long been formulating a sort of theory that humans have a need to feel special. I won’t go into too much detail on the base theory here, but basically it says that this need to feel special drives almost all of our behavior.

My epiphany is basically that we like things we feel we are good at, and we feel we are good at things if we can do them better than other people.

That maybe sounds very obvious and without any need of further explanation, but I think it’s actually relatively profound.

Let me explain how I got here.

I went for a run today. It wasn’t very far (less than a mile), and I did it quite slowly. I’m not in running shape, okay?

It wasn’t the most enjoyable and I definitely felt slow.

But then a thought occurred to me, “if it felt exactly the same as this, but I had completed it in a time that was better than the vast majority of people, would I like it more?”

And I realized the answer would be a resounding “yes”.

I also remember some times when I was running regularly, and I was way faster, and I did, in fact, like it way more.

We are always gauging our own performance against that of others. In basically everything. For the purposes of this post, I want to focus the discussion on skills and performance vs. other metrics and comparison.

I play guitar. Now that I’m older, other guitar players around me tend to be way better than me.

But if I could play at this level when I was in 9th grade, I’d feel like I was incredible. And by comparison: I would be. Most kids were just starting to play.

When thinking about it more, I realized that there are likely evolutionary reasons why things would work this way.

In contrast with Neanderthals, humans inherently form groups and societies. We don’t really ever survive out on our own. Societies evolved along with us.

And one of the things that makes our societies so effective is specialization. No one person can be great at everything. There just isn’t enough time to practice and learn enough about more than a few things, and our brains are likely not even capable of handling the extra workload.

So instead, we specialize.

But how do we choose what to specialize in?

I’m sure the answer is quite complicated, but my theory is that it’s basically what I’ve described above.

When you feel you are better than your peers at something, you enjoy it much more. And then you tend to spend more time on it, and get even better at it.

If you feel you are worse than others at something, you don’t enjoy it as much and you tend to give it up.

The key component of this system is “comparison with others”. By doing so, you ensure a broad range of specialization within a group. You only focus on what you do better than everyone else, and they do the same.

I imagine that feeling like you’re better than others at something also fills you with purpose and pride, leading you to feel good about yourself and more effective overall. It’s a reward for following our prewired specialization script.

It’s a pretty ingenuous system that ensures human groups are as effective as possible at ensuring the survival of the species and that everyone is contributing to the best of their ability.

Thinking to modern society, I suspect there may be real problems here. We know so many people and can see tons of really-talented people online, and the result is that most people don’t feel like they are actually that good at anything.

As a result, they don’t put time and effort into anything, and their self-esteem and sense of purpose suffer greatly.

Perhaps that’s really the greatest problem with social media.

There’s a lot to consider with this. I’ll have to revisit it and think through some more.

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How You Feel Determines How you Enjoy Things, not the Other Way Around

I had an epiphany the other day that when you feel good, you tend to enjoy things a lot more. Enjoying things isn’t really the way to feel good. It’s backwards!

Initially, the thought came to me while sipping on a pint of Guinness in Dublin with some friends. I recalled thinking during my last visit to Ireland that it was true: the Guinness there really did taste better than at home.

This time around, I’m not so sure. It seemed to be the same to me.

Regardless, I blurted out a half-formed theory that I think had been floating around in my head for some time: you enjoy everything better when you’re feeling good.

I noticed that when I was numb to the world, I tended not to enjoy… Just about anything.

And that when I was feeling really good, I became emotional about lots of things. I enjoyed things way more in general.

I think that applies even to things like taste, or music. When you’re feeling good, food tastes way better. Colors are more vivid. And music seems deeper and better.

And when you say it like that, it seems pretty obvious. Of course it’s true.

But I don’t think I’ve been living with that in mind.

Like most people, I think instinctually I’ve always had the thought, “I’m not feeling great. I need to do something enjoyable in order to feel better.”

And that’s exactly what most people do and what culture and society recommend.

Feeling bad? Treat yourself! Seek pleasure. Eat something tasty. Buy something expensive.

Maybe it’s the result of centuries of manipulation from marketing that our only solution to feeling bad is to seek material pleasure.

Regardless, I’ve found it doesn’t work very well, because those pleasures are greatly diminished if you’re depressed or generally feeling bad.

Instead of seeking out pleasure, I think we need to ask the question, “WHY am I feeling bad?” and the do our best to resolve the underlying issue.

Once again, this feels really obvious when you say it out loud, yet I’ve never heard anyone say it out loud.

A lifetime of pleasure-seeking any time you felt bad would mean that you are never, ever dealing with your actual problems and instead just trying to distract yourself.

It should be no surprise, then, that people eventually just become numb.

Obviously there’s a lot more to depression than this but I think it’s still a pretty important thing to keep in mind, and something that may prove to have a big impact on me personally.

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I Need to Reframe How I feel About Hard, Productive Work

I’m in the middle of an acquisition right now, and there has been quite a bit to do. This morning I was feeling a little overwhelmed and kind of sad at the prospect of all the work I would have to do today.

But then I sat and thought about it… Yes, there’s a lot of work, but it was a major goal to have an acquisition of this nature, and I did it. Now I just need to go through the work of implementing it.

It should feel like a victory lap. Yes, it’s a lot of work, and that means less time for other things, but at the same time, it’s good work. I’m on the track I set out for myself, accomplishing the things I wanted to accomplish.

I should be happy to have it!

I think I’ve just sort of adopted a mindset of avoiding anything that threatens to take up too much of my time. Perhaps that’s not the worst mindset to have, but it should be calibrated.

If the things that are taking up my time are things that I specifically sought out and help me reach my goals, then it doesn’t make any sense to avoid them or feel negatively about them.

While working through it, I should be excited that things are going well and that I’m doing the right thing.

Maybe this is one of those times where it would help to have some kind of business partner that could remind me of these things. It’s easy to lose perspective.

But at least I caught it and am addressing it now.

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Temporative: The Direct Antonym to “Timeless”

For at least 15 years, I have been looking for a word to describe a concept that came up quite often. And for at least 15 years, that word has not existed.

Until now.

I give you: “temporative”.

This word is essentially the exact antonym to the word “timeless”. There are many words that approach the meaning I’ve been going for, but always require specific other conditions to be met or are only used in very specific circumstances.

The definition of “temporative” is:

Characteristic of, influenced by, or strongly associated with a particular moment or period in time; often in a way that limits enduring relevance.

Usage examples:

“I want to avoid temporative design trends in my kitchen remodel like all-white cabinetry and busy backsplashes; I want something more timeless that will look nice decades from now.”

“As you drive further out into the suburbs, you notice the rows of temporative houses which make it painfully obvious in which decade each neighborhood was built.”

In some contexts – especially when exclusively referencing things from the past – the word “dated” carries a very similar meaning and could be used more or less interchangeably. However, there are key distinctions:

  • “Dated” carries a negative connotation; “temporative” is neutral
  • “Dated” suggests only that something is no longer in fashion without suggesting that it was ever indicative of a specific time

So, for example, you can use “temporative” in situations where you want to point out that things may be from a variety of different time periods, such as with the suburban houses example. “Dated” simply lumps them all together.

But the most-important use-case for “temporative” is for describing things that are currently in fashion. Using this word, you can effortless convey that something may be in-fashion or popular now, but that it will eventually be considered out-of-date and strongly associated with the current time.

“Anachronistic” is another related word, but has an extremely niche use case. It’s only used when something outdated is found in a modern context. It’s not very versatile.

“Redolent” is one that could probably be considered a loose synonym, however it is perhaps too broad in that it means something is strongly reminiscent or suggestive of something else. While I think it can be used to mean a time period, more commonly it seems to be used when something is suggestive of an idea, person, place, or even smell or sound.

Another important point about “temporative” is that it isn’t necessary to specify which time period something is associated with. While you could say, for example, “That outfit is very 70s,” with “temporative,” you could simply say, “That’s a temporative outfit.”

This would be especially useful in a situation where there are multiple people wearing outfits from a variety of time periods.

Some relevant antonyms to “temporative” are:

  • timeless (of course)
  • enduring
  • evergreen
  • perennial

I actually did quite a bit of research over the years to come up with this word. First, I tried to find out if any major languages already had a word with this meaning.

It turns out they don’t! Almost all have direct translations of words like “dated,” none have a more general word.

So I took it upon myself to simply come up with one, and “temporative” is the best I could come up with.

You might be asking yourself, “why does he care about having this word?”

That’s a great question!

You see, words encapsulate ideas and facilitate understanding. It’s difficult for people to understanding concepts which lack words to explain them. Once a word exists, it’s easier for people to communicate and share ideas related to those words.

I’ve never cared for the ephemeral nature of fashion trends for things like clothing, but I dislike them even more when it comes to things like housing. If trends change wildly every decade, it means that you have to spend a fortune changing your house, for example, just to keep up with completely arbitrary standards and fashions that provide no actual utility.

It’s silly.

Perhaps if a word like “temporative” were to become mainstream, people would stop and think a bit more before making decisions that will cost them in the long run. The more popular and ubiquitous something is now, the more likely it is that you will need to completely replace it in the near future, and I think that’s quite silly.

So maybe this word could make people stop and think. Maybe they’d choose things that aren’t trendy now, but are more unique and timeless. That way they wouldn’t need to replace it every 10 years.

I was fortunate enough to buy a house a few years back which I still live in. There is some tile work in the kitchen and bathrooms that I believe was done by one of the previous owners. It’s timeless. It looks great. I have no idea when they did it.

It feels like I’ll never need to replace it, and I really appreciate that.

Sometimes you walk into a house and it has green shag carpet and the shiplap walls that were everywhere in the 70s, and you just think, “they NEED to do something about this.”

At one time it was huge, and then it wasn’t. And now these kinds of temporative design cues are a huge liability. They make your guests cringe, and potential home buyers head for the hills.

But maybe, just maybe, if we spent more time thinking about the future and trying to do things in a way that won’t make them outdated, we can save lots of effort (and money), and perhaps even add a bit more uniqueness into the world.

 

 

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I Need to Redouble Efforts to Avoid Phone Time Wasters

I’ve let myself start to develop bad habits again with my phone. This time, it has mostly been Reddit. For whatever reason, I guess I decided again that it was important for me to be kept up-to-date on what’s happening in the world every single day.

There’s way more on Reddit than just current events, though, so of course things spiraled.

I’ve wasted so much time lately on that website. And the worst part about it is that not only does it just completely waste the time used to view it, but it also seems to sap me of my energy and make me less productive and happy beyond that.

So it’s got to stop.

I’m making it my main priority right now to avoid that completely. From now on, I plan to really just avoid scrolling Reddit completely. I also want to spend minimal time on YouTube, though that’s far more under control thanks to my Screen Zen app.

I think the importance of these things is implicit, and I’ve talked about them at length in the past, so I don’t need to rehash all that. I just want to document it here so that I can keep track of it and establish my resolve to really take it seriously.

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The Purpose of Basically Everything is to Feel Good, So I Need to Prioritize Things that Maximize That

As humans, we like to believe that we are always incredibly deep and everything is meaningful and that every action and motivation is incredibly complicated.

But in the end, we just want to feel good.

Obviously there are many ways we go about feeling good, and feeling good in the short term often comes at the expense of feeling good in the long term (eating something tasty but bad for you, drinking, watching TV, etc.).

And, of course, perhaps some things feel good in different ways. Some things may be deeply fulfilling, while others may just feel like passing pleasure.

Yet just about anything we strive for, we do so because we believe it will make us feel good. Even for things like charity or volunteering; we think that we’ll feel good about ourselves if we do it. And that’s probably rightly-so!

But what if we just dropped the pretense and admitted that basically everything we do is an attempt to feel good? That’s literally how our brains work.

Even the most deeply selfless acts are most likely always the result of someone choosing the way in which they think they’ll feel best; often the resulting choice between intense emotional anguish or brief physical harm and maybe even death.

Now, you might be thinking, “I know people that are always trying to feel good, and that kind of hedonistic pleasure-seeking leads to a bad life.”

And this is where I think it’s important to note the difference between being impulsively drawn to short-term pleasure and carefully planning to feel good long-term.

I’m starting to think that it’s better to plan – virtually always – to maximize how you feel long-term.

So let’s look at a common example: drinking.

Drinking is famously enjoyable in the short (when done in moderation). But what about the long-term?

It would seem that even relatively small amounts of drinking have a pretty serious, lingering, negative impact on mood and other measures of well-being.

At the risk of being overly analytical, if you were to graph how you felt over time, the purpose of life (or at least the unavoidable aim as mammals) is to maximize the integral; the area under the curve.

While most people are probably decent at doing that for the next… 15 minutes, they are not so good at doing it long-term. And that’s what I want to focus on.

Sure, I want my highs to be high. But I don’t want my lows to be so low, and I certainly don’t want to be feeling bad most of the time.

Yet that’s where I think most people are. They live in an unhealthy way, they work too much, they spend too much, they don’t communicate, their priorities are off, they drink, they don’t sleep enough, and in the end they might have some moderately high highs, but most of the time they are very low.

And I don’t want that.

So going forward, I’m going to think a lot more about this concept and use it to reevaluate things like drinking and see if it wouldn’t be better to just give it up completely.

I need to focus on the things that will maximize the area under that curve at all times. Even at the expense of other activities, like working.

Pretty much anything that is “healthy” falls under this category. I don’t think total deprivation is necessary, but I do need to focus my efforts where they will be most beneficial.

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I Need to Start Adding a lot of Additional Content to Existing Blog Posts

I have learned recently that Google is really starting to prioritize posts that go into great detail about a topic and answer a variety of different questions. Context needs to be established so that it can use AI and answer complicated questions.

Obviously I’ve noticed for years now that posts that go into excruciating detail about something tend to rank first for most of my questions. It’s often quite irritating as a user but it doesn’t matter. That’s what ranks.

So my goal now should be to systematically add tons of relevant information to my website. That might mean just adding additional pieces of information to existing and popular blog posts.

But it may also mean doubling-down and adding more articles that are similar to the first one and linking them together. It may also mean linking more of my existing posts together.

What might even be smart is to take a category in which I have tons of posts, and write a huge article with the sole purpose of linking to all of them.

While my rankings seem better than ever, my traffic seems to be slipping a bit, and this might be a great way to improve it.

Finally, just an update that my Adwords campaigns have not been very successful. I don’t know that I’ve gotten any actual calls, just spend a lot.

I may need to revisit those soon. And if I can’t get those to work, I may have to actually pay a company to do SEO for me.

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Regrouping on Growing the Business

I’ve sort of trailed off recently when it comes to working on the business and growing it. For a while, I was really hitting the SEO stuff hard and totally revising my site, and it was working! But then I stopped, and now my traffic and results are dropping again.

Right now, I want to circle back on doing two things in particular.

First, I think it’s time that I actually write a newsletter and send it out to my clients. This will involve a few steps:

  1. Finding out when I last sent out a newsletter, then finding out which new clients I’ve added since then and adding them to the newsletter list
  2. Figuring out what big changes have happened in the industry to include in the newsletter (chatGPT?)
  3. Compiling maybe some of my recent posts if they are helpful
  4. Actually writing the newsletter and sending it out
  5. Coming up with a schedule to send these out quarterly

I think that it’s key to keep in touch with all my clients. They need to know I’m around and I need to be top-of-mind for them. They want to know I’m active and working on their best interests. This is the best way to do that.

I’ve made a note to prepare for this tomorrow and proceed with next steps.

The second thing I want to do, is to start producing content again. I need to be posting regularly in my blog if I want to rank highly. I’ve really been slacking here. I’m not sure when my last blog post was.

But if I can keep posting regular content, it should greatly improve my results for all posts. Maybe I should come up with a schedule where I write a new post every couple weeks, and maybe revise an old one every two weeks, too. Something like that.

That’s it for today! I think it’s really important I focus on growing, since I haven’t been the last couple years and that has been a problem.