Category: Personal

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Thoughts About a Potential Improvement System

I just happened to read my post about how a weight training system helped me quite a bit and then mused that I should have something similar for improvements in my business and personally. Then I read the following post which had more ideas about what I could put together.

And those were both way back in 2020 and I haven’t done anything yet.

Well, while I was reading I had some ideas. What if I put together some sort of end-of-day (or maybe start-of-day?) ranking system that lists all of my current initiatives and then I rate myself on how I’m doing on them.

Perhaps weekly, I could remove things that are no longer important initiatives.

And that’s it, that would be the system.

Why would this work?

First, it would keep things very simple. I don’t like the idea of a clumsy, complicated system that’s a lot of work to manage.

But what would make it effective would be the following:

  1. It would keep all important initiatives top-of-mind
  2. It would help me track how they are going over time
  3. It would motivate me to actually make progress so that I can put good numbers down

The last one is probably the most important. This has worked with my daily survey I fill out personally, because every time I put down bad numbers I feel guilty or ashamed, and every time I put down good numbers I feel accomplished.

It motivates me to get those good numbers.

So what would I put on this list?

It would be things like new habits I’m trying to develop, long-term efforts like trying to find and purchase other website hosting companies or setting up my fine art photography website, and possibly short-term projects as well.

The more I think about it, the more I think that the perfect time to respond to this daily questionnaire would be when I’m putting together my to-do list for the day. This happens almost every single day, usually late in the morning.

I think I would phrase the question like, “How do you think you performed  yesterday with regard to the following projects:” and then it would list each of them on a 1-10 scale.

If I didn’t do any work at all on a project, that’s a 1. If I did minimal, maybe higher.

Or for a habit, if I failed at it completely, that’s a 1. I suppose if I did it but it wasn’t great, that’s a… 5 or 6. If it was fully engrained and went perfectly, that’s a 10.

I think this could actually work quite nicely. I just need to decide how I want to do it. I use Google forms for my other questionnaire but I don’t love it. It could get a little weird over time as I’m adding and removing initiatives, too.

But, I think it’s worth a shot at least to start. I’ll make a note to start it up in a couple weeks when I’m back from Mendoza and we’ll see how it goes.

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Avoiding Closed Loops

Maybe “Closed Loops” isn’t the best phrase, but I figured I’d talk about something that has constant daily relevance for me.

This is maybe sort of a boring productivity concept, but it’s still pretty relevant and important.

I need to make sure to never have any “closed loops”, where a task in a process ends and has no systemic method to proceeding to the next step other than relying on me to simply “remember”.

So for example, a place where this happens often is with text messages. I don’t like to receive many text messages in my work but it does happen.

The problem is, I often see these texts while I’m out and can’t do anything about them. If I read it, it’s marked as read forever and there’s nothing ensuring I will address it later.

So what’s an easy solution? The one I employ in this example is to email myself a reminder. Email is one of the strongest parts of my system and any email I receive will be addressed, virtually every time.

In this case, it becomes an open loop that will continue along to the next step without any likely point of failure.

Working with website projects, I need to always make sure to chart out the next step and actually set reminders.

When I speak with a new potential client, I need to leave a note in my to-do to then prepare and send a proposal.

If they accept the proposal, I need to add notes in my to-do to send out invoices and get the project rolling when appropriate.

Essentially, unless every step in a project or task is 100% complete, I always need to write something down to complete the next step.

And I’ve been working on this for years.

I’ve gotten to the point where, anytime I’m in danger of creating a closed loop, it’s like something is screaming in the back of my mind to fix it.

Every so often I ignore it.

Not too long ago, I put some leftovers into my backpack. I knew that I didn’t need to do anything with the backpack when I got home other than put the food anyway, and so I knew I should probably establish some way to ensure I wouldn’t forget it.

But I did. I got home, and forgot about it until the next day and had to throw the food out.

Another common thing that has happened is that I don’t see calendar notifications for calls for the day. Normally I just happen to see them but it’s not a great system.

Sometimes, I’ll see the notification that it’s 30 minutes out, but then totally forget when the time comes.

Normally that would be solved by the little Windows popups, but on my home PC I disabled those entirely because they were an incredibly irritating distraction that was mostly for idiotic and pointless things.

If I could make it JUST tell me when I have calendar events, I’d do that. I also recall that they weren’t super reliable so that’s part of it, too.

I’ve developed two solutions for this specific problem:

  1. When I get the 30 minute notification (or whenever I see that I have something later in the day), I set a timer on my phone to go off a few minutes before. That way I can never forget.
  2. I’ll often add an additional calendar entry in the morning to simply warn me of an upcoming event. Since I always look at my phone in the morning, I’ll always see it.

I could present many more examples but I think these illustrate the point.

It’s just one little snapshot into my productivity optimization. It’s not a massive part of it but it’s still quite important.

I don’t have much of a point on this one other than that I need to continue improving this and ensuring that nothing ever gets left.

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On the Yearly Cycle Children Experience

I’ve been reading the Harry Potter books (in Spanish, for practice) and today I started thinking about how different one important aspect of children’s lives is.

From year to year, basically everything is different.

They go through this yearly cycle where they go back to school, have new teachers, have different kids in their class, focus on learning a specific set of things, and generally have a stable life.

And then the next year, it might all be completely different.

To a child, that’s all they know so they wouldn’t really question it. But to an adult, it’s quite intriguing.

There are, of course, pros and cons.

One pro that I first considered (and which, I suppose, figures prominently in Harry Potter), is that if things are really bad, you just tell yourself that it’s only for this one year, and then it will be over.

It gives you hope to know that a really difficult situation definitely has a shelf life and that no matter how hard it is now, it will be over within a predetermined timeframe.

And that, of course, is rarely how anything works as an adult. Most difficult situations are difficult to forecast. Maybe they get better soon, maybe they don’t.

Perhaps they last forever.

This applies to good things as well. For a child, perhaps part of why they are more inclined to live in the moment and truly enjoy their experiences is because they know they won’t last. But they are still confident that they’ll have plenty of new, great experiences even if the old ones end.

Life as an adult is characterized much more stability. For most people, most years, life doesn’t change much from one year to the next. You hope it will get better, but you still generally have the same job, same friends, same living situation, same hobbies and activities.

Obviously things do change but it’s absolutely nothing like it is for a child.

I think maybe I’m naturally resistant to the stability adulthood brings. I’ve always hated recurring events and obligations and have always been drawn to the unknown and new situations.

It would make sense, then, that much of my adult life (since I’ve reached a level of flexibility that allows me to do what I like, anyway) is characterized by wandering off to other countries and continents alone, to cities I don’t know.

The idea that I’ll keep doing exactly what I’m doing no – no matter what that is – has always been unappealing and even a bit depressing to me.

While I’m very confident that I’m enjoying my adulthood more than I enjoyed childhood (I hated structure and being told what to do, so childhood was not ideal), I felt myself drawn today to the idea that every year would be completely different. It’s exciting to me.

So now I’m wondering if there’s something I can and should do with this idea.

I think I need to be totally open to new experiences and ideas, and explore opportunities as they come along.

An outside observer might say that I am absolutely already doing that, and they wouldn’t be entirely wrong.

But I think I should also be pursuing other professional options and ideas. At one point I scoffed at the idea of “side hustles” and splitting my time between many professional pursuits (in favor of working harder at one thing), I’m thinking now that I really need to be open to pursuing other ideas and things that come up.

I think any sacrosanct ideas or beliefs that I’m holding on to should be open to questioning.

And I think I need to make a strong effort to ensure that each year is quite different than the previous.

Maybe that even means getting really into a new hobby each year, or working really hard at something new.

I’m planning to not really drink at all this year and that will likely help give me the time and energy to put towards new pursuits, and I should definitely take advantage of it.

Here’s to hoping that this year is the most different yet.

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Not Snoozing Alarm Should be #1 Goal

I’ve been trying for years to fix my sleep cycle. I’ve talked about it countless times in this blog.

The thought occurred to me today that maybe I’m trying to do too much. If the goal is to get up when the alarm goes off, why would I make it more difficult than that?

I don’t need to also get up really early.

I should be setting my alarm for a time when I’ve had plenty of sleep. basically the time I spend snoozing anyway should just be added to the time I expect to sleep. Then I’ll be in bed the same amount of time but actually be able to wake up when the alarm goes off.

Once I have that established, I can then work on improving my sleep schedule.

If I end up setting the alarm fairly late: no problem! There’s no need to feel guilty. It’s just temporary while I get this habit down.

Saying it now, it seems pretty obvious. I’m going to try it and see how it goes.

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I Want to Feel Obsessive Over Things Again

I recall that not too long ago, with almost every new thing I would become obsessed. I would learn a little bit about a topic and I would feel incredibly motivated to spend an incredible amount of time learning about it and practicing it.

I haven’t felt that way in a while.

I suspect that what I was feeling was a surge of effective dopamine and related neurotransmitters that made me excited and hyper-focused on the topic or activity at hand.

If that’s true, then the question is: why don’t I have that anymore?

One of my friends describes his affinity for video games as an “addiction”. When he starts playing, everything else disappears and he just has to keep going. He is extremely motivated and focused on the game.

I don’t want quite that level perhaps, but in general it is sort of what I want. I want things to utterly captivate me. I want to feel, even if fleetingly, like nothing else matters and truly dive into something like I used to.

I’ve learned a lot about dopamine and other neurotransmitters lately and specifically about things like dopamine fasts and other general ways in which you can make them more effective.

I’m already doing most of the things that are suggested like not drinking, avoiding most social media, and generally avoiding addictive-type things that give you lots of dopamine and leave you resistant to it when you need it.

It’s possible that over time, I’m going to feel everything come back and I’ll feel exactly how I did before.

If not, I think I need to put some more thought into what else I can do to help it along.

I’ve considered also that it’s possible my other regular activities are using up the dopamine in a healthy way and there just isn’t any left for other things.

For example, I workout regularly, I study a variety of things daily, and obviously I work everyday and have many habits related to that. Is it possible that these things are using it all up?

I don’t think that’s the case, but it is possible!

I think I just need to keep an eye on it and see how it goes.

If, at some point down the road, I feel like I am back to where I was, I could consider testing bringing some of my old things back and seeing if it has any effect on it. It would be interesting to see what the primary causes were.

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My Desire to go Deeper than Most Prevents Me from Learning Many Languages, Among Other Things

I’ve gotten to a point in my Spanish-learning journey that is far beyond what most American learners would ever reach. I can converse with just about anyone and my vocabulary is huge, by foreign standards.

But I still don’t feel satisfied where I’m at, to the point where I’m really hesitant to move on to another language.

I’m not sure that I’m a perfectionist, but I do have a strong desire to go deep on things and really be thorough in both my process and my results.

I’m not sure that this is a “good” or “bad” thing, but it has its positives and negatives.

It certainly allows me to accomplish things that most won’t. Most people would say “good enough” and then not go any further.

But it also limits me. The difference between being able to carry on a very basic conversation with clear-speaking native speaker and being able to converse with anyone in addition to understanding almost every word in novels is huge. In terms of a time investment, you are probably looking at 300 hours vs. more like 3000. 

I could look at my survey results and ballpark how much time I’ve actually spent learning and practicing Spanish, but I suspect I’m in the ~2000 hours range. And yet I don’t feel satisfied with where I’m at.

I’m sure this applies elsewhere, too. While I don’t have much else that I’ve actually dedicated that much time to (although I’m probably around 2000 hours for playing DotA), I think where it really affects me is that I’m hesitant to spend even minimal time on things because I feel it would be pointless without getting really good.

Whether that be sports, music, etc. While it’s just fine to really focus on certain things and get great at them, I think it’s also important to balance it out and realize that I don’t have to be great at everything. Certain things I can just enjoy even though I’m bad.

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People Usually Respond with Anger When their Dishonesty is Called Out

This is a pretty random thought I had today and it seems kind of intuitive and obvious and perhaps there is plenty of written material about it already, but… People generally respond with anger when their dishonesty is called out.

I was thinking in my head of a hypothetical situation. Let’s say something incredibly unlikely happened, especially as it pertains to human behavior.

Or better yet, I have a real example.

I was in a club in Paris a handful of years back with my friends. On this trip, I had been regularly using an over-the-top French accent based largely on Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast.

I was chatting with a French girl at the bar (in English), asking her for a drink recommendation. After one question I asked her, she responded with,

“I’m sorry, I can’t understand you. Your British accent is too strong.”

Now, this by itself is pretty funny. I’m not sure where she learned English that my accent is “too British” for her. Given that I’m from middle America.

Unfazed, I instead repeated my original question, but this time using my ridiculous French accent.

It worked!

She understood me immediately and didn’t seem to notice that I had done anything unusual.

Now, it’s kind of a strange story and there’s a lot you could unpack here. But back to my original point, I’ve told this story before and people have questioned its veracity.

I did not feel even a speck of anger at that response. I understand why people would question whether it really happened, but I know 100% that it happened exactly like that, so I have the confidence to withstand such skepticism.

And in my experience, people telling the truth virtually never respond to skepticism with anger.

Obviously, if their true story is intended to determine a course of action and people are resistant because they don’t believe it, that could be frustrating and they may get angry.

But especially in low-stakes situations, an honest person should never really be angry.

People who are lying, however, seem to get angry all the time. I assume it’s because such a strong emotional response is likely to quell any criticism. People are unlikely to press the issue seeing the response they are getting.

But like with most situations, the most emotional and heated person is probably not right.

I see a lot of videos and other content of weight lifters being questioned about whether they are “Natural” or not. Many of them respond immediately with anger when questioned about it.

Especially the ones who are obviously not natural.

But to a truly natural lifter to have people questioning, it’s actually a compliment. It means they’ve gotten so big and strong without steroids that people literally cannot believe they did it naturally.

They have the confidence that they are 100% right, and it doesn’t bother them that people question it.

I think that in general, anger or emotional reactions that seem inappropriate for the situation are extremely strong warning signs that something else is going on. Perhaps that person is lying, maybe they are hiding something, or maybe they have some other emotional issue at stake that you are unaware of.

Or I suppose they could just be really unstable, too. But I generally try to avoid those types of people!

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We Have A Sense That if Something Was Important, We’d Know About It: But It’s False

I think just about everyone (myself included) seems to have this innate sense that they already know the most important things for them to know. And it’s 100% false.

I see it in others all the time, but much more pointedly in myself. Sometimes I’ll learn some new thing in my field or wherever, and it sounds like something that would matter a lot to me.

But my first instinct is usually to discredit it or downplay its significance. It’s difficult for me to believe that there could be something so relevant and important to me that I didn’t yet know about.

I think it might be a bit of a defense mechanism. You’re protecting your fragile ego. Because otherwise, how could you justify being ignorant about something so important?

You want to believe that you are incredibly knowledgeable about the world, particularly in certain areas. And when you find out that you have this gap in your knowledge or understanding, it feels like a personal failing.

But just think about how limiting that is.

If you believe that you already know everything that’s important, or if you refuse to seek out new knowledge for fear of it making you feel dumb, then you won’t learn anything.

I think it’s important to note that we will always have gaps in our knowledge and there will always be things we don’t know that could help us tremendously. We need to accept that and, more importantly, seek those things out.

Otherwise we’ll just continue missing out on important opportunities without knowing it, and stagnate where we are.

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BNI Made me Complacent

Perhaps I’m not accepting enough responsibility on this topic given the title, but I feel that I became fairly complacent with my business in BNI.

There was this sense that I could simply be in BNI and that my business would grow. And it sort of felt like that was actually the case for many years.

Granted, I was fairly active in the chapter and more or less did the things I was supposed to do.

But I was still coasting. I didn’t really do anything else in my business at all. I just went to BNI, got clients, and did the client work.

That’s basically it.

I’m really not blaming BNI here because it wasn’t really their fault. In fact, it was the early success of that system that made me feel like I could just coast.

And coast I did, for quite a while. Granted, things did generally improve year-over-year. I started with nothing and grew slowly to where I was making a real living. I bought a house, paid off my debts, and slowly started transitioning to where I am now where I can travel the world, go wherever I want, and hopefully retire early.

But there’s so much more that I could and should have been doing.

What’s most frustrating to me now is that I didn’t even notice when BNI stopped working for me. It had probably been at least 3 solid years with virtually no new outside business. And it’s a huge time commitment.

I was a part of a lesser group for a short time (which will remain nameless), but at least in that one, I realized that I wasn’t actually getting any business and it was demanding a lot from me, so I quit.

Why didn’t I do that with BNI?

I guess it’s because it had been such a crucial part of my business for so long and can be credited with the early growth of my company. For the longest time, it would be sacrilege to suggest that I leave.

So much like some of my romantic relationships, I just didn’t question it and it went on far too long.

And actually, just like my relationships, things have become so much clearer after leaving.

Even up to the moment I quit, I was still second-guessing myself. I didn’t know if I was making the right choice.

But it didn’t take long after I left before I was much more confident in my decision. Having my Tuesday mornings free and not having to worry about all of the duties that come along with being in a chapter were immediately liberating.

And it didn’t affect my business coming in at all, since there really hadn’t been any for a long time.

I’m not sure every post really needs to have a lesson, but I guess in this case, I just think it’s important to take a step back from things and really analyze whether they are benefiting me.

That could apply to literally anything. Relationships, memberships, service offerings, hobbies, and more.

Just because I’ve been doing something a long time doesn’t mean they serve my interests anymore.

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Intelligence Has Way Less to do with Success Than Other Factors

I wrote a post with basically the same title and premise back in January 2019 and, funny enough, I just read it as part of my regular review of old posts.

Today I’m going to present a bit of a different perspective, though it’s the same at heart.

I don’t want to give away enough details to identify this person, but I recently was thinking about how hard it is to work with someone in my life. And I put some thought into why that is.

This person isn’t dumb and isn’t unfriendly, but they are incredibly ineffective in a lot of ways. The primary reasons seem to be:

  • Lack of accountability
  • Lack of a system to organize tasks that need to be done
  • Inability to think critically and develop novel solutions
  • A sense that things outside their normal scope of care are either unimportant or outside of their control
  • General lack of initiative
  • Total lack of follow-through

These are all things that most people struggle with at some point or another. And none of them really have anything to do with intelligence (though it can help a bit).

But in the case of this person, I would say that these are the reasons they are difficult to work with and also are likely causes for any failures or lack of success they’ve had elsewhere, as well.

It could be totally different for everyone, but these are the main things I’ve seen with this person.

Everyone starts out with tons of weaknesses. Some affect them more than others. Intelligence might help solve some of those problems or improve those weaknesses, but by itself, it won’t accomplish anything.

I’m thinking now that the single most-important traits (or group of traits) is probably the ability to accurately reflect on one’s own weaknesses and to effectively improve or compensate for them.

Essentially, it’s the ability to accurately answer the question, “what’s holding me back?”

And then, of course, to figure out a way to overcome whatever the answer is.

More broadly, this could really be described as having a “growth mindset,” though I generally think of a growth mindset as being entirely internal, whereas external factors could also be holding you back and you still need to be able to overcome them.

A related trait that may be just as important is the ability to effectively identify and take advantage of the right opportunities. Sometimes there may not be anything holding you back, but you still need to be able to figure out which opportunities to pursue, and how to stick with them and pursue them effectively.

That last part is where I feel I’m weakest right now and where I really need to push forward. I’ve identified some excellent opportunities and feel I have everything in place to go after them.

I just need to do it.