Category: Productivity

Posted on

I Want to Lead a Life of Improvement and Accomplishment, not Just Enjoyment

I think the underlying concept of this post has been brewing in my mind for quite some time now, and maybe I’ve said similar things in the past. But more recently I feel that it’s come to a head.

I think I’ve been so preoccupied with my own enjoyment of the world that it has sort of distracted me from my goals.

Now, perhaps more than ever, I want to pursue grand goals and work tirelessly to achieve them. Even minor accomplishments feel more satisfying than ever, and meaningless entertainment or pleasure-seeking seems to leave me feeling more dissatisfied than ever.

Rather than lament why that is, I think it’s easier and more effective to just go with it. To start moving away from those things and, instead, really dive headfirst into accomplishing my numerous goals.

This doesn’t mean I can’t ever enjoy myself, but it does mean establishing what it will take to achieve my goals and sticking to those things.

It probably does mean avoiding some activities in favor of others. For example, I have found that nature-based activities and things that are more physically-active in general are far more rewarding than, say, just going out and drinking.

Plus they have the added benefit of being healthy and making me feel better long-term, vs. drinking which is the exact opposite.

I sort of feel like I’ve been so preoccupied with some internal things and other parts of my life in general that I’ve lost focus on my goals for quite a while now.

In the last year, specifically, I feel like I was too distracted to actually accomplish anything beyond that.

I knew that at some point I’d start feeling like I am now, and that time has come a little earlier than expected.

And I see it as a very good thing. It requires confidence, initiative, and a positive outlook to really feel motivated and disciplined enough to have this kind of focus. And those things were conspicuously absent to varying degrees for the last year.

I’m not sure if I will immediately start to turn things around but at this point I’m feeling like that should really be where my focus is.

Posted on

A Missing Factor: When Outcomes Aren’t Determined by Inputs

This post is pointless, in the sense that I don’t know that it will have a firm conclusion.

Instead, I just want to bring-to-light a concept I’ve been thinking about lately.

Essentially, that sometimes the outcome is not at all determined by the inputs that go into it.

Some obvious insights from this are more or less extensions of the post I wrote about being careful what lessons you learn from failures.

First, let me explain exactly what I mean with some examples.

What made me think of this is disc golf. There are tons of examples of this.

The most obvious ones are where your throw your disc and it ends up with a fluke roll that ends up far from where it landed.

Now, at the elite level, you are always considering the possibility of these types of outcomes and doing what you can to prevent them. But even then, they will happen sometimes.

So let’s say, as is often the case, that you’re playing a hole in which most of it is blind. You only see the early portion of the flight path.

You throw the disc, and you think it’s looking good. However, once you get down there, you realize that the disc actually ended up a good 100 feet beyond the pin.

“I guess I’ll just throw it way less hard next time,” you say to yourself. You’ve come to the conclusion that you threw it way too hard this time, and you need to compensate for this next time.

The problem is, you didn’t. You actually got a fluke roll, where the disc landed, popped and perfectly on to its side, and then proceeded another 100+ feet beyond.

But since you couldn’t see this happen, you only know your inputs (how you threw it) and the outcome (where it landed). You don’t have the full story of what happened in the middle.

This result is essentially noise. Using it as a learning experience will be actively detrimental to you. As you play more, you may start to sense better when things are flukes, and not learn from them. But in the short-term, they may actively hurt your ability to progress, as you test out different inputs and seemingly get random results.

As another example, I was playing with my friend Zac and, a couple times, he let loose what was actually a perfect throw. Form was great, release was great, and the disc was launched perfectly.

And it went terribly.

The disc just barely clipped a tree and bounced deep into the woods.

Now this case is actually a bit different, because he had far more control over the inputs and actually could fix this.

The problem in this case is that he’s likely to learn the wrong lesson. Despite throwing with perfect form, the feedback that he got is that he did a bad job. He is likely to change his throw going forward.

Now, there is probably a correct lesson to be learned in this case, and it’s that he should aim ever-so-slightly more to one side to avoid that tree. But instead, he may very well blame the other aspects of the throw.

So really these are two different – but related – concepts.

In the first example, the input really was almost completely disconnected from the output. In the second, they were connected but the wrong input was likely to be blamed.

In other areas in life and business, this is likely to happen almost constantly. It’s extremely difficult to identify exactly what makes you successful in most areas. And in both successes and failures, you are quite likely to blame the wrong input for them and proceed accordingly.

It’s like when a lottery winner outlines their “strategies” for success, when they obviously were totally irrelevant. The only factor that mattered was actually dumb luck.

If I had to come up with some kind of conclusion, I would just say that it’s incredibly important to:

  1. Recognize when the results of something are caused primarily by factors outside your control
  2. Be sure not incorrectly identify which of your efforts actually caused a success or failure

I think part of what makes experience so incredibly valuable is that these things start to come naturally to you. You’ve had enough data points that you know when something is a fluke, you know what should work, and you can start to pick up what you did wrong if it really was your fault.

I think about my own business and the work we do, and how I can approach almost any situation – including ones that I haven’t directly worked on before – with way more confidence. I have an intuitive sense of what will work and what won’t, and know that I can figure most things out without messing anything up too badly.

And that comes from experience. I’ve done it all before. I’ve done a new thing for the first time thousands of times, and so I know what the process is like.

I remember when I was first starting and I would often be forced to just try things blindly without having any sense of how they would go. But that’s how I learned and gained experience. And with that experience comes wisdom.

In disc golf, I’ve noticed the more I play (especially when replaying certain courses), that I am able to sense when things are a fluke. Sometimes my disc will end somewhere and I’ll conclude, “okay that definitely rolled there, because there’s no way it went that far on the fly”. And that helps me learn going forward.

Again, I don’t have a firm conclusion for this, it’s just a concept I wanted to formally write about because it may have big consequences in many areas of life and business.

Posted on

I Think I Need to Eliminate the Consumption of All Short-Form Content

Over the last few years, I’ve tried optimizing a number of things. I’ve identified tons of things that are “bad” and done everything I can to maximize productivity, happiness, and enjoyment.

I’ve had mixed results, and have often been left with things that just don’t quite line up with my understanding of how everything should work.

I’ve now come to the conclusion that short-form content of just about any kind is absolutely destroying my motivation, my energy, my focus, and even my enjoyment of, well, literally everything else.

I’m not going to claim to fully understand the interaction of dopamine and other neurotransmitters here. But I believe that whether you’re binge-watching YouTube videos, scrolling through any social media feed, or even clicking through news headlines, you are using up something that is difficult to replace.

After I’ve done any of that, I feel unmotivated, and it takes a ton of work to get anything done. I also seem to have a spike in anhedonia and don’t appreciate or enjoy most things all that much.

I like to think that I’ve pretty much avoided all of these things and shouldn’t be suffering from them. But YouTube has really been the last holdout.

Since I got rid of YouTube shorts, I figured that I could just watch the “longer” videos and I’d be fine.

But I find myself jonesing for more videos. And then it becomes hard to just sit and do nothing without constantly reaching for my phone to watch more. And by then it’s too late.

The last few days, I’ve avoided even watching YouTube, and I think I’m starting to feel a lot better. I’m feeling more motivated and starting to enjoy things more.

Granted, I just got back home to Minnesota and there are lots of additional factors. But I really think this one contributes greatly.

I’m going to continue strictly avoiding all short-form content and might even start avoiding really any shows or movies for a while (other than when I’m with a friend) just to see how I feel. I think it might make a huge difference.

If it goes well, I’ll implement these things long-term. I’m pretty hopeful it will.

And even if it doesn’t: what will I have lost? Nothing. Even if these things didn’t have longer-term impacts, I feel that they have negative value just in wasting your time.

I do not need more entertainment.

Posted on

I’ve Internalized such a Radical Sense of Personal Responsibility that I See Everything as My Fault

I’ve always been attracted to schools of thought that say you should consider everything in your control and take responsibility for everything around you because, in the end, you can only truly control yourself. So if you want different results, you need to change yourself.

And it’s an enticing message and also seems totally reasonable.

I do want to note that I think “personal responsibility” as a personal strategy can be helpful (to the extent I’m going to outline), but “personal responsibility” as public policy is disastrous at best and deeply malicious at worst. I think it’s basically just used to justify the status quo, blame the less fortunate for their problems, and codify a tiered society while freeing the ruling class from any semblance of guilt (or – ironically – responsibility).

With that out of the way, I want to highlight the primary ways in which using “personal responsibility” as a personal strategy is limited or can be actively harmful:

  1. Many things are completely out of your control and if you believe otherwise you will waste your time
  2. You’ll worry about the outcome of everything around you, feeling that those outcomes are a reflection of your own efforts and abilities
  3. You’ll blame yourself and feel a tremendous sense of guilt every time something goes wrong
  4. You might feel inadequate with your abilities or accomplishments because you are downplaying or outright denying the importance of external advantages others might have had (wealthy parents, connections, etc.)

This is honestly something I never really considered before today. While I knew there were potential pitfalls to blindly believing in “personal responsibility,” I guess I never really considered how such an ideology was hurting me.

And now I have, and I’m realizing that it’s been harmful in quite a few ways.

I think it has made me a lot more anxious. Historically I’ve always considered myself an easy-going, go-with-the-flow type of person, but I’ve felt my anxiety creeping up over the years and I think this is partly to blame.

I feel responsible for everything bad that happens around me. I always think of things I should have done to prevent it, and I treat the possibility of future bad things like a puzzle to be solved. If I just work hard enough or do things perfectly, I can avoid it.

Some of the happiest people I know are the types to not take responsibility for much of anything. They see most problems as someone else’s fault, and so aren’t bothered by them.

And that’s probably what is the most harmful to me: it’s the feeling that these bad things happen because of my own inadequacies. It’s my fault they happened, and I should have been better.

Since obviously it’s impossible to prevent bad things from happening, and many of these things are completely out of your control, this leads to a rather pointless and constant barrage against your self-esteem.

And if our only goal was productivity, you could make the case that with a crippled self-esteem, you’re going to be way less capable and get much less done in the end, defeating the purpose of “personal responsibility”.

Productivity is, of course, not our only goal. And so the damage to self-esteem matters far more than just how it affects productivity.

I think that this mindset has also hurt me in that it’s hard for me to let go of things. For every failed project, relationship, goal, or performance, I can’t help but analyze what I did wrong and ultimately blame myself.

Which: of course! That’s the whole idea.

But you can’t spend all your time thinking about your failures. In reality, they may not even be your failures. Sometimes things just happen. Some things weren’t meant to be.

While looking at everything like it’s your fault may provide useful insight so you can improve in the future, it also might not.

And more importantly: it may severely cripple your own self-image to the point where you no longer see yourself as talented or capable at all. And besides making you unhappy, it may also ruin your future chances at success.

I can’t help but still keep thinking this way, but I think it’s important to seek balance. I need to learn when to dig for insight in failures, and when to simply accept them and move on. Some failures have no lessons.

I’ve spoken before about how I think we need to be careful about the lessons we learn from our failures, but I’m just now starting to realize that one of the reasons I prefer to learn lessons from successes is because it’s just a lot better for your self-esteem. And if we want to approach things from a pragmatic perspective, we need to also consider these things because they affect future performance, too.

I’m not saying that focusing on “personal responsibility” doesn’t have benefits. What I’m saying is that it absolutely has limits. It doesn’t apply to every situation.

If, in a given situation, it’s a useful paradigm: use it! But if it doesn’t serve you then you shouldn’t.

Posted on

I Always Seem to Believe that there is One Thing that is Holding me Back

If you were to read through my blog posts back-to-back, you’d probably come across a general theme.

I always seem to believe that I’d be performing better, if only I fixed this one thing.

That thing, of course, changes. It might be drinking, it might be my sleeping habits, it might be my relationship, the way my business is set up, nutrition, fitness, or other self-imposed limitations.

But I always seem to believe that my true potential – not just for accomplishment but for performance – has never actually been realized.

Almost all of the things mentioned do impact my performance. And I believe I am much better for having tried to optimize all of them.

But at the end of the day… I hate to say it, but I think this is kind of it. I’m never going to be a bottomless well of energy and I’m never going to magically start performing way better than I did before.

I think at this point I basically need to accept that, and take pragmatic steps forward.

All the building blocks are there. I’ve established time and again the importance of building habits and systems that can ensure that I’m performing day in and day out.

And I’ve had lots of successes. I’ve developed lots of great habits that have, indeed, carried me through many hardships and on to various accomplishments in other areas.

But overall, I feel that there’s still a huge ebb and flow of productivity. I get motivated and I go crazy, but then I go through a rough patch and I tell myself I need to relax and take it easy because I just need to recover.

Maybe I’m just trying to do too much at once. Maybe I need to ensure that I never add on more than one thing at a time. That I just add small little things to my day that will help me move forward with various projects.

I’m not sure exactly what the answer is, but I do think that it’s important to just acknowledge that this is more or less as good as it’s going to get, and then plan accordingly.

Posted on

What if my Waning Enjoyment of Most Things Exists to Force Me to do More Important Things?

I’m not sure how much I’ve documented this here, but I feel like, in general, my enjoyment of most of the things I used to love has decreased considerably. In particular, simple entertainment type activities like watching TV or movies or even listening to music is not nearly as enjoyable as it once was.

It could be that there’s something wrong, it could be it’s just part of getting older, or it could be something else entirely.

It’s possible that I have no ability to control it. And if that’s the case, then it doesn’t make much sense to dwell on it.

But there are some things that give me a sort of quiet satisfaction that I enjoy and keeps me coming back.

As it just so happens, most of those things are also good for me.

Things like studying or learning new skill or activities continue to be enjoyable to me and, over time, seem to be what I crave more than anything else.

Reading in general, but more specifically reading in Spanish is something I really like doing and appreciate more and more over time.

I still love all kinds of physical activity like disc golf, working out, and even just walking around my neighborhood. These leave me feeling good and productive.

And it’s satisfying in work when I accomplish things that progress my long-term goals. I maybe don’t enjoy all the day-to-day at every moment (and nobody does), but when I’m working on things that could lead to exponential growth and outsized results, I feel pretty good about that.

In general, it’s really just passive consumption of entertainment that I don’t enjoy as much.

And now that I’m taking a step back and thinking about it… I think that might be a good thing.

Why am I lamenting so much the loss of enjoyment of things that don’t bring a particularly high degree of value?

Maybe I’m not enjoying them as much because I know I have better things to be doing. Maybe I should lean into it and just only do these better things.

After all, they are better for me anyway.

So rather than fight it, I should probably just double-down on the productive and healthy things that make me feel good.

Posted on

Willpower & Motivation are Resources to be Cultivated and Used Strategically

We’ve all heard that you shouldn’t rely on the nebulous idea of “motivation” to get things done or achieve success, but I think that’s a very facile precept that should really be expounded upon.

In general, I think it’s a good idea, but we need to clarify a few points.

Note that I’ll basically use “willpower” and “motivation” interchangeable here, but I’m really referring to the same thing.

I think motivation is like a superpower that you have, but it’s not inexhaustible.

The reason people say that is because some people tend to only get things done when they have large amounts of motivation, and then they have no discipline or structure in place to keep going once it inevitably runs out.

And so yes, I agree with the statement that motivation should not be solely relied upon to get things done.

So how should it be used?

Just like any other resource.

It should cultivated, fostered, and spent or used strategically where its impact will be the greatest.

There are many implications of this paradigm, so I’ll go through them one at a time.

First, willpower must not be wasted. 

This could mean a numbers of things; you shouldn’t use it to accomplish pointless things, it shouldn’t be underutilized, and most importantly: I think that you should set up your day-to-day life to minimize its use.

The most obvious way to do this is what all the self-help and productivity “gurus” tout, which is to establish habits and routine. And this is, in fact, great advice.

Not only will these things keep you productive during extended periods where you have no motivation, they will also amplify the impact when you are motivated.

Think of it like a discount. The same task takes much less motivation because it’s already a habit.

And once you’ve finished your habits, you have much more motivation leftover to tackle additional tasks.

Building habits is, by far, the most important thing you can do for productivity and for maximizing the impact of your motivation and willpower. I’ve talked a lot about it in the past, though, so I don’t need to go into much more detail here.

But in addition to habit-building, it’s also important to plug any obvious willpower “leaks”.

So, for example, let’s say you’re trying to eat healthier. You could buy all the same things at the grocery store like junk food, and then leave it lying around your house every day.

The end result would be that throughout the day, you are constantly seeing the junk food and having to use up some willpower to avoid eating it. You won’t have much of it left for other activities, and you may even run out at some point and give in and eat the junkfood.

So what’s the solution? Easy!

Just stop buying it to begin with. Grocery shop right after eating if you have to, and only buy healthy things. You won’t have any unhealthy options left in your house to be tempted by, and the net effect is that you aren’t using up your willpower on something stupid.

This same concept could apply to lots of other areas, too. Besides obvious ones like not having alcohol lying around if you’re trying to quit drinking, you can also do things like blocking distracting websites on your computer, uninstalling unproductive apps on your phone, and removing activities from your life that you greatly dislike.

The net result is that you’ll have much more consistent motivation leftover to use in areas where it makes the most sense.

The next concept is that you should do everything you can to maximize production of willpower.

Entire books have gone into detail both defining what “willpower” is and also how to maximize it. But in general, I think you need to get the basics of a healthy lifestyle right.

Eating right, sleeping well, avoiding excessive stress (even though short-term stress can help you power through things), and keeping yourself happy are all important to maximizing willpower.

If you’re unhealthy, chronically stressed, or depressed, you probably are going to be severely lacking in motivation and willpower.

Next, you need to use your motivation and willpower on important activities that will have the greatest impact.

You could use it all on tedious tasks that probably could be automated or outsourced. Or you could even do nothing with it and just give in to entertainment even though you’re very motivated.

But instead, you should be using it primarily on high-value activities that are likely to improve your long-term earning or productivity potential.

At the start of this year, my motivation was fairly high. I was being productive in basically all areas. I’d finish my normal work for the day, and then I’d proceed to make great progress on my long-term business goals and some personal ones.

And that was basically every day.

But then, starting at the end of Spring, all of that motivation seemed to dry up. I’ve discussed and speculated on the causes of that at length in other posts, but the important thing now is that I got to see first-hand what the difference was for me between being very motivated and having no motivation.

And it was stark.

Basically all of my efforts beyond just the regular day-to-day stuff completely dried up. I never did any of the business initiatives nor the personal ones. And it has been a little depressing.

This goes to show just how important it is. With it, things go so much better.

It showed me that while it is important to have habits in place (which kept me generally on-track), willpower is still incredibly important and can greatly amplify the impact of your efforts.

It’s starting to come back now, I think, and I have big plans for it. I’m really hoping to make the most of it and get all of my other initiatives back on track.

I want to focus hard on my long-term growth initiatives in my business and really focus on acquiring other companies. It will probably require a lot of manual effort but I suspect that it will be worth it in the end.

Posted on

I Think I Really Do Need to Relax

So I’m starting to just generally feel better, and my sleep has improved, and in general things are just better. And I think it’s just because I’m finally relaxing and don’t feel like I have to just keep going nonstop.

I think that for several months, I pretty much just felt a constant stress and anxiety. I had a bunch of projects going simultaneously with aggressive timelines and constant issues, and I always had the looming problems of half-planned trips that not only required urgent planning attention, but would also take me away from being able to address everything else.

And I just felt it, constantly. I couldn’t truly enjoy anything because in the back of my mind I was constantly worried about the other things.

It was a physical reaction. I assume that it was just the regular stress response, but spread out over months without any breaks. As we know well, that leads to chronic inflammation and other problems. It’s definitely not a good long-term state.

But I’m finally starting to feel better.

I think I do really just need to relax. Obviously the solution isn’t to just “relax”, since that may be nearly impossible depending on the circumstances.

But I need to be careful about my circumstances to make sure I CAN relax.

I certainly need to be careful about what projects I take on, and especially the timing of them. I had some overlap and that proved to be a problem.

They also overlapped with trips in which I had no internet and wouldn’t have time anyway to manage them, which is far from ideal.

Going forward, for projects that need constant management, I should only ever take them on if I’m going to be fully available with plenty of wiggle room on either end.

And if I’m burnt out, I need to be okay just taking a break from traveling or whatever else I’m doing. I think that the next month and a half will be quite restorative.

Posted on

I Suspect It’s Actually Both Sleep AND Leanness

I posted recently about how I think the cause of my lack of energy and motivation, as well as my relatively poor mood was probably caused by a lack of sleep.

While I still believe it was a contributing factor, I am now thinking that my initial theory was probably correct. I’m simply too lean.

It’s annoying, because I’m not that lean. Sure, I have very visible abs etc., but I’m not even sure I’m below 10% bodyfat. I sort of assumed, having grown up very skinny, that I could naturally handle much lower bodyfat levels than most. I know it varies wildly by person, but I figured I’d be able to handle 8% or even 6% without issue. I now suspect that’s not true.

My symptoms seem pretty consistent with the experiences of others who have been particularly lean. I don’t seem to have the hunger that others experience, but I guess that’s not universal.

So now I’ve been trying to eat a ton and gain wait back, and I think it’s starting to work. My energy and motivation seems to be slowly coming back, and even my weight training performance has started to improve.

I lost a fair amount of strength when cutting, and after that I’ve basically just stalled for months while maintaining weight. I’ve heard that if you’re too lean, it’s almost impossible to put on muscle, and I think I’ve been experiencing that.

So I’m going to just keep eating at a surplus and see how things progress. If I continue gaining strength rapidly in addition to having greatly improved mood, focus, determination, discipline, and energy in general, then I’ll know I’m on the right track.

It’s a bit disappointing to think that the cost of being relatively lean is so high, because I was hoping to stay that way for lengths of time. But I’m not sure it’s worth it. I can’t afford to have all of those things drop so much.

Perhaps every once and a while I can do it for fun, but in general, I need to maintain my energy and discipline. Otherwise everything kind of lags and I don’t get anything done.

I’ll report back with findings going forward.

Posted on

I Really Have Come a Long Way in the last 10 Years

I was just thinking recently about past events and behaviors and how far I’ve come since them. Particularly just in the time span of the last 10 years.

I think about my interactions with business contacts and clients, and I just cringe. I cannot believe that that’s who I used to be.

I would regularly do things that I now consider to be either wildly unprofessional or just… Bizarre.

The point of this post isn’t really as a list of examples, but some might be worth giving.

I remember when I first branched out on my own, I struggled to get anything done. I had one single client at one point, and the website still took months to build. I’d just procrastinate constantly and not make any progress.

For many years, basically everything I did was just a massive amount of procrastination. Any recurring task, I would push off until the last moment or later.

I remember realizing, the night before a presentation at my BNI group, that I knew nothing about the AV setup. I had just assumed the projector was always there and available and that somebody would help me with it.

I decided maybe that was a bad assumption, and emailed the chapter member in charge of it at like midnight the night before. He would later tell me that he saw my message and decided, “this isn’t my problem” and didn’t respond or worry about it.

And that was an important lesson for me. Though it did work out in the end.

When it comes down to it, I just don’t think I would see any potential in my younger self if I met him. Everything was sloppy and I had no discipline whatsoever.

I also made almost no money, and it’s no surprise why.

I feel very fortunate that I somehow improved over the years and am now doing a ton better. I’m also a person I actually like and people trust to get things done.

Sometimes it’s just so hard to see the progress, and I get frustrated. It’s also easy to just focus on one metric, like income, and not see everything else that has improved.

Even if income was the most important thing, I feel like it’s actually a lagging indicator. Developing myself pays itself off in all areas of life, in addition to also being the primary method to increase future earning potential.

But overall, it’s just nice to take a step back and see the progress. I’m actually embarrassed thinking about what I was like just 10 years ago, both personally and professionally. I’m not perfect now clearly, but I’ve come so far in so many ways.

And I think that’s a good thing. If you’re not embarrassed by what you were like in the past, are you even improving?

None of the changes came overnight. Much of it has been described in this blog, which I believe I started in mid 2018.

I think it points to the power of gradual improvement, and always taking steps in the right direction. Improving just a little bit at a time compounds into huge changes over time.

It would be fun to actually ask some of my friends if they’ve noticed any of the change. If it’s obvious to me, I wonder if it’s obvious to them.

The point is: I think I’m going in the right direction. There are setbacks, of course, and lately I’ve felt fairly discouraged, but as long as I just keep progressing, it’s all good.

The hard times will pass, and I’ll be all that much better for having strived to keep making progress even when it was really hard.