Month: April 2023

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Don’t Check Email on Your Phone

There are a number of problems with having email on your phone. Here are some that I’ve experienced directly:

  • It’s like a slot machine to you brain (intermittent reward), so you will develop the habit of checking it frequently
  • Checking email on your phone when you’re not in a work mindset is disruptive. You risk pulling yourself out of what you’re currently engaged in. You might become distracted, feel compelled to go back to work, become upset in response to what you read, or otherwise disrupt your mood.
  • When you check email before you complete your most important work, you’re extremely likely to have your day hijacked by something in your inbox. It’s better to do your most important work, then deal with the outside world.

Don’t put email on your phone. Keep it on your computer. This way, you can actually isolate yourself from your phone. You can actually be free of work when you’re away from your computer – a proper break.

References

  • Remote: Office Not Required by Jason Fried and DHH

    Having created conditions that necessitate getting off your comfy couch to check work email, your laziness will win most nights, leaving you to recharge your mental batteries until the morning.

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Your Must Create Space for Your Brain to Generate Insights

Whether what you’re after is improving your effectiveness or improving your creativity, it is essential that you create space for your brain to generate new ideas and valuable insights.

In the modern world, this is difficult. Our phones are portals to an endless stream of news, social media feeds, notifications, text messages, emails, and more. We are connected to our coworkers 24/7 through chat-based messaging systems like Slack. Our calendars are over-booked, whether due to the demands of our job, working multiple jobs, or taking care of kids.

There is no more boredom – there is always something to do, or something to consume. The problem is, however, that we cannot be expected to come up with ideas if we are constantly filling our days with an endless, uninterrupted stream of tasks and consumption. You need room for ideas to actually percolate up into your consciousness. You need space to allow your brain to digest the information it’s received.

Stop consuming all the time. Allow yourself to be bored. Leave unfilled space in your day, however brief, to allow your brain to have ideas.

Your reaction might be, “but I don’t have time for that.” Either make time, or change the game you’re playing. You need space for creativity and insight to raise. There is no substitute.

  • Control your attention and information consumption
  • Schedule a regular “artist date” with yourself

References

  • The Art of Fermenting Great Ideas by Nat Eliason

    Our ideas appear primarily in one situation: when little else is occupying our thoughts. It’s as if it is a defense mechanism of our brain responding to the lack of stimulus. If you’re not engaged in hunting, gathering, building, mating, or socializing, then something must be wrong, and you need to fix it. So it starts shooting up ideas from the mailroom to get you back into one of those modes that will save you from dying alone with no progeny.

Good ideas require boredom. If you constantly ingest new information, the existing information can never be digested. It’s as if you’re looking at your fermenting jar on the counter every hour and wondering why nothing has happened, so you open it and stuff in another cucumber.

Think of your time as explicitly allocated to loading in information or towards seeing what your brain shoots out. Input time, output time. Input time is reading books, scrolling social media, watching the news, listening to podcasts, talking to friends and colleagues, or anything else that adds new stuff for your subconscious to process. Output time is creating the space and boredom for those inputs to ferment into something interesting. Staring at a blank page of your journal, opening a document to start writing, going for a (no headphones) walk with a notebook, working out without music, or sitting in the sauna. However you create bored, quiet space for your brain to finally get some processing room to spit ideas out; you must create that space if you want the ideas to form.

The ways we fail at this are obvious. We never give ourselves output time because we’re terrified of silence and boredom. We need a podcast while working out. We need music while working. We keep social media up in another tab. We have notifications on our phones. We let ourselves be interrupted.

So give the great ideas time to pop up. Even if you know you have weeks or months to figure something out, start priming your brain with those questions now so it has time to process them.

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Do Not Let Problems Linger

Prefer addressing problems right away rather than letting them linger. Often, problems can be quickly fixed when first encountered. As they linger, the consequences often become much more severe and more difficult to fix.

  • Fixing a small leak when it is noticed is better than fixing a serious leak, structural damage, or long-term mold exposure.
  • Technical problems left to linger can become “load bearing”, meaning that other parts of the system depend on the erroneous behavior.
  • Not making the phone call to address the fact you need more time to pay a bill can result in fees or repossession.

Letting problems linger has a momentum of its own. If you’ve neglected a problem for a while, you’re more likely to keep neglecting it rather than fix it.

Ignoring problems rarely makes them go away. Significant problems never vanish, but become worse with continued neglect. The cost of inaction may be delayed, but it will inevitably come.

  • Good leaders take meaningful action to solve problems

References

  • Empty Words, Empty Gestures, Empty Actions by Quintus Curtius

    The failure to solve problems inevitably means they will aggregate to dangerous dimensions.  According to the historian Will Durant, we see this in the perilous situation that confronted Greece around the time of the death of Plato in 347 B.C.  Greed and selfishness rose to perilous heights.  A fanatic chasing after money and riches (called by the Greeks pleonexia) became a feature of public life.  The rich upper classes (the neoplutoi) occupied their time with frivolities and extravagance; and some of these oligarchs took oaths never to share their riches with the public.  Durant quotes Isocrates as saying in 366 B.C.:  “The rich have become so unsocial that those who own property had rather throw their possessions into the sea than lend aid to the needy, while those who are in poorer circumstances would less gladly find a treasure than seize the possessions of the rich.” 

    Greece was severely weakened by this economic strife and political paralysis.  Nothing could be accomplished; squabbling and bickering became the key features of public life; and the energies of the public were divided between the struggle for survival and diversionary entertainments.  The end result was that Athens was unable to coordinate a coherent defense when its militaristic neighbor to the north, Macedonia, came knocking at its door.  Philip of Macedon conquered Greece in 338 B.C., and brought an end to Athenian freedom. 

    The cost of inaction may be delayed, but it must always be paid.  Those who wish for pretty words, for dog and pony shows, and for form over substance, will learn their mistake in time. There is no way to escape the consequences of moral corruption.

  • 3-2-1: Paying Attention, Staying Hopeful in Bad Times, and Ten Year Plans by James Clear

    Many problems are minor when you solve them right away, but grow into an enormous conflict when you let them linger.

    As a rule of thumb, fix it now.