I’m Not Anti-Rest

This week, I’m resting.

I’m currently writing this from a weekend getaway, in an airstream on Pender Island, B.C, Canada.

I took a trip with my partner and decided that this week would be rest and relaxation.

It’s a little on the nose for my typical productivity talk, but it acknowledges the aspect of the productive life that people sometimes forget; that rest and relaxation are part of your mental well-being.

For everyone, rest and relaxation has a role in our lives.

it isn’t something reserved only for the weak.

It isn’t a weakness either.

It isn’t something you need to power through, to ignore in yourself, or disregard. Your body’s need for rest is an important cue for your mental and physical health.

Every capable CEO, entrepreneur, and successful professional needs rest and relaxation. If that weren’t true, the richest of the rich would never stop working, they wouldn’t buy the most luxurious vacation homes or spend their money on restful experiences like the spa, massage, and all the rest.

We wouldn’t be envious of their lives with all the luxuries and experience that they have.

The stereotypical successful billionaire laying by a pool or private beach, although a typecast, highlights the understanding that even the elite of the world need rest.

Professional athletes have an off-season where they travel, relax, and rehab from the strain of the season.

Celebrities and the like have vacation homes, go away months at a time, and certainly live a life of relaxation.

I think the thing that is important to take away is that we are deliberate with our rest.

That we are deliberating setting the time aside to rest when the goal is rest.

Rest can be productive if it aligns with your goal and intention.

The issue is more to do with whether the rest is deliberate or interfering with the intended work period. Is the rest taking place when the intention is to work? Is the type of rest you are taking different from the intended restful period?

I would argue that if you intend to sleep at 12 to ensure you slept long enough but instead stay awake scrolling TikTok until 2am, that type of relaxation would interfere with the intended rest and be unproductive.

If however, you had a stressful day and watching TV or Youtube for 30 minutes before making dinner was a way to destress and relax, then that may be productive for your needs.

Only you can decide for yourself how much of a balance you need between rest and work.

Only you can decide what you need, what is excessive, and what works for your lifestyle.

Again, the goal though is to be deliberate in designing a life that suits your wants and needs.

As for me, this week is for rest!

Akrasia - The Act Of Self-Sabotage And What To Do About It.

I recently stumbled onto the concept of akrasia.

Although the concept itself was not new to me, the word itself and the subsequent rabbit-hole that it opened up was a wonderfully interesting and eye-opening topic to discover.

Little did I know, James Clear talks about it in Atomic Habits - a book synonymous with productivity and habit development - so, maybe you too already knew about it.

Anyways, Akrasia is the state of acting against your better judgment.

You know better, and yet you find yourself spending time on something when you should be doing something else.

It is a lack of self-control.

It is immediate gratification.

It is the kryptonite to your success.

Furthermore, it’s nothing new. It’s a concept dating back to ancient Greek philosophers, indiscriminately plaguing the literary famous such as Victor Hugo as well as the lowly nobodies such as myself.

So don’t worry if this part resonates with you. It resonates with all of us.

James Hugo explains it well and connects it with the behavioural economics term known as “time inconsistency.” Time inconsistency refers to the tendency to value immediate rewards more highly than future rewards.

You know - instant gratification.

And social media companies deliver this instant gratification hard and fast with the gamification of our lives, and 24/7 access to our attention via our smart phones.

Instead of long-term focus, deep work, and lasting benefit, we find ourselves gravitating towards quick dopamine hits. The quick glance at the phone, the buzz of our phones notifying us of a like/retweet/comment sets our dopamine centres ablaze.

We aren’t acting in our future self’s best interest. Far from it, we are instead making a distinct separation between our present selves and our future selves.

When the time comes to make a decision, despite knowing what is best for our future self conceptually, we are in the moment and your brain is thinking about the present self rather than making a choice for our future self.

Your brain values long-term benefits when they are in the future, but it values immediate gratification when it comes to the present moment. And unfortunately, we act as though our future and present self are not the same.

So what do we do about it?

Three Strats For Designing Life To Favour Future You

Here are three ways to overcome akrasia, beat procrastination, and follow through on what you set out to do.

Strategy 1: Lock Yourself In For Futureproofing

When Victor Hugo needed to write the Hunchback of Notre Dame, he locked his clothes away so he could focus on writing. With no clothes, he couldn’t leave the apartment and he spent his seasons writing as a result. He created a “commitment device”, a choice made in the present that controls your actions in the future.

If you intentionally close off opportunities and options in the future, you lock in a future behaviour, binding you to a good habit and restricting yourself from bad ones. By acting in a way that doesn’t impact your present self but locks the actions of future you, your present self has no need to resist present instant gratification. Once future self becomes present self, you’re already locked in and don’t need to rely on willpower anymore.

A present day example would be uninstalling social media apps or using a Smart Phone lock box to restrict access.

By automating or steering your behaviour beforehand rather than relying on willpower in the moment, you can design a lifestyle that favours your future self.

This is why having a workout buddy and social accountability works for some people.

This is why automatic savings plans and budgeting to assign your money a job is effective.

Strategy 2: So Easy, You Can’t Say No.

More often than not, the starting of the work is the biggest barrier.

The work isn’t the challenge once you’re in the middle of it.

It is the act of stopping what you are doing and opening the textbook or staring at a blank page and starting to type or write away.

Once you begin, it’s often less painful to do the work. The hard part is beginning.

This is why things like the 5-minute rule exist.

James Clear talks about making a habit so easy, you can’t say no.

We have a ton of habits ingrained into our lives that we automatically do them without thinking.

Flushing the toilet after we pee.

Turning off the lights when we leave a room.

Saying “Excuse me” after a sneeze.

They are so easy that they stuck around for the long-term.

Building no brainer habits can help with the longevity and ease of adaptation.

Strategy 3: Declaring implementation intentions.

It is important to arrive at an implementation intention independently. This is a very personal step because this is where you make your commitment to yourself.

You state your intention to implement a particular behaviour at a specific time in the future and you do so clearly and specifically.

What is it specifically that you plan to do?

How will you go about it?

What will be the first step?

What do you need to get started?

When will you do it and how regularly?

It’s important enough a step, that if you aren’t quite ready to answer these specific questions, it may not be good to push forward yet; because you aren’t ready to commit to the specifics.

By the end, declaring your intentions should be as clear as:

I will exercise for at least 30 minutes on [DATE] in [PLACE] at [TIME]. The type of exercise I do will be ________ and I will repeat these exercises every 2-3 days.

The more clearly you declare your intentions, the more realistic and accounted for they will become. If you assign a time, you will not accidentally be preoccupied with something else. The more detail you provide on what your intentions are, the more specific and clearly you can see yourself accomplishing them.

Learn How To Embrace Discomfort For Present You For Future You

Present self doesn’t need to have willpower. Present self simply needs to continue to show up daily.

Present self needs to lock future self into good obligations. Make present self’s demands simple, effortless, and so easy, you can’t say no.

Clearly and specifically outline when future self needs to show up, what future self needs to do, and announce this intention openly.

Worse comes to worse, lock away all your clothes and become a hermit until you accomplish your goals.

Automation - Designing Your Life With Intention and Efficiency

Automation is a part of the modern day world. It wasn’t something that existed in the past to the general public. In the last 20-30 years, automation has certainly made its way into all facets of our lives and I think depending on how you design your life and intentionally apply automation to your, there is a significant upside to its use.

Now, what is automation?

In general usage, automation can be defined as a technology concerned with performing a process by means of programmed commands combined with automatic feedback control to ensure proper execution of the instructions. The resulting system is capable of operating without human intervention.

Whether that is something simple like connecting to a home WiFi network once we get home, continuing a podcast where we left off when our phone connects with our car’s bluetooth, or maintaining a certain thermostat temperature throughout the day, technology has come a long way to accomplish those feats in an almost magical way.

It has gotten us to this point because we can focus on what matters most instead of what needs to be done. And it’s greatest benefit is accomplishing tasks that regularly need to be accomplished but require a small mental load - menial tasks if you will.

As I get older, automation has become something that that I value more and more because I recognize the value of my time more and more.

But there’s a catch.

The key is to remain certain that automation is working for you. As such, the important part is to ensure the automation is designed specific to your needs and that you are willing to change and/or cancel the automation if it no longer is beneficial.

Sometimes automation becomes a set it and forget it problem, where the automation no longer is beneficial or appropriate for your needs. But since you haven’t kept up with it or paid attention to it, it does something you didn’t want.

For example, a financial automatic savings plan that moves $500 from an account. Let’s say you open another account and your money instead flows through the new account instead of the old account where the ASP withdraws from. Well, it might be a problem when there’s no more money to draw from.

Another automation is an e-mail filter, filtering emails from the library. If those emails are reporting a late fee or a late return book but you filter the e-mails so they no longer land in your inbox, you might not realize you are late.

Again, automation is only as good as the purpose if fulfills in your life.

So, Automate With Intention.

Remember, automation keeps your attention on the things that matter.

Kinda like in high school math where you start to need to explain your work so it shows you understand what is happening and why you are applying the formulas you are applying, versus just showing the calculation or final answer.

The proof is in the pudding.

So, when you think about automation, apply a lens of whether this automation makes iteasierr or not to focus your attention on what truly matters.

In order to make a massive dent on your life goals, dedicated and persistent work towards those goals is necessary.

By automating aspects of your life to reduce your required presence of mind on regularly occurring tasks, you can better divert your attention towards things that need your active attention and creative problem solving.

The worry and failure to do so by not reigning in your attention and automating things to align with your life goals is that you may find yourself consistently spending 3-4 hours daily going down extremely niche rabbit holes. For example, learning about the world of chainsaws powered by car engines….cause of course that exists.

What Can You Automate In Your Life?

You can automate many things in your life. Depending on how dedicated you are to the craft as well as depending on how much automation works for you versus how much you work for the automation, you can ultimately automate almost all facets of your life.

So let’s talk abouut some.

Automate Your E-mail Via Filters

We live in a world of email bombardment. You started off with a brand new, empty inbox but after years of use, you’re probably into the 100s if not 1000s of unread emails.

Give your email to any retail store? Now they’ll send you deal after deal, promotion after promotion.

What about looking at real estate or pre-developments? Let us send you 15 more emails about 15 other projects.

Or how about your more recently terminated subscription? We miss you. Here’s 15% off to come back to us. Over and over again.

Creating e-mail filters can help you funnel these emails away without you even noticing. That way, you don’t look at the deals unless you want to. Your inbox can remain clean and only fill with unique and important emails that you want to receive - whether that be an email from an old friend reconnecting, or a tracking number for an expected package. Better yet, unsubscribing from e-mail marketing programs makes it so you don’t even need the filter. But in the case you want the option for some retail therapy some day, filters are your friend.

Automate Your Finances With Apps and Automatic Savings

Many apps are available to automate your finances. Whether it’s Mint, YNAB, or any other available banking service, building automation into your finances can be an effective tool to keep track of your money, remind you when you are over-budget, and to track your savings when you have saving goals like a big purchase, a downpayment or a vacation trip planned.

MINT and YNAB have the capability to simply track your expenses and categorize them on your behalf. This lets you loosely set goals for expenses in each category and as you approach those limits, you get notified. You give access to youur bank accouunt information and the rest is automatic.

Automatic Saving Plans can also be a means to automate your finances. They can easily move your money the moment you get it into a separate account for investment to grow your wealth. It removes the temptation to spend because you don’t even see the money sit in your account. It’s already ‘spent’. Whether that’s moving to an ETF portfolio,

The one caveat is we want to make surer that the automation is working for you. I am particular in that I enjoy entering my expenses manually. It keeps my actively attentive to my spending, my saving, and it reminds me of what my savings goals are and whether my behaviours are matching those desired savings goals. If I say I want to save money for a trrip but I keep spending money on eating out, then clearly I don’t seem particularly concerned with saving or am willing to save less to eat out.

Automate Your Meals With Meal Prep Weekends

Now this is a borderline automation. It’s not automatic because meal prep still requires your input to actually cook the food. But I would argue that meal prep automates the meal because it takes out the cognitive component. You don’t need to think. You simply heat up the prepared meal that you made before. Many times, the cognitive aspect of thinking about what to eat, what groceries you have to make the meal, and the time investment to cook Meal prep is an effective tool to offload the cognitive load that is meal prep. By preparing a week’s worth of meals in advance, you can avoid the time and thought needed.

This can allow you to get your food intake quickly and focus your thinking on other things you want to think about, whether that be work, personal projects, time with family, etc.

Automate Your Time Allocation With Scheduling And Weekly Audits

Time is a tough one to allocate in the moment. It can easily derail and detract because of the distractions available to us. Businesses like Meta, Reddit, Youtube, and Tiktok arer designed with the intention of keeping us hooked - keeping us scrolling. And they do a damn good job at it.

If we don’t intentionally assign our time, it can be extremely easy to lose track of time.

So a good thing you can do is audit yourself and have an open discussion with yourself about what truly matters. If de-stressing and relaxing matter, that’s great! How long do you need to de-stress and relax? 4 hours a week? Schedule that time in so you have protected 4 hours of your time!

If you have a personal project you wish to accomplish within the month, how much time do you think you need to allocate for it? If you need 12 hours and you have 4 weeks, designing your weekly schedule to offer 3 hours a week is a good way to target that goal.

Assigning yourself things throughout the week is important because when you have a spare moment, you have a reference to look for. You have a means to determine what is truly important, and what is expected of you to accomplish that week per your own aspirations.

You don’t have time to spend 3 hours scrolling Tiktok because you need 3 hours to learn coding! Or learn to cook a steak! Or learn how to draw!

Finally, Audit Your Automation

Weekly reviews and reflections are important. Sitting down and reflecting on what went well, what didn’t go so well, and what you want to optimize more allows you the space and time to think about how automation either aligns with your life design goals or doesn’t.

You are not expected to get all your automations perfectly suited for you the first time. You need to adjust, modify, adapt and terminate automations as they serve their purpose, stop serving their purpose, orr need modification to adapt to your life.

Remember, automation is only as good as it benefits your life. If it no longerr serves you, you can stop using it.

And have fun! Enjoy it! The whole point is recognizing and enjoying the process because you get to use it to accomplish what you want. It lets you move towards progress in things that make you happy, bring you joy, and feel productive. It’s for you.

Clarity In Direction

When we think about productivity, it is often a discussion about production.

How much can we produce?

How quickly can we produce results?

How efficiently can we generate this production?

Productivity is often considered by a simple equation of:

The challenge is it is very easy to become ceaselessly busy and stuck with ‘busy’ work. Busy work can be organizing the aesthetics of a room, a folder, a desk. Busy work can be creating the best music playlist to listen to while working to enhance your focus And in their own rights, those tasks can in fact be productive if they are clearly and definitely your focus for the day and part of your designed life.

However, if they are not your ‘prioritized tasks’ for the day, this kind of busy work can be distracting and detracting from your life design.

And I intentionally write it as a detraction from your life design because these day-to-day impacts, although minimally impacting in a short-term perspective, can have wide-reaching impact on your life in the grand scheme of things.

Clarity in direction and clarity in goals is therefore a vital component of productive work because it shapes and defines what it means to be productive. It clarifies the objectives you are pursuing.

Asking clarifying questions on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual basis is helpful. Looking even 3 years, 5 years, 10 years in the future, although quite far into the future, can equally provide benefits as you adjust your trajectory.

Asking yourself some clarifying questions regularly likewise ensure they remain on the forefront of your mind.

Question 1: What things have been on my to do list for a long time?

If I continue to defer and neglect these items on my to-do list, are the truly important to me. They may feel like they should be important, but do they actually matter to me.

Question 2: What will help me achieve long term goals?

Does this to-do item bring me closer to my long-term goal. Our long-term goals are aspirations that require time, dedication and persistence. They cannot be accomplished in a week or month’s time and require consistent work. As such, creating short-term goals that align and directly support the fulfillment of our long term desires requires careful design.

Question 3: why am I making my current decisions?

Asking why is an effective tool to get at the core of your actions. If you cannot answer this question clearly, it may mean that you haven’t pinned down your rationale. Especially when we want to have clear, focused efforts, this needs to be rectified. Be clear on why you are working on something and why it is important to you. You may not know the full scope of the long-term ramifications of your actions, but recognizing it, even if it’s a gut feeling that something positive is coming out of this effort is important. For example, with creative and artistic endeavours, it may not be clear at the beginning whether a new technique, a new subject matter, a new artistic medium is “productive” but the act of exploring this new artistic expression may be important.

Question 4: what do you wish was different in your life right now?

Thinking about what you would choose to be different in your current life can help you think about what is the most important to you. By understanding and contrasting your varied desires for change, you can better understand what areas of your life need to be prioritized. If I have 5 areas of change I want in my life but when compared and contrasted I can clearly identify change #4 as the biggest need over change #1, #2, #3, or #5, then change #4 is the clear priority.

Question 5: what should I be doing more of?

This sounds like an obvious and perhaps silly and redundant question to ask but it is often neglected because it seems so obvious. Many times you already know the answer but it is hard to accept that answer or to hear yourself. So make sure you are regularly asking yourself what you should be doing more of to help you think about your priories and dreams.

Question 6: what daily changes would I like to make?

Asking yourself about what things you can do differently each day can help you think abut daily priorities and your life on a smaller scale. These small scope changes can snowball into much larger changes in our lives over the course of a year. Every little change can create a new habit, a new behaviour, and the culminatory effect of 365 small changes in our lives can drastically impact its trajectory.

Question 7: what things give me energy?

Being awarer of how certain things give or take energy from you is an effective tool in designing your life. As you become more attune with what activities give you energy, you can start to build those into your day-to-day life more often. You want activities in your life that give you energy because these activities will keep your energized and seeking to do more.

Question 8: is there anything I feel like I’m missing in my life?

What do you think is missing in your life? ‘Missing’ is an interesting word because it suggests an expectation that it should be there. If there’s something that you feel so strongly about that you feel it should exist in your life, then it’s a good starting point to designing how you will get it. Whether that is a life partner, a workout routine, a set time for administrative and self-care, these can all be good starting points to designing a more productive life.

Question 9: am I ready to start improving my life?

Sometimes our plates are just full. Sometimes we don’t have the room to tweak, adjust, or revamp our lifestyles. Maybe we just had a kid. Not the greatest time to consider making changes. Asking ourselves whether we are currently able ot take on such an undertaking is a good strategy for timing. It is still helpful to recognize areas we do eventually want to target and improve, but recognizing whether we have the capacity to make those changes currently or if they can be deferred is equally important.

Clarity and vision is important because it opens you up to both opportunity and distraction. As you continue to think about your vision and goals, it becomes easier to recognize what is distracting and what aligns with your designs for yourself.

Gratitude & Perspective.

PROBLEM.

Sometimes, life gets tough and there’s so much to do but so little time. You know it’s important, you know you want to do it, but all you want to do is rest, is to lounge, is to relax.

The problem is that sometimes things must take precedence over relaxing and rest.

There are many such examples that require your attention. They can be personal, professional, emotional, physical and even mental needs. There are enough things in world that demand our attention that it is not uncommon to need a plan for such an occasion.

A plan, an expectation, a habit, or a personal protocol to address this concern

Sometimes, recognizing the lifestyle and designed life you aspire for is enough for you to structurer your day to day schedule.

But sometimes, life gets challenging and all you want to do is rest.

Let’s say you have a child. You are exhausted from work but when you arrive at home, you have a child to raise and care for. Your partner is at home with your child but obviously needs their own time to rest as well.

Your child is more important to you than rest.

How do you muster the energy to spend with your loved ones?

SOLUTION.

The answer is gratitude and perspective.

These two mindset unlocks can allow you to transcend what you think you can accomplish in a day. And I think it’s extremely important to recognize that you can push past your perceived limits, particularly when it comes to things that you prioritize in your life like your family and your ambition.

When I think about the combination of Gratitude and Perspective, energy feels abundant. These two foundational mindset cornerstones are immensely vital because they grant you an understanding of your life and your situation relative to others in the world. Now, normally, comparing yourself to others is often a recipe for disaster. You don’t know all the facets of another person’s life and they don’t know yours.

However, the one thing you do know is the abundance and opportunity in your own life. By recognizing the privileged position I am in and the available opportunity in my life living in 2023, it is impossible to disregard how abundant my life and the world has become.

Whenever I feel frustrated, upset by the unfairness of life, become envious of another’s circumstance, and wish for more, perspective and gratitude always give me the perspective to appreciate and embrace my life circumstance.

Whenever I feel tired, exhausted from work, too lazy to clean up or continue my own personal projects, perspective and gratitude give me the perspective to appreciate the opportunity I have. I have the financial backing to support my pursuit of personal projects. I don’t need to do a significant amount of manual labour during my day job that physically limits my after-work pursuits. We have electricity in the modern era to continue to work after the sun sets. We have the internet to allow global connectedness and open markets beyond my physical vicinity.

These realizations, although neither revolutionary nor unique, reflect a simple truth about the resilience of the human spirit and the ability to push beyond our perceived limitations.

For me, a simple reminder of all the lucky circumstances of my existence is helpful.

Physical Circumstance

My physical health is pretty good. I have all 4 limbs. I have 2 working eyes. I have 2 working ears. I have no obvious or apparent physical ailments or diseases impacting my ability to functionally interact with my environment. I don’t have to battle vertigo, migraines, scoliosis. I don’t have any broken bones. My hand-eye coordination is pretty good. I have the physical capacity to pursue personal and professional interests.

Location Circumstance

Firstly, I was born and raised In Canada. I’ve had the luxury of living a life in a first world country. I wasn’t born in a war-torn country, I have access to fresh and clean water, I already live in one of the world’s wealthiest countries. I have a place of warmth and shelter.

My location also dictates that I speak English, the international lingua franca for business and one of the most prevalent languages in the world. There is an abundance of English-speaking individuals globally so I have the luck to be able to communicate fairly easily with a large portion of the world.

Mental Circumstance

My mental health is good. I have no obvious mental health concerns that debilitate me or impact my thinking negatively. I have good routines and supports in place to monitor myself regularly and address any mental health challenges.

Financial Circumstance

I am fortunate to live comfortably in my city. I can afford nice-to-have’s such as nice clothing, the occasional dinner out, and the random purchase of a hobby or interest of mine, while simultaneously having enough money for my basic living needs such as accommodations, food, and transportation. I can afford to travel for leisure and I have traveled to several countries in my lifetime.

I live well off enough to have a private space for myself and my spouse.

Now in Vancouver, Canada, real estate and space is always a point of debate and discussion. However, perspective again is important. Relative to Hong Kong, space in Vancouver is great! Perspective lets me have that view. I’m not arguing that it’s not tough, but always recognizing that it could be worse! It allows me the mental space to focus on what I can control and what I cannot. It refocuses my mind to pursuing the things that give me energy and that I prioritize rather than spiralling and doomscrolling on all the things I cannot currently control.

It Can Always Be Worse.

Now, I know I have to be optimistic but I do appreciate a realistic and grounded view on my life. What that affords me is an understanding that it can always be worse, that there are always additional obstacles that I could face or could have needed to overcome.

There are many less fortunate individuals who live far more challenging lives. Whether it’s a single-parent household, a child living in poverty, being born into a less democratic environment, these would all shape my outlook on the world in drastic ways.

This is why perspective manners so much for energizing and being a motivator for your actions in this lifetime.

It’s important to recognize and continue to recognize the privilege that existing this life brings. In my eyes, the only way to not squander this opportunity is to make the most of it to the best of my ability.

Recognizing that a huge portion of my life direction and life circumstance is in part due to luck.

Your genetics, your location of birth, the family you were born into, your IQ, your family’s financial situation during your childhood which accounted for your access to opportunities - none of that is something you had particular control over and was 100% not within your control .

So The Next Time You Have Something You Want To Do But Feel Like You Cannot Muster The Energy, Call Upon Gratitude and Perspective.

Recognize your circumstance and seek gratitude and perspective when you struggle to find the strength in yourself to persevere. Think about all the amazing and wonderfully positive things that have led you to this moment. Think about the additional challenges or difficulties that could exist in your life that you are so lucky to not have to deal with. Think about all the potential people that would look enviously at your position.

These things keep me hungry for more. Appreciative of what I have and what I aspire for. And they provide me the energy to pursue it wholeheartedly.

SELF-RESTRAINT

Do you have self-restraint in your life? Do you commonly restrict something that you want and why?

It’s not uncommon to restrict yourself from certain foods.

If you are diabetic, if you are allergic, or if you are gluten intolerant, there are things that you commonly restrict yourself from because you understand they affect you negatively or that you would regret eating them later on.

But do you have self-restraint in other areas of your life? Your social life? Your social media usage? What about your finances?

SELF-RESTRAINT: AN EXPRESSION OF DISCIPLINE AND DIRECTION

Self-restraint can be an effective tool to design the life you want to live and a protective way to keep you out of your own way.

In the moment, we are all susceptible to acting rashly.

I’m thirsty! I’ll buy a drink.

I need new shoes! I’ll buy them now.

I like that outfit. I should treat myself.

There are lots of opportunities for unscheduled things to take our attention.

Many times that can be a financial splurge, but a more inconspicuous distraction can be time-based. A YouTube video here. A Reddit rabbit hole there.

Pretty soon, you can spend hours aimlessly spending your time when you in fact have things you have aspired to accomplish.

WHAT CAN SELF-RESTRAINT CAN DO FOR YOU?

Active self-restraint via physical means, software means, and habitual means can be a potent action to combat aimless and mindless distraction.

PHYSICAL MEANS

By physically placing your distractions out of reach or out of sight you can exercise self-restraint. When I think about a distracting phone, turning off your router, powering off your phone or giving your partner your phone to hold can be ways to show self-restraint.

SOFTWARE MEANS

There are many methods to restrict your access to certain applications. Whether that is parental controls or installing applications that limit or entirely restrict your use of certain apps, that can also act as a method of self-restraint.

HABITUAL MEANS

By implementing habits to remove triggers or rewire trigger-event associations, you can impose self-restraint on previously poor decisions. For example. turning off your phone during periods of deep focus can be an effective tool to break the incessant need to check your phone or react to every notification you receive.

When this trigger of checking your phone is not followed by the event, an activity that gives you a dopamine boost, sending you into the depths of your email list or to check-in to some phone game, then it can sometimes be enough to rewire that association.

HOW I THINK YOU SHOULD THINK OF IT.

Implementing self-restraint is a way to regain control. For example, many times people go on a no-spending challenge to see how many days they can go without spending a single dollar. This lets you purge your cupboards of food, use up what food ingredients you already have, and lets you start anew.

People can find this refreshing.

Some people express self-restraint in fasting. Fasting can be a religious, spiritual, and physically transformative experience to regain and reground yourself.

Applying self-restraint in your professional or personal life can likewise reframe and reground yourself.

THE NEGATIVE CONNOTATIONS OR ASSOCIATIONS WITH SELF-RESTRAINT

One typical connotation with self-restraint is that you need restraint; that you aren’t in control of yourself and that you cannot simply will it.

But that’s bullshit.

Everyone has moments of weakness and moments that require you to refocus and adjust.

We all know how addicting and mindlessly accessible phone apps are designed to be.

We all know how cripplingly automatic bad habits can be.

Being able to recognize the need to re-frame and restrict yourself from triggers and opportunities to succumb to those distractions is not weakness.

THE POSITIVE ASPECTS THAT YOU SHOULD KNOW OR RECALL

By applying self-restraint, you are designing a plan that is protected. You are protecting yourself from yourself and keeping yourself accountable to what you voice is your goal. Self-restraint is a way to spend your time as you have designed and planned that is resilient to outside and internal pressures.

And you are brave enough to even stand in your own way to achieve it.

Be Kind To Yourself - A Way To Pursue Your Goals.

Do you ever feel like you are inadequate, less than, or not deserving of your current role and responsibilities?

Do you ever feel like you must be the only one at work who is faking it, somehow squeaking by unnoticed while you fumble through work whereas the others actually know what they are doing?

Imposter syndrome is a huge component of many professionals’ identity and reportedly is prevalent in a whopping range of 9% to 82% depending the criteria for measurement.

‘At my work, we had a discussion about imposter syndrome, feeling inadequate, making mistakes on the job, and forgiveness. Imposter syndrome is often characterized by aggressively pursuing achievement while not being able to accept recognition when success is achieved.

At work, it is very common, as a newly hired staff to feel incompetent, to feel less than, or to feel inadequate. This persistent questioning of professional legitimacy can have implications for career retention, advancement, elevated levels of stress, burnout as well as decreased satisfaction and job performance over time.

Did I do that right?

Could someone else have done that better?

I think we often are so scared of mistakes that it paralyzes us and limits our trust in ourselves despite the accolades, the achievements and the level of success that we’ve achieved to get to this point in the first place. The negative self-talk can be crippling and often can hinder our expectations for ourselves and our ability to aspire for more.

We question how we managed to deceive others, slip under the radar, and how much longer we will live our secret lives before we’re caught and revealed for the truly incompetent imposters that we are.

Compared with our colleagues who are true authentic professionals, we are a husk of a professional by comparison.

After all, they act so confident! So composed! So knowledgable. They must be better.

Well that just isn’t true.

We all have our insecurities.

We all feel uncomfortable. Unprepared. But we’ve all achieved some level of accomplishment to get to this point.

I think the difference is how much runway you give yourself to grow, to learn, to be strong, to overcome, and to develop.

Be kind to yourself.

When we acknowledge the patience, the faith, the trust, and the support we offer others, it is important to acknowledge that we do so authentically in the hopes they meet those expectations. We give each other runway to grow, to learn, to be strong, to overcome, and to develop.

Let yourself have enough runway to grow as well. If you are willing to give that kindness and courtesy to others, then extend that same kindness to yourself.

Imagine if you applied this way of thinking towards yourself about something trivial.

Something such as riding a bike.

Imagine the negative self-talk you could have.

But so many people can ride a bike so much more confidently.

I’m an imposter rider.

Not a true rider.

People are going to find out I don’t know what I’m doing.

Or how about cooking a steak.

But so many people can cook steaks better. I should just leave it to them.

I’m not a real cook.

People are going to find out I don’t know how to cook a steak properly.

Now obviously, when you do these activities professionally or for a living, the stakes are increased. After all, you are supposed to be the expert.

But you don’t start off an expert. You grow into one. You develop into one. Working 10 years in a field means that you have learned from 10 years of mistakes.

But I think if you hold yourself on a short leash, you never allow yourself the time to develop and grow. You never allow yourself the kindness, the patience, the hopeful optimism, the benefit of the doubt that you give others.

And more than likely, you know your situation better.

You know your inner thoughts, your thought process, the amount of information you were operating with at the time, your circumstances, your stress levels, and your emotional status.

All of those things contribute to your eventual decisions and actions.

If I made a mistake at work, maybe I was tired, I had a stressful event in my personal life, I was struggling with my mental health, I was jet-lagged from a recent trip, I was stressed about another project or presentation. There are circumstances behind any action and although they may not entirely excuse a result or decision that led to an error, they provide a context which makes the final decision or action reasonable.

And that’s all you can do.

Hindsight can often skew how we feel about our past decisions.

Why didn’t I consider that?

Of course, Option B was the better choice. It’s so obvious. Why did I choose Option A.

But you are always operating with more information after the fact. You know the results of your choice. You know more contextual information about the situation. You may also know the mindset of others or have access to additional options and information that you were not privy to at the time.

Therefore, be kind to yourself.

The world is filled with people who are not and you will surely receive enough unkindness without your own.

And to clarify, that doesn’t mean you aren’t self-critical. You can always identify areas of weakness, areas for improvement, but that doesn’t mean you shy away from the challenge or feel inept towards the expectations.

Kindness is a type of behaviour marked by acts of generosity, consideration, rendering assistance or concern without the expectation of praise or reward.

When applied introspectively, that means applying acts of generosity, consideration, and concern for yourself and your well-being.

When a child falls on the ground, we don’t reprimand them. We don’t scowl at their weakness, their incoordination, their leg strength or instability. We dust them off, wipe away their tears and encourage them to continue. We keep a close eye but allow them to try again with the same unstable gait because we trust that they will eventually learn, grow, and develop those skills.

Apply that same level of trust in yourself. It may not happen immediately on the first attempt.

It may in fact take months of walking practice.

But that practice period is seen with joy, with excitement, and with hopeful trust.

Give yourself that optimism and belief in other aspects of your life - your career change, your personal fitness goals, your professional aspirations and corporate ladder progression, your home improvement dreams. All of it. Be kind to yourself and allow yourself the room to grow.

You’ll be surprised by how resilient and resourceful you are.

Mini-Projects: Turning 10 Minutes Into Productive Time.

I easily can spend hours on social media websites and Reddit. It’s easy to scroll, to look for bargains and deals on RedFlagDeals or Facebook Marketplace. There’s always something that I could look at for a few minutes that snowballs into 30-45 minutes of wasted time.

Sometimes, unless I know I have 30+ minutes of time, it becomes a struggle to start working on a project.

After all, it can be quite jarring to start working and after 15-20 minutes be told you have to stop or put it away.

If I have 5-15 minutes of time, my default is to doomscroll, to check Facebook marketplace, or to check Reddit.

Starting a bigger or longer project can be daunting and overwhelming to start, particularly if it takes a lot of energy to start a project, it can be easy to have doubts and ask ourselves “why bother?”. I should just allow myself a little break.

The problem is a little break can quickly turn into a long break and then morph into not a break but simply not doing work.

Once again, that’s not a problem if you’re not trying to work, but I’m talking about wanting to do more stuff and wanting to accomplish more.

The way I’ve decided to tackle this problem of creeping procrastination is the idea of mini-projects.

By having go-to mini-projects that I can quickly start and I know are only 5-15 minutes in length, I can better make use of my time, especially to combat the initial onset threshold resistance. After all, can’t argue against starting a 5-15 minute project.

Some mini-projects I’ve started:

• Reading - having a book or audiobook to read/listen can be great for your attention span and a better alternative for your phone. I’ve actually also recently enjoyed listening to some fiction books and I’ve felt more energized and enjoyed my audiobooks a little more. Typically I steer towards non-fiction but I’ve felt joy in listening to my fiction audiobooks that I haven’t had in a while.

• Flashcards - 5-15 minutes can be a perfect amount of time to practice with flashcards. Whether that is learning a new word, remembering a concept, or anything else you are studying, 5-15 minutes of flashcard review can be a wonderfully productive use of time.

• Budgeting - For me, I personally track all my expenses using YNAB, a personal budgeting app. 5-15 minutes is a perfect amount of time to keep my purchasing records up to date so I am well aware of how much money I’m spending, what I am spending it on, and evaluating whether I ned to reconsider some of my expenses. Not only is budgeting an invaluably universal skill to develop, but it is always beneficial to be aware of where your hard-earned money goes.

These mini-projects can also have a boosting effect on your working mentality. So, if you end up having 30 minutes or an hour of time, you are in the mindset to work because you already accomplished a 5-minute mini-project.

Mini-projects are also effective because before you even have the time to rationalize to yourself why you don’t need to accomplish it, you may already be done the task. Sometimes, something quick that you can simply throw yourself at is just perfect. No hesitancy, no logical rationalization of all the potential excuses. Just do it.

So, I challenge you.

Spend 1-2 hours today. Create a list of 5- to 15-minute mini-projects.

They can be home projects like: washing the dishes, throwing out the garbage, dusting one room.

They can be dragging projects like: call your bank, deposit your cash to an ATM, write a letter, book an eye exam, dry clean your suit.

They can be personal projects like: watch the 5-minute YouTube video to learn a new skill, 10 minutes practicing your penmanship, watering your plants.

Sunflowers.

I bought sunflowers the other day.

And I’m going to preface this story with the notion that I rarely buy flowers.

I buy them sometimes for Mother’s Day but I personally don’t see the point or sentiment associated with them. My wife is fine with me not buying them for Valentine’s Day either. A nice meal is much more up her alley anyways. The point being, flowers and me.

We don’t overlap.

But one day, while picking up groceries, I bought some sunflowers for my wife.

They were massive flowers. And the most saturated deep yellow colour.

It was on a whim.

Now, I don’t think they have measurably changed my life. There’s no standard or measure to objectively qualify the benefit or “productivity” that a sunflower brings to my life.

Because flat out, it wouldn’t.

But a sunflower to a sunflower grower or flower shop is a monetary productivity measure.

A sunflower to my wife’s happiness and feelings of comfort and homeliness provides a positive output that can impact my interactions and relationship with her.

And if it makes her happy and if it brightens her day at home, whose to say that that isn’t a productive purchase in my life.

I think the older I get, the more I recognize that my productivity is not simply impacted but my own inputs and I am largely impacted by the network of people and my relationship with others.

I’m not a productive individual working in a vacuum or on some uninhabited island. My existence is impacted and influenced by the people around me, and sometimes the positive impact I have on others, can not only be impact them dramatically in a positive way, but it can also manifest positively for myself in the future.

Networking and long-term investments into friendships can be considered this way as well. We don’t start these friendships with a “productivity” goal to extract from the relationship but I would argue that my friends have supported and uplifted me to become a better person as well as motivated me to pursue my professional and personal goals more intently. Furthermore, they have supported me in ways that I perhaps could not reach on my own, providing different perspectives on my problems and providing their own experiences and perceptions to supplement my own - something that I couldn’t necessarily accomplish on my own because my perception is my own and I wouldn’t necessarily see a situation from a different perspective.

Sometimes, I get annoyed or feel guilty that I spent a day hanging out with friends rather than accomplishing the to-do lists I set out for myself. That, in some way, hanging out with friends has sidetracked me or prevented me from doing what I really wanted to accomplish. This feeling pits me against my friends, which is stupid and unnecessary.

For me, it’s always been remembering to have a frank and open conversation with myself about what truly matters and what productivity means to me.

On the one hand, sure, if all i do is socialize with friends, then it can detract or eat up time from the business or entrepreneurial things I want to accomplish. I’m not arguing that. So maybe I need to limit my relaxed social time to 1-2 hours a week, but those 1-2 hours can be a mandatory need in order to charge my social and emotional battery.

Things that may not necessarily seem “productive” for one aspect of your life may be deeply productive to you in another facet of your life.

And deciding on prioritizing things for your mental, emotional, and spiritual health can be just as important as your financial and physical health.

Sure, sunflowers don’t last forever and eventually they will shrivel up and need to be discarded. They may seem like $10 wasted for a couple days of decoration but there’s something less tangible about these types of products and I’m okay with these small investments into my home, my mental health, and my wife’s happiness.

And I think if you’re in a similar situation where you feel guilty about spending time and money on the people you love and care about, give yourself some slack. It may not feel like “productive” time but it’s important for your own health and you most likely are working to provide and support your friends and family.

When Did Failing Become So Uncomfortable?

Failure is a natural part of growing and developing.

We’ve failed all our lives and only through the process of failing over and over have we become more competent.

As individuals, we’ve failed over and over until we learned how to walk, how to ride a bike, how to speak a different language, how to play an instrument and so much more.

As a civilization and species, we’ve likewise failed countless times. We’ve failed a countless number of times exploring the vastness of our world, in understanding our own biology, and exploring space beyond our planetary constraints. We’ve pioneered in the arts, culture, created new industries and come to understand our world a hell of a lot better over millennia.

Failure is a part of our evolution, our body of knowledge, and is the backbone of our future accomplishments.

And yet, there comes a point in everyone’s life where we consciously or subconsciously become paralyzed with failure.

An invisible force of self-preservation, societal judgment, and fear of the unknown that manifested with claw-like grip around our adventurous thumping hearts.

WHAT IF creeps in the shadowy corners of our consciousness.

YOU SHOULDN’T nips our our heels, reminding us to fall in line and stay within the gated confines our safety.

WHAT WOULD _______ THINK? weighs heavily, exerting a gravitational pull that grounds us.

This seedling of fear and discomfort, although initially simply a speck in our vast minds, akin to a small pebble in a plowed field ready for crop, burrows deep and spreads its roots, cementing itself in our thoughts.

Now, I don’t know how to fix it.

I honestly have no real hack or promise or Hail Mary strategy to bypass, circumvent, or overcome it. And honestly, the alternative of a scorched earth teardown, obliterating your entire connected life to rid yourself of this fear, seems at best, a shot in the dark.

The most I know how to do is think about it.

Question why I am actually doing something.

Ask if I truly believe, trust, think, or feel a certain way. Or whether this was a mindset, framework of thinking or feeling that was incepted into my thinking.

Ask if I am doing something out of fear of failure and whether that fear of failure is in fact something that would be good to overcome.

For me right now, my defined benefits benefit government job is one of those ‘what if’ questions gnawing at the corners of my mind. Growing up, finding a safe, stable job was the dream. It was the dream because my parents owned their own business - and frankly, entrepreneurship had its own challenges and obstacles.

Likely, in their desire to protect me from struggles, insecurity of finances, the economic downturn and what not, the desire for job security ranked high for them.

And so, I know I am neatly tied to these golden handcuffs that are my pension.

Do I avoid thinking about leaving my job out of fear of trying something different and risking my pension? Absolutely.

The middle ground I’ve come to accept for myself is trying to do something new or on the side while I maintain my job security.

Now, as I said before, I don’t have a magic antidote or solution for breaking away from the fear of failing.

I think as long as I continue to push at failure, try to fail regularly and often, and am still able to try, I will grow.

I need to remind myself that failure is good; that failure is important to my growth; and that failure is a part of being human. It isn’t something that should be held like a scarlet letter but rather a badge of honour, a rite of passage, a show of experience and a courageous reflection of a pursuit of life.

Using Regret To Fuel Your Will.

I’m an extremely lazy person by nature.

If a bag of chips is out of reach, I’m not going to think to eat it.

If I’ve forgotten something in the car, it can wait till I’m back in the car for retrieval. I’m not going out specifically to get it.

But I’ve created and built my life around forcing myself into situations to undo my lazy tendencies.

8 AM undergraduate classes? Why not, it’ll force me to wake up at a regular hour.

Sleep on a pile of clean unfolded laundry? Why not, it’ll keep me from sleeping too deeply so I don’t miss my alarm.

I don’t know how or why, but I became aware of my laziness early in life.

So much so, that I forced myself into the International Baccalaureate Program for high school.

Embarrassingly, this was not strongly supported by my elementary school teachers or my family.

I was, in my mind, a decently well-performing elementary school student. But apparently not good enough by some teachers’ standards. The concern was I might not excel and instead suffer or struggle in school.

I specifically remember having to meet with my French teacher with my parents in elementary school to have a discussion reviewing her concerns with my ability to succeed in the French component (my IB Program didn’t offer many of the available language options so French was the only language option).

I don’t quite understand how I wasn’t demoralized by that. How I still decided to pursue IB or even why I would care to work hard in high school.

But I wasn’t demoralized, didn’t lose sleep over it, and didn’t second-guess it.

I closed the door on second doubts, on other opportunities in high school and whole-heartedly pursued IB because I had it in my head I’d regret not pushing myself.

And I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything.

Through the increasing challenge, I found a group of high-achieving friends, I identified a degree of resilience in myself that until that point, I didn’t know existed, and I experienced for myself the challenges I wanted.

All my life, in specific moments, I’ve purposefully made many life choices to avoid regret. A sort of ‘burning your ships’ lifestyle that I ultimately believe altered or steered my life path differently.

Another example is when I decided to get shoulder surgery because of multiple shoulder dislocations. Having dislocated it while throwing a ball, b-boying, jumping and reaching for something, exercising and swimming, enough was enough.

I had to do something about it.

Now, I could’ve done more physiotherapy and rehabbed the shoulder. But I knew I was lazy. I knew I’d start with the rehab consistently while the injury was fresh but I’d get lazy and indifferent as time went on. After all, I tried that for a couple of years. I opted to finally get surgery for it so I would finally know in my core that I tried everything to remedy the situation. If I dislocated it again even after the surgery, I’d eventually have to accept that I couldn’t continue the same types of exercises and activities.

My point is, I opted for surgery so that I wouldn’t have the opportunity to regret not getting surgery.

Getting Uncomfortable - A Part Of The Process.

Sometimes, choosing to act can result in discomfort or put you in an uncomfortable situation.

IB was an uncomfortable situation because I had to work hard and I couldn’t slack off.

Getting shoulder surgery was an uncomfortable position because I lost a lot of muscle mass, I was off work for a month, and I couldn’t use my shoulder for a long time.

But in comparison to the regret you will feel for not pursuing these options, I know personally that the regret would gnaw at me constantly.

Will I regret turning down an offer?

Will I regret missing an opportunity?

Will I wake up one day and realize I haven’t achieved what I wanted?

Will I wake up one day and realize I haven’t moved forward or taken advantage of my time on Earth?

The FOMO of missing out on my potential keeps me moving forward. That is the thing that gives me the confidence to do something uncomfortable.

Burn Your Ships - A Story For Productivity

In the fast-paced world we live in, maximizing productivity has become a goal many of us strive for. We seek to achieve more in less time and make significant progress in our personal and professional lives. But what does it truly mean to be productive? Is it simply about generating the most output relative to time? Or is there more to it?

Recently, I had a profound experience that shed light on the concept of productivity and the power of commitment. It all started when my coworker, someone I had known for years, announced his decision to leave his permanent full-time position at our workplace. The way he approached this decision and the reasoning behind it were both unexpected and thought-provoking.

During our lunch break, just before we resumed work for the afternoon, my coworker gathered us together for an announcement. He revealed that he had decided to leave his current, permanent position, embracing a new path of entrepreneurship and self-employment.

His reasoning was refreshingly simple and yet profound. He acknowledged his tendency to be indecisive and realized that without committing fully, his ideas and aspirations would remain mere possibilities. He had made half-way attempts to start his own business but never truly moved forward with them and the realization that this pattern may persist indefinitely had forced his hand. It was as if he was having a "Burning Your Ships" moment, cutting ties with his old ways of doing things and forcing himself to move forward, to carve out his own path.

Now, the “Burning your ships” moment is based on the story of Hernán Cortés in the year 1519. Arriving in the New World with six hundred men and a need to travel inland, he burned the ships, destroying the only other means of leaving. This sent a clear message to his men: There is no turning back.

Now, obviously my coworker’s decision was much less life and death, but it speaks to the need and importance, sometimes, to change one's environment to foster accountability. By removing himself from the familiar and venturing into uncharted territory, he created a sense of urgency and responsibility towards his goals. He knew that by immersing himself in a new environment, he would be more likely to embrace change, take decisive action, and push the boundaries of his comfort zone.

This transformative experience made me reflect on the nature of productivity itself. I realized that to become more productive in certain areas, we often need to let go of productivity in others. Our time is finite, and certain decisions must be made.

Even the lack of action or decisiveness is a decision in itself, and time moves on regardless.

Productivity is not a linear, upward trajectory. It is a shifting spotlight of priorities. When we commit fully to a particular endeavor, other aspects of our lives may wither and fade away. This acknowledgment is neither positive nor negative, but rather a realistic reflection of the ever-changing priorities we face. He gave up productivity in his permanent position to boost productivity in his independent professional growth.

Autonomy of Productivity.

Witnessing my coworker's courageous decision reminded me of the autonomy we possess in shaping our lives. Each of us has the power to design our own path, to resist complacency, and to pursue growth. It served as a bittersweet reminder that change comes at a cost, and we must be willing to let go of certain things and embrace the unknown.

Productivity as Contentment.

And again, the motif realized is that productivity is not just about generating output. It is about finding contentment in the time we spend doing things. It requires an authentic dialogue with ourselves, where we prioritize and align our actions with our goals and aspirations. And regardless of whether one becomes a millionaire in the process, it is that personal contentment, autonomy in pursuit, and personalized productivity that provides fulfillment.

Productivity is not a one-size-fits-all concept but rather a personalized journey that requires continuous self-reflection, prioritization, and contentment with the choices we make.

The Library’s Where It’s At.

I love the library.

The library is awesome.

But let’s be clear. I have no kids. I take zero from their community outreach programs, zero from their programming, workshops, story times, creative residencies.

I am done school. I’ve been done school for 10 years now.

But the library is a special space of knowledge and information.

You feel studious.

There’s high ceilings. Monstrously large tables. Big windows for sunshine.

It’s fairly quiet with the slight bustling of chairs, paper, pens, and adjustment of butt position on a chair.

But there’s a sense of learning, of focus, of time invested into something of interest.

I remember when the internet was not as trusted or accepted as a primary source of information. Where, you couldn’t reference Wikipedia or a website, and books were the primary trusted source.

You needed to go to a reference library or search through a book for an idea, a theme, a fact, or a quote.

And I think in the process of technological advancement, we’ve lost that process of enjoying the library.

The reverence for the hallowed halls that were once community staples.

I also feel like we’ve lost the sense of preciousness of information because of its accessibility.

Which, don’t get me wrong, is an overall positive. We shouldn’t gate-keep information.

But I think the practice of going to a space of knowledge, understanding that there is a finite amount of time in this space, and being able to sit and focus with this privileged information makes you appreciate it more. There’s a preciousness to it that people of the past did not have. There’s a sense of iteration and progress in humankind’s growth. And there’s knowledge for subjects galore.

It is the subreddit before reddit existed.

And it’s a great place to glean information on topics you are inept at.

I regularly visit the library to look at photography resources.

To look at photobooks of famous photographers, to view certain styles of photography, to understand light or composition or even to get inspiration for instagram worthy posts, the library has an abundance of resources.

Whenever I go to the library, I am excited to find something to learn, to sit down and focus my attention on growing.

And knowing that others around me are likewise in their own world’s and on their own main character plotline paths, doing the same, is inspiring.

Nowadays, the library is so much more than just books. They have expanded as their community needs and technology has improved. Audiobooks and e-Reader books are a thing now.

Borrowing musical instruments and video games? Also a thing.

What about a whole green screen and VFX studio or recording studio? Also a thing.

The library is an enormously helpful and productive space that can sometimes also be a sanctuary for your mental, professional, and personal growth.

Nothing profound or major with this post.

Just a reminder to visit your local library. It’s a great place to work at, might have a book or two about an interest of yours, and can put you into the mood to buckle down and focus for a bit.

Homework For Life.

I’m a boring, safe person.

I’ve lived a largely by-the-books existence.

I went to school, finished my undergraduate degree in 4 years, did a graduate degree, started work after graduating, and have stayed at the same job for the past nine years.

My communication style is a self-identified, blunt, no-beating-around-the-bush style. I talk about facts, drop all the flourishing, and don’t have a lot of emotionality in my communication.

But I think I want to be more.

I get the sense that I choose to blunt because I don’t want to be too attached or too emotional, that I choose to be apathetic because I don’t want to be let down or be demanding, that I choose to defer, deflect, and disregard because I can control myself, my wants and my feelings towards things but I cannot control others.

And I’m starting to wonder if I’ve lost those sides of me. That I’ve become an observer in my life. That autopilot apathy has taken control, and I’ll blink and one day be simply a cog in some abstract machine because my logical mind has decided on the safest path to a retired, pension-funded life.

These may all feel like scattered, unrelated thoughts vomited on a page but scrolling through TikTok and seeing Gen-Z’s starting businesses on a whim, unafraid of failure, consequences and parental disappointments and the ludicrous life that social media funding has afforded them, it makes me wonder if I’m living a safe life and am left unfulfilled in some way.

I try to think back on my library of experiences, and sure, I’ve got some.

• I lived on a yacht for a week while island hopping in Croatia after a music festival.

• I packed my bags solo and flew halfway across the country to pursue a career on my own, away from family and friends.

• I dislocated my shoulder the morning of a friend’s wedding at a Parkour gym and had another friend pop it back into place so I could attend the wedding as a groomsmen.

But when they come out of my mouth, they are simply facts. Simple, factual statements.

They don’t hook you in.

They don’t keep you guessing.

They aren’t captivating.

And I want to experience being a good storyteller because I want to be a good communicator and help others be good communicators.

Matthew Dicks, an author, storyteller, public speaker, business owner and consultant, talks about Homework For Life, a strategy to see the world in these episodic story-worthy moments.

Homework For Life is a means to document and catalogue moments in your life.

Moments that resonate universally.

Moments that exist in the mundane.

Moments that encapsulate one’s life of worth, of import, of meaning.

Moments that redefine the contents of my life as moments of autonomy and a lived existence rather than passive recipient.

And so, I’m hoping to keep track of those moments for myself: the mundane, the spectacular and everything in-between, with the hope that I resonate better.

And hopefully, that translates into my writing as well as a way to examine my writing for the sake of storytelling, to communicate a heartfelt moment, a position change on a topic or a first discovery.

If nothing else, I’ll at least end up feeling better than others.

Taking A Page Out of My Own Book - Finding Balance

I actually wrote an article about finding balance in perspective and approach as it pertains to English language learning.

You need to be balanced in how you view communication.

You need to be balanced in how you attempt to learn to communicate.

You need to balance between your listening, speaking, reading, writing, and nonverbal cues. All of it is important to becoming an effective communicator.

And, in this identification that balance in needed in English language learning, it forced me to think about balance in my own life, and in my own work.

And, ultimately, whether I had balance and the effects of that balance/imbalance on my productivity.

And my conclusion was that I am not balanced.

After returning from vacation, I feel like I’m in catch-up mode. That I have so many things I need to do, to wrap up, to start. I have a long long list of things I want to do or that I aspired to start. And yet, I find that I haven’t achieved them.

And I think that it, in part, stems from me not having balance.

After writing a whole article of the importance of balance in English language learning, the importance of putting yourself in situations to communicate in English about things that are interesting and that you are passionate about so that you remain motivated and see the functional growth and benefit , I think it was necessary to admit to myself that I also need to apply that advice about balance to myself.

So something I’m going to try to do is balance my daily goals.

I’ve decided to put constraints on my choice of goals daily and balancing them between professional, personal, domesticated, and artistic. When I decide what I am going to prioritize and focus my attention on, I am only allowed to target one of each type of goal daily.

I find that if allowed to think intellectually about it, I choose professional goals consistently. I constantly prioritize professional goals. What this means is that I am not designing my life balanced and what I think is happening is it is making me regret, neglect, or dislike my professional aspirations, which ultimately sabotages my own professional endeavours. If I come to dislike those goals, how can I expect that put my 100% into them or enjoy the process, or seek to do them more?

I think it becomes more clear that I would choose to laze about, waste my time with doom-scrolling or surfing reddit.

And so we’re going to try it out.

I don’t think I have any big a-ha moments to share at this point or any revelatory achievements, but I do think that deliberately announcing my intention is extremely effective in keeping me accountable and also conscious of these patterns and courses of action to deal with these problems.

By intentionally providing restrictions and constraints on the types of goals I can target each day, I can ensure that I approach my daily designed schedules with balance built in. This will hopefully foster fun, varied, and engaging goals that keep me motivated, energized and eager. And hopefully that then translates to persistence and consistency in my goal achievement, actual completion of those goals, and more rapid completion overall.

I’ll keep you posted on my progress!

Take a Wider Perspective When Considering Productivity

When in doubt, zoom out.

I can often struggle with being diligent and disciplined on a day to day basis. I can have big aspirations that I plan out on the weekends or year-long reviews, but they don’t necessarily translate into accomplishments at the end of the year.

When I scratch my head trying to figure out why exactly they fell apart or fell flat, I often have large periods of time where I am not working on them. Which sucks.

Looking back in hindsight, I’m left with feelings of guilt, wasted time, and nothing to show for it.

So it’s not like I don’t actually want to accomplish those tasks. After all, I was the one who said I wanted to do them.

What I realized is that I should be approaching my daily and weekly schedule like a budget.

What I mean by that is I need to zoom out and organize my time like I do my budget. By doing so and having the perspective on what truly matters to me and what truly is important priotized, I can save up time to accomplish it, just like I would save up money for something I truly want.

Without a budget, it can be very easy to overspend. You lose count of what you spend money on, whether it’s a couple extra drinks at meals, a couple restaurant dinners, a day or two going out for attractions and entertainment, or maybe a couple product purchases off Amazon.

Our time is very similar. It can be extremely easy to waste our time surfing the internet, scrolling Instagram, or TikTok and only recognize it at the end of the day, 1 hour before bed, that you did none of what you hoped to accomplish (whether that was learning or studying a new skill, taking a course, reading a book, practicing a new language).

Perspective shifts can truly do wonders in refocusing our priorities. Because what it does is give us a new perspective on time, something that we often take for granted. We act like we have unlimited time. That if we don’t accomplish something today, there will always be tomorrow.

But time is finite.

Sometimes a perspective shift comes with a crisis. A death in the family, a health scare, or a traumatic and sudden experience frequently reframe time and priorities.

When I say you have 24 hours a day, everyone knows that internally. But not everyone sees each hour as precious time.

Only people who have hours, days, or weeks to live weigh that 1 hour heavily.

What if I told you 262800 hours left to live?

Does that shift your perspective into thinking that 1 hour is more precious?

What if I told you that you only had 168 hours a week? If you sleep 8 hours a day, that’s 48 hours gone. If you work a 40-hour work week, that’s another 40. You’re left with 80 hours a week. Eating three meals a day at roughly 1 hour per meal is 21 hours gone. Furthermore, a majority of your free time will fall on weekends.

My point is that this kind of thought exercise really shifts your perspective into recognizing that an hour on a weekday can be valuable. It is time that can be spent being productive in accomplishing things you actually want to accomplish.

Whether it is directed towards learning a new language, studying, or practicing a new skill versus spent mindlessly scrolling TikTok or surfing the internet is up to you.

But sometimes reframing things in this manner can be an effective reset in our daily routine to actually consciously consider and potentially reconsider how we spend our time.

That subtle perspective shift in reframing time in the context of weeks, months or years rather than within a 24 hour time period can be enough of a jolt to allow you to refocus your priorities or get out of a lazy slump.

Conquering the Overthinking

We’ve all overthought something, spending way too much thinking about something and flip-flopping between all the issues. Whether it’s a girl or guy we like, a project we’re completing, a presentation in front a class or for work, or a job opportunity.

We’ve all been there.

The thoughts seem endless.

I didn’t prepare enough for this!

I’ll be exposed as a fraud. Someone will know I’m not qualified.

What if I got the message wrong? What if they don’t reciprocate my feelings.

And what happens? Even if we try to rationalize with ourselves, it can sometimes cause us to spiral even worse, shut down, or act rashly.

Nick Trenton proposes a different way.

He says that you cannot necessarily think your way out of overthinking.

But there are habits, protocols and practices that might be able to jolt you out of your overthinking and anxiety spiral.

1. 5-4-3-2-1

Slowly count down from 5 to 1.

Use each number to engage one of your senses.

5 - Look at 5 different objectives in your environment

4 - Hear 4 distinct sounds in your environment

3 - Feel 3 sensations in your environment

2 - Detect two smells in your environment

1 - Identify one taste in your environment

The reason that this practice works, it is leverages the fact that human consciousness cannot do more than 1 thing at a time. Our active attention is our spotlight and by shifting our thoughts from our mind to our physical surroundings, you break the anxious, cyclic self-talk.

This brief reprieve from our thoughts in our minds to our surroundings can successfully disrupt the anxious overthinking, which can be that split second moment to regain control over our anxiety and our minds.

2. Counter-Belief Experiment

When we have a certain belief, it can be difficult to examine the situation with fresh eyes or new perspective. The Counter-Belief Experiment intentionally taps into that difference in perspective to try to disrupt a spiralling mind. When we have anxious thoughts about how a situation is bad, it indicates we at some level believe there to be truth in that anxiousness. For example, if I am anxious about the downturn of the stock market, part of me believes it will continue to drop to zero. If I felt no anxiousness towards that downturn , it’s because I believe it will eventually reverse and begin to climb again.

But in those bleaker moments, we can’t seem to see that perspective.

What we need to do is consciously break down these anxiety inducing beliefs.

Step 1 - We must ask ourselves, “What must I believe about myself, others, or the future to justify my anxiety?”

Step 2 - Reverse this belief to establish a counter-belief.

Step 3 - Live the next 60 seconds as if the counter belief is true.

At this point, observe how that affects the anxiety and the thoughts in our minds.

Step 4 - Look for evidence to support this new belief.

With data supporting this counter-belief, the grip that our original belief holds will loosen. This can lower our anxiety and calm our thinking.

Let’s apply it to the stock-market example. The belief that must exist to cause my anxiety is the worry that the stock market will never bounce back. That it will stay in free fall and I’ll lose all my money. The counter-belief would be that the stock market will bounce back, it will return to pre-fall market value. By believing this as true, I can evaluate the reassurance and comfort knowing that my money is not forever lost. Finally, I can look for evidence to support the belief that it will bounce back. Forms of evidence can be historical data post-market crashes and the relative time duration required to return to pre-market crash value.

Certainly, this can feel like cherry-picking data to convince ourselves, but that’s the point. We’re supposed to find data that questions the truth-like grip that those original beliefs may have over us that caused us to spiral in the first place; because we’ve gotten stuck in a negative, spiralling loop.

3. Worry Postponement

When you are stressed and worried, it can be hard to focus. The intrusive thoughts can hijack your thinking and often make it hard to focus throughout the day. Procrastinate on your worrying. Set up a worry appointment reminder in your calendar for some time in the future. Defer it.

By doing this, you acknowledge your need to worry but confine it to a set block of time. You don’t need to worry about it constantly and throughout the entire day because you already have a set time.

It can seem silly but it is an effective way to accomplish 2 things.

1. It empowers you to control your anxiety because you are acknowledging your need to worry. Your brain is worrying because the situation is worrisome. But that’s it. Thanks brain, I acknowledge the worry, but I’ve got a a time for it.

2. It is a very direct way to interrupt anxiety spirals. You aren’t engaging in cycles of spiralling thoughts. You aren’t deferring the worry indefinitely so it just is a constant looming thought in your mind. You’ve just made it an appointment and allotted a time for it.

We can seldom eliminate worry from our lives, but we can consciously limit its time of onset and duration

By implementing these three practices (the 5-4-3-2-1 method, the Counter-Belief Experiment, and Worry Postponement), you can start to take control of your overthinking and anxiety. These practices won't necessarily make your worries disappear, but they will help you manage them in a more productive and healthy way.

Overthinking can be a difficult habit to break, but with practice, you can train your mind to shift its focus away from negative thoughts and towards more positive and productive ones.

Productivity is Subjective. It Doesn’t Have To Make Sense To You.

Sometimes lying on a couch can be productive

Productivity is a subjective experience.

We live in a world where the structure of our childhood upbringing and foundational development muddles that fundamental understanding.

When we evaluate what is productive time spent versus wasted time, that distinction is uniquely determined by us as individuals.

Now, there are systems in place from birth and early childhood that set us up for long-term success and can often be problematic if allowed to persist in adulthood. We have childhood developmental milestones, we have educational grade school milestones, report cards, and academic parchment papers that give credence to our intellect. We have socioeconomic structures in place to judge and evaluate our success in life.

And these constructs ultimately are projected on others, our perception of others, and our perception of ourselves relative to others.

I judge myself for my own success in life relative to my family and friends on a largely economic sense and my lack of matching or exceeding them in that aspect stresses me out.

It gives me a significant level of stress because I feel inadequate, I feel less than, and I constantly need to actively remember and remind myself of the contrary. (I recognize the issue and am working on it 😅).

But I think it’s important to continue to actively remind myself.

Productivity is what it means to you and its a personal choice what you actively choose to do with the time.

It is defined by you as the individual.

It isn’t scored or gauged by a grade. There is no monetary value that deems something worthwhile or productive. There is no final evaluator that measures the productiveness of your life’s work.

There is no equation, no formulaic output, no sure-fire way to qualify whether your time spent on something was productive or not.

All we have is that subjective feeling for ourselves - that feeling in your head whether it was time well spent, looked back on fondly, or that feeling of regret and remorse.

PRODUCTIVITY FOR OTHERS - NONE OF MY BUSINESS

I was listening to a podcast with Matthew Dicks, an author, storyteller, marketing and storytelling consultant, speaking coach, and much more. Talking about Matthew Dicks’ story would in itself be another full blogpost but in summary, he recounts a coaching session with a client in which he encouraged them to laze on the couch with their partner — because it was productive.

Now, an immediate knee-jerk reaction would be WTF?!

But he went on to justify his rationale and explanation.

The idea behind the recommendation being that the client and their spouse were so busy in their professional lives that spending the time together lazing on the couch and watching a television show together was valuable time together.

It struck me that some people don’t have that time for each other.

And that in itself was surprising and interesting to hear.

And secondly, that in some cases, lazing around can be considered productive.

Productive in fostering connection with a loved one.

Productive in prioritizing time with a loved one over time spent on a career, time spent on a business venture, or time spent on a personal goal.

It is time prioritizing your partner, doing an activity you enjoy each other’s company doing.

It forced me to check my own biases, my own quick judgments and assumptions on the lives of others.

And it reinforced this idea.

Who (as a third party) is able to judge you or claim that the time you decide to spend on something is not productive or worthwhile?

Furthermore, if that third party is not you, your partner, or your loved ones, then why would you be willing to give them such sway over your opinion or perception of a decision.

It reiterated to me the subjectivity of experience and therefore the determination about whether something was productive time or not.

PRODUCTIVITY FOR ME: A HINDSIGHT STORY

As I evaluated my own life, there’s always things I could’ve done that would have impacted my economic success. But one’s life is more than just economic success. One’s life is an amalgamation of economic production, interpersonal production, personal production, professional production, fulfillment and all the rest.

Here’s one anecdote from my own life.

When I was in the early stages of dating my wife, I was also newly beginning my career. At the age of 23-24, settling into a new city, living on my own, and after work, I would walk home, hop in my car, and drive 40-50 minutes in traffic to visit her.

Nothing grand or special.

We weren’t doing anything.

No real plans most of the times.

Sometimes, just hanging out in the car at the local park.

Sometimes, grabbing dinner at a standard date spot.

Sometimes, planning around local events such as fireworks on the beach or friend group events.

Any individual interaction in isolation was pretty unproductive.

Can’t say I walked away from those interactions with more money, more time, honing a skill or feeling more knowledgeable.

But looking back at those individual moments as a collection clearly displays the entire body as the most important collective investment of time in my life.

These individual moments are the collective catalogue of my relationship with my wife - an immensely productive time in fostering my relationship with my significant other.

Without these seeming ‘unproductive’ moments, I wouldn’t have a relationship with my wife.

Under that lens, these were critically important moments for me.

Under the lens of someone who isn’t me, who isn’t now in a relationship with my wife, they may view that time as unproductive to their own lives. Because their lives and subjective experience do not receive production from that invested time.

With an empathetic perspective and ability to appreciate the impact on my life, third parties can at times empathize or understand the subjective production but it highlights the necessity for an empathic perspective, which isn’t always guaranteed.

As such, for individuals who do not share that empathic view, the subjectivity of that productive experience is not guaranteed.

Hence, the subjectivity of productivity

Of course, this seems obvious. It’s a DUH moment.

But at the same time, sometimes these truths need to be restated often. They need to be repeated because it is so easy to be swept up.

I don’t necessarily need to justify my actions, investments, desires, and priorities to others because they may not necessarily make sense to others.

And that’s okay.

They don’t HAVE to make sense to others.

As long as they make sense to me and as long as I see it as productive time.

Stolen Focus And How to Reclaim It.

When we think about FOCUS, we don’t typically distinguish the types of focus nor recognize the war waged on our sustained attention.

It’s an insidious degradation born out of technological advances in content generation, content platforms, and content curation that, if left unaddressed or passively allowed, can ultimately corrode our ability to engage in sustained and deep focus.

So, let’s talk about it.

According to Johann Hari, focus can be separated into three types: Spotlight, Starlight, and Daylight.

Some people can be really good at having big dreams and larger-than-life aspirations, but their day-to-day actions don’t reflect or match that drive. They get side-tracked and disturbed, and 2 hours later, they find themselves mindlessly surfing the internet or scrolling on their phone.

Other people can work hard in the moment, and focus on their day-to-day accomplishments but have no larger aspiration or destination in mind. Waking up one day in the future with a crisis-like fervour questioning their existence, happiness, and life to date.

So here they are:

SPOTLIGHT

Spotlight focus is responsible for meaningful progress and acquiring valuable insights. It is our immediate attention.

STARLIGHT

Starlight focus is your overarching prerogative. What are your big-picture north stars and worthwhile goals?

DAYLIGHT

Daylight seems to be the meta-level attention. Monitoring our day-to-day actions, building self-awareness, and knowing with a conscious certainty that what we want is actually what we want.

How do we know that it truly is what we want?

What will we notice when we reach that point?

What will others notice when we reach that point?

THE WORLD WE LIVE IN.

The modern-day world we live in is a sophisticated firehose stream of information that is optimized to demand our attention.

Our ability to focus on these three types of focus is hindered by two things.

1. The Great Acceleration

With social media, content platforms, and the firehose of information that the internet offers, we live in a modern-day world of constant stimulation. It predisposes us to skim information than deep dive into a subject shallowly.

This hit home for me with the following question:

Does the rapid consumption of shallow information ever make you feel calm and ready to do deep work?

Irrespective of whether you retain any shallowly consumed information, it never feels calming nor a facilitator of deep focus. You’re never primed to sit and focus and, in many cases, actually scatterbrained or scattered in your thoughts.

2. The Gradual Deprivation

The other effect of our content-filled world is our acceptance of that content to the detriment of our sleep. As content becomes more sophisticated, more developed, and refined, it becomes more addicting and more captivating. We willingly deprive ourselves of sleep to binge-watch the next craze show, to mindlessly scroll a little longer, and to vicariously peruse the curated lives of friends and celebrities.

Now an additional 30 minutes to an hour may not seem like a lot, but it deprives us of a portion of our REM-sleep, the last component of our sleep cycle prematurely. REM is vital for memory formation, sustained focus and attention. So, in a similar fashion, sleep deprivation can impact your sustained attention and focus.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

There are a few suggestions that Johann Hari proposes.

VERSUS THE GREAT ACCELERATION

Johann proposes a 60-minute rule first thing in the morning.

Don’t touch your phone for the first 60 minutes.

Use the time to re-establish your Daylight, Starlight, and Spotlight focus.

DAYLIGHT

What matters most to me?

What are my strengths and values?

How can I be uniquely valuable to others?

STARLIGHT

Write down your long-term objectives and think of some weekly and daily goals that will get you to those objectives.

SPOTLIGHT

Spend the remaining 60-minute duration and go deep on one daily goal until the 60 minutes have elapsed.

Whatever you choose to work on, do it slowly and methodically

An additional rule that Johann proposes is specific to phone use.

THE PHONE RULE

Any time you try to unlock your phone, open your favourite eBook reader app and read a few paragraphs of a book before checking whatever it is you intended to check. Whether that be your social media feed, chats, email, Facebook, or whatever else.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a researcher in flow states and positive psychology, indicates reading books was the simplest and most reliable way for people to experience flow. Reading is effective in facilitating deep-focus work.

VERSUS THE GRADUAL DEPRIVATION

Pre-commitment is key. Using both physical restrictions as well as social restrictions imposes an environment that limits the temptations.

PHYSICAL RESTRICTIONS

Johann proposes the use of physical restrictions to limit your phone addiction and content consumption before bed. For example, deleting applications off your phone and instead only having access to those applications on a tablet. By physically locking that tablet away 2 hours before bed, you won’t be tempted to binge-watch a TV show and stay away late.

Other options include using applications that restrict access to other apps or using smart power outlets that cut out power at a certain time to devices such as your smart TV.

Discipline and structure with these physical restrictions remove the need for cognitive willpower.

SOCIAL RESTRICTIONS

Additionally, social restrictions can serve you as well. Whether that is publicly announcing a hiatus or informing your friends and loved ones of your commitment to a technology-free bed time, taking active action to inform others of your intentions supports their respect for your boundaries. Otherwise, they may be inadvertent enablers of your phone addiction.

IN SUMMARY

Here’s what you can do.

Step 1 - Develop awareness of the things that steal your attention and focus.

Step 2 - Implement two habits to beat the Great Acceleration

#1. 60-minute morning routines to re-establish your Starlight, Daylight, and Spotlight focus

#2. Use a phone rule to build sustained and deep focus from book reading

Step 3 - Prioritize sleep using physical and social restrictions

Ultimately, Johann Hari says we have to decide NOW whether we value attention and focus. We must ask ourselves whether being able to think deeply matters to us and whether we want it for our children. If we do, we have to fight for it and be deliberate on how we foster and protect it.

What I take away from it is a consistent theme across multiple books and personalities about the importance of deliberate and intentional decision-making in creating our lives. Our lives are as actively or passively shaped as we let them be. With the march of time being unceasing, unless we take an active role in how our lives play out, we are at the bidding of external factors and others who wish to use us for their own lifestyles, whether that be as a market for their product, a side-character in their hero story, or anything else.

And in the world of productivity, it means that we have to create rules deliberately, guiding principles deliberately, and habits to keep us on the path that we intellectually aspire to be on because too many external forces are vying for our attention.

Storyworthy

Here again with another interesting application of Productivity Game’s YouTube Video Book Summaries.

In this case, we’re talking about StoryWorthy by Matthew Dicks.

I can’t tell you when exactly, but over the course of my adult life, I came to the realization that tugging on people’s heart strings and getting people emotionally invested in my thoughts and feelings was the only way to connect with people on a deeper level.

Now this may sound like common sense to you reading this, but for me, I used to feel emotions were the messy, unpredictable chaos of life that I didn’t want or need. They made life confusing, upsetting, and painful. Now, obviously I understand that in order to connect with my loved ones, my closest people, that its necessary.

I’m not some heartless person.

But I feel like I close myself off to strangers, to new friends, and acquaintances until I eventually warm up to them.

As I got older, I would pessimistically judge those who were so open emotionally quickly. Judge them for being naive, optimistic.

Why share so much of yourself to a stranger?

Why waste your time?

What’s the point?

Enter StoryWorthy by Matthew Dicks, a book about captivating an audience via your stories, via your experience, via your life perspective.

And I wanted that.

I want people to enjoy my company and feel more connected to me.

I want to develop that skill for myself to use.

I want that capacity to connect emotionally with people quickly if I choose to.

Whether that is for making connections quickly, whether that is to sell you a product or a service, or whether that is to persuade or convince you to support me or be on my side, engaging storytelling is a hugely useful tool.

Boiling It Down To 5 Seconds.

All great stories tell the story of a five second moment in a person's life.

5 seconds to hook you in.

5 seconds to have a visceral change. A realization that your life is never going to be the same.

As a society, we already put these moments on a pedestal.

That moment you realize you fell out of love with your ex.

That moment you realized you loved your partner.

That moment you stepped into the spotlight and knew you belonged.

That moment you realized you made a terrible mistake.

Everything in a captivating story must build up to a 5-second moment - a transformative moment.

And after that 5-second moment, you or your subject, as the main character are different.

I was once this but now I am this.

I once thought this but now I think this.

I once felt this but now I feel this.

Reverse Engineer The Beginning.

Now that you have a transformative moment, identify what you were before. What once was. What no longer is. Distinguish what is pre-event and post-event and establish the events that led to that change.

The events that led to that transformation should be told with one of three techniques.

1. Start With Action.

2. Misdirection.

3. Pause Before the Big Reveal.

Start With Action.

Start mid-action. No build-up. Straight into action. Action means energy, tension and potential chaos. You don’t have time to build to action and must start with tension with eventual resolution or release of tension.

Starting a story halfway down the river just before realizing I was heading towards a waterfall builds tension and the need for resolution.

Starting a story when you wake up, getting ready to kayak, renting a kayak, heading out, getting lost, going down the wrong path, and then realizing I was heading toward a waterfall requires too many steps of build up and risks the loss of attention.

Misdirection.

Leading people to incorrect assumptions creates tension that needs to be resolved or corrected. By building moments for misdirection, you hook an audience into vested interest.

Now, there are three ways to do this.

1. Tell the audience your plan and then derail your plan. By leading with a designed plan, an expectation of smooth sailing and subsequent chaotic derailment, the audience is hooked into the story. They are in on the plan and want to see it through to completion. Now that there’s absolute chaos, they need to know how it is resolved.

2. Make False Assumptions. Lead into the events of your story by making false assumptions about what happens next. Explaining how you expect things to go followed by a disruptive, unexpected event similarly builds audience investment. And finally, after reaching my goal I could finally relax…. creates the perfect storm for tension.

3. Hint at something that’s about to happen and then reveal something unexpected. By dropping breadcrumbs, you give the audience just enough information to start guessing what’ll happen but not enough to guess right. The jarring revelation of their incorrect assumptions leads to intrigue in what really happened which means attentive listening and a captivated audience.

Pause Before The Big Reveal.

Finally, the pause before the big reveal. As the story goes on, it can be tempting to quickly reveal the big moment, the resolution, the finale. But don’t.

Delay, delay, delay.

Stop time in that moment. Explain the situation seconds before the big moment in vivid detail. Set the stage. Describe the moment in excruciating detail. That build-up is good story telling.

All That’s Left To Do Is Practice.

So, here I am with these theoretical tools in mind.

And I hope that it makes me a better engaging conversationalist. But it’ll take me intentionally practicing my storytelling to organize my thoughts this way.

Hopefully this becomes my 5-second moment; where my outlook on connecting with strangers, getting listener buy-in on my story and captivating an audience become a skill.

Sometimes it can be hard to care deeply or connect authentically about people when all you have are shallow interactions. By connecting via storytelling quickly, perhaps my perspective on the whole point of it might change as I get people to invest in me and subsequently I see them in a new perspective, lower my guard, and begin to care deeply about them.