I can’t help but feel that there is always way too much to do and too little time. The amount of books that have been written on the subject indicate its not just my problem. (Here’s a short list of 1 00+ books curated by BookAuthority.com ). Adding further to my misery is the fact that the list of things that I want to do keeps getting longer while the time and energy I have seems to shrink. In my quest to address my temporal sorrows, I have attended time management courses, watched a ton of Youtube videos, and yes, read many books but there are two quotes from Tim Ferriss; who is one of my favorite authors, podcasters, and human beings; that I end up returning to time and time again. In fact, for a long time, I had written these down on sticky notes and made them a permanent feature of my working desk. They are: “What you do is more important than how you do everything else, and doing something well does not make it important.” “Being busy is a form of laziness — lazy...
Deepwork a term coined by Cal Newport is referenced multiple times by Lex Fridman in his podcast. In fact, one of the youtube videos where Lex Fridman is explaining his daily routine, it is clear that Deepwork is central to his day. I admire Lex Fridman for his philosophical outlook on life, the knowledge that he conveys to the world through his podcast and his love centered worldview. So I picked up Cal Newport’s Deepwork and took some notes to share with friends and family. Cal Newport is a seminal and authentic thinker — his philosophy towards work and learning is laid out in the series of books he has produced. TL;DR The idea: Deepwork is valuable Deepwork is rare Deepwork is meaningful The rules Work Deeply Embrace Boredom Quit Social Media Drain the shallows In the first part of the book Cal lays out the foundations of why working deeply is becoming more and more important in today’s world. Most people today are bombarded by information and distractions making the abil...
I was thinking about making a video to mark the end of the year. It seemed apt to talk about goal setting since this is what I (and I am sure many others) are thinking about this time of the year. However, instead of talking about what goals to set in 2023, I want to talk about what 2022 has taught me. Here are the lessons. 1. The magic of thinking small Over the years, I used to set extraordinarily difficult goals with the mindset that even if I don't reach the goals, I would have made significant progress. Unfortunately for me, that would usually turn into an intimidating goal. I would procrastinate and the more I ran away from it, the scarier the goal became. Long story short, I would feel bad at the end of the year and set even more audacious goals - hence repeating the cycle. 2. Doing less, not more I, like many others, have a lot of interests. There are many things that I think are cool - so many books to read, courses to attend, Youtube, Podcasts, Blogging. In a burst of...