Active Recall!

Podcasts, videos, and iPad art

BASB: Intermediate packets, attention residue (and Brian Scalabrine)

At some point this week, you’ve probably been distracted by something while working. Getting back into your focused state might’ve been easy or hard or hard enough that you didn’t get focused again for the rest of the day.

Intermediate packets might help.

It’s a concept from Building a Second Brain to describe a form of expression (E in the C-O-D-E framework).

Reading a book from cover to cover is difficult. Writing it straight through would be nearly impossible. Instead, it helps to compose the book from intermediate packets.

The internet makes it possible to share intermediate packets and create feedback loops as you go along.

If the first thing you share for feedback for a 250 page book is a 350 page draft, you’ll only be able to get high-level feedback from people with patience to read 350 pages of unpolished work.

If you share an idea as a tweet, then 3 pages here, a full section there, you’ll be able to get more diverse feedback.

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Another benefit of intermediate packets is that they’re things that you can start and finish in a working session without creating an open loop that drains your energy the rest of the day.

Unfinished work can create attention residue that pulls your attention from the work in front of you right now. From Cal Newport’s Deep Work

The problem this research identifies with this work strategy is that when you switch from some Task A to another Task B, your attention doesn’t immediately follow—a residue of your attention remains stuck thinking about the original task. This residue gets especially thick if your work on Task A was unbounded and of low intensity before you switched, but even if you finish Task A before moving on, your attention remains divided for a while.

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The reason I started writing this post was because a friend sent a link to this Brian Scalabrine interview where he talks about playing against amateurs.

I wanted to share it in some form but felt some friction. I’d want to grab a quote from it but didn’t want to transcribe it immediately since I wanted to listen to the entire thing first.

I didn’t really have an idea for a full post to write about it or where it might fit into a bigger post.

I didn’t want to just throw the link into Evernote either. (David Allen jokes that Evernote is Write-only for many people. I fall into that category more often than not.)

And it just reminded me of the BASB lesson about intermediate packets and that the goal is to know what to work on based on context, usually time and mood.

  • Malcolm Gladwell writes in the morning. He loves running but feels it’d be a waste of all that cognitive energy available in the morning if he used it for a run.
  • Ryan Holiday reads and writes in the morning and similarly loves running. He’ll run in the morning only if he knows that he won’t be able to make the time for it later in the day.
  • Shea Serrano often tweets “prime writing hours” after 11pm-ish

It’ll be different for everyone.

In my case, I don’t quite have an answer for “I just want to share a quick link and a quote”. But I can use this blog as my home for intermediate packets of all sizes.

Share a link + some thoughts. (This post got longer than expected.)

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In Deep Work, Cal Newport writes about counter examples: CEOs of large companies who live lives wading through distraction while still being effective:

Why? Because the necessity of distraction in these executives’ work lives is highly specific to their particular jobs. A good chief executive is essentially a hard-to-automate decision engine, not unlike IBM’s Jeopardy!-playing Watson system. They have built up a hard-won repository of experience and have honed and proved an instinct for their market. They’re then presented inputs throughout the day—in the form of e-mails, meetings, site visits, and the like—that they must process and act on. To ask a CEO to spend four hours thinking deeply about a single problem is a waste of what makes him or her valuable.

Which does have a connection to Brian Scalabrine. To play in the NBA, you need to be a hard-to-automate decision engine. Scalabrine talks about playing amateurs 1-on-1 on Duncan Robinson’s podcast:

In the NBA you’ve got to be so on top of the reads.

It’s not… it’s not speed.

You can’t look at me and say my brain is slow. My brain is fast. My body might be slow. But you have to read whether a guy’s going to shoot, drive, go to the middle, go to pass.

If you’re not reading those things, you’re not playing in the NBA. There’s countless guys—6’10” athletic, strong—and they don’t read the intricacies of the game. They don’t see a hesitation dribble. They don’t move until the ball is passed.

Duncan, I’m moving when the ball is on the gather. If I’m not, I’m dead. I’m dead in the water.

Me having to analyze the game like that. It allows me to play a guy 1-on-1, I can literally, in the middle of his inside-out move, think what I’m eating for dinner and still challenge his shot. It’s not like I’m doing this against high-level people.

He’ll also remind you: when it comes to basketball skill, he’s much closer to LeBron James than you are to him.

Ramit Sethi: Scrape the meat off the bones

I buy too many courses. That became pretty obvious last year and I’m finally taking a little bit of action.

Hopefully I can

  • Actually finish the material from some courses
  • Apply some of the material

I’ve been spending some time the past couple days getting organized with all the different course links and files. (Using some of the organization ideas from Build a Second Brain.)

I need to make the courses easier to consume. (Sean D’Souza’s courses often touch on the importance of easy consumption of courses.)

And the reason I mentioned “meat off the bones” is it’s a module title in one of Ramit Sethi’s courses. Basically: squeeze all the value you can out of the courses and other info products you buy.

I’ve often heard the advice to go through material, re-read a book, watch the videos, etc. 10 times.

10 times to really absorb the concepts and give yourself a chance to try applying the concepts.

So that’s what I’ll be aiming to do: going back through courses, sharing as I go along. (Maybe the gimmick can be doing a notecard for different lessons.)

Scraping meat off different bones.

Eventually mixing them together.

Then I can take the bones as fundamentals and re-create the same animal, different beast.

iPad Pro Drawing Practice: Face 01 | Book: “Framed Ink” | Procreate Timelapse

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I started doing some practice sessions by freehand copying from the book “Framed Ink” by Marcos Mateu-Mestre.

I mentioned a progression of drawing method for learning in a previous post. It was from a Delacroix exhibit. I’ll quote the exhibit description here:

Delacroix endorsed a three-step pedagogical method: beginning with tracing, progressing to freehand copying, and then drawing from memory.

As always, I’ve finally found some path to pursue with dedication for the next few years. For probably the 3rd time in the past couple weeks. Each path has been different. Today’s shiny idea is to just learn to draw and record that process over the next year.

(Last week’s idea: redo the blog and document that for a year. Week before that: rebuild the podcast and document that for a year. Week before that: retry daily Twitter threads. Week before that…)

What would really be worth doing: giving each a go for 30 days to try to sample before specializing. Actually getting to day 30 in any of them would be a good sign that it’s some mix of sustainable and enjoyable enough that I could pursue it for a year (and beyond).

  • I kick myself for not sticking with drawing because I think I could have improved quite a bit if I stuck with it from when I first got the iPad Pro
  • I kick myself for not sticking with podcasting because it’s just the most fun thing and the content that I would want to hold on to if it was all burning in a fire (none really have any size audience so that isn’t a factor)
  • I kick myself for not sticking with making videos because it’s the one that has some audience traction

And in all of them, I kick myself for buying courses specific to each without really applying the things.

I was comforted recently in the misery-loves-company way because I saw a few tweets where people share their list of unfinished courses. I actually thought I was the only one with such an extensive list.

Georges St-Pierre: Not impressed with your performance (but will keep it to himself next time)

I do wish this drawing looked more like GSP but hey, it’s practice. Anyway. I drew him because I listened to his interview on Lewis Howes’ podcast this morning. Some quick notes before I head off for a walk.

  • Being bullied as a kid helped him build mental resilience as an adult but it’s not without its downsides. First: being bullied as a kid sucks.
  • If you’re 35 with 3 straight losses with a dream of going pro… it might be time to let that dream go. This was part of a section where he talks about why he always tells kids to keep studying. It’s very very hard to make a living fighting. In 2 ways. First, the likelihood is just low—the level you need to get to requires years of dedication with the right training approach. Second, if you do make it to where you’re fighting for money, it’s still rarely enough to retire on after you’re done fighting. (Yes, even in the UFC.)
  • He regrets that “I am not impressed with your performance” line… he apologized to Matt Hughes later. It wasn’t the right thing to try and take someone’s moment away from them to shine the light on himself. (Still one of the greatest post-fight moments ever.)
  • The gym is the happiest and saddest place… He loves the gym because it’s where he gets to train. He gets to make both his body and mind better at the gym. But he knows it can be a sad place true because, as mentioned above, he sees a lot of people with dreams that won’t get fulfilled. And it can be easy to fall in love with outcomes that will never come instead of learning to love the training.
  • Overconfident + Fearless = On the mat with Matt Serra punching your face — He says he was always afraid for every fight, except the fight against Matt Serra which he lost. Never again would he go into a fight feeling that overconfident.
  • Eventually, tapping to strikes became okay… In the moment and months and years after, he looked at it as a moment of weakness. You tap to submissions but not to strikes. Tapping to strikes is more of “I quit” where tapping to submissions can be more of “Okay you got me”. He’s at peace with it now though and knows that it was better than taking more unnecessary strikes to the head. Those add up, fast.

Okay I’m off to the gym to try and fall in love with (a different kind of) training a little bit.

1-2-3-4 idea for future tweets

Title: This ONE (TWO THREE FOUR) trick will help you learn FAST
Thumbnail: Me but like goro with 4 arms and then each hand has me putting up 1 finger, 2, fingers, 3 fingers, 4 fingers…

Okay so just want to jot an idea down right now that might have legs. Tried it here:

https://twitter.com/activerecall/status/1409694003721764865/photo/1

I’ll call it like the 1-2-3-4 technique or something like that.

  • Problem: Listen to podcasts but sometimes forget what I listen to or don’t have time to pause to take notes on the episode
  • Solution: A framework for just-enough notes

What’s just enough? For an episode, four takeaways with small visuals seems like a good amount of learning. I don’t think I could keep up other sites if I was trying to the straightforward approach of taking good, digestible notes of entire episodes. That requires listening to the episode and typing at the same time.

Instead this system will help me recall a few things as soon as I have a minute to sketch out some ideas.

Enough explanation, here’s what it is.

Take a notecard or sheet of paper, draw 2 lines for 4 boxes. In the boxes, draw…

Box 1 : fact or figure — A nice cue for this is if you hear a big number or small number or probably just any number. Earning $10 million, living on $7000 for a year, etc…

Box 2: contrast — This was one of the visual filters that stuck with me from the Visualize Value fundamentals course. In any interview, there‘s bound to be some useful comparison. Either some bad process vs a better one, some company vs another, or a before & after.

Box 3: tiny story — Similar to above, there’s going to be some story worth sharing from any podcast episode. Usually, someone being interviewed will tell some portion of their career arc. The 3-step story is the basic story formula: beginning, middle, end. The middle box is really all you need: some key epiphany or mentor or obstacle. Then paint how much a lazy slob they were before and how successful and white their teeth became in the “after” box.

Box 4: 2×2 (4 boxes) — Apparently a management consultant classic. The 2×2 matrix always helps in a deck and makes it look like you structured your thinking. Which, to be fair, you did. There isn’t always an obvious 2×2 in every podcast episode, but you can usually come up with one if you’re keeping an eye out. You can skew any “keys to success” or “what do you look for in…” answers into a 2×2.

So there you has it. The takeaway framework I’ll experiment with for future podcast notes. And probably book notes too.

A 1-2-3-4 recap:

  • 1 fact
  • 2 things compared (this vs that)
  • 3-step story
  • 4 boxes (2×2 matrix)

Enough writing about listening and back to actually listening!

Road to 159: week 3 of 8

[todo – insert previous week links here]

Progress

  • Starting weight: 170 pounds
  • Current weight: 170 pounds (no change)
  • Goal: 159 pounds

On one hand, maintaining through a camping trip and baseball game is sort of an accomplishment. In the other hand: an enormous hot dog while palming the corner of a family size bag of sea salt potato chips.

What went well: Got the workouts in

It seems like RPT 3X a week is sustainable. Though that is much better judged in hindsight. (“This P90X thing 6 days a week is sustainable for life.” – me after reading a P90X sales page.)

But yeah the workouts are short enough that there’s not really much of an excuse time-wise. It also reminds me how good it can feel to see the numbers of weights going up.

Also: I did see 166 lbs on the scale before heading off to the camping trip. Yes, just removing water weight. But yes, it’s still encouraging. (Which seems fair since water weight gain can be discouraging.)

What can be improved: social eating, restaurant choices

Maybe I can actually order a salad? It might be allowed but I’ll have to see in the next restaurant trip.

Oh, if I could take one binge back: we busted out a bag of potato chips in the middle of a walk around the lake near the campsite.

I just couldn’t stop.

Or the pig inside me couldn’t or whatever I need to visualize. I didn’t win that fight-thru.

I’ll actually have a quick turnaround rematch though: we’re going camping again this coming weekend. Maybe I can kick off July—final month before I wed my friends—with a step in the right direction.

Experiment: Protein shake + Greens powder lunches

This is one of the short term protocols that Pat Flynn recommends for fat loss. Use protein shakes to replace some meals through the week. Again, it’s not a plan to follow for life.

(I’ll apologize to P90X right here because I know they probably emphasize some form of rest weeks between running the program again. I never got that far.)

I think I can do it because my hunger in the middle of the day is rarely the issue—it’s binging at social meals.

Info Diet – fitness content: Ryen Russilo

Ryen Russilo: Life Fitness Advice with Jeremy Scott — I’ve reached the “fitness for older men” age and am glad this is a heavily targeted demographic. Really enjoyed this episode since I trust Russilo’s BS filter and it had some good tips for the long game. (“The INFINITE GAME!!!!”)

  • You can hoop 5 days a week but you can’t do it and expect to lift heavy and slap muscle on — This mostly made me miss playing pickup basketball. At most, I was more a 2X a week casual. In any case, it was a reminder that fitness means tradeoffs. Yes, you should find something you enjoy. But don’t get too frustrated if it doesn’t align perfectly with some other results. I’ll try to put a day shooting around into my active recovery.

Don’t spend more on supplements than you do on health food

    — this episode did get me to start using the greens powder again. But I also know that I need to cook more meals and should probably continue searching for recipes I enjoy if this is going to be a long term thing.

Alright that’s solid for now. I’ll be back next week, after camping trip #2, where I’ve hopefully managed to avoid a crazy s’more binge.

The road continues!!!