Active Recall!

Podcasts, videos, and iPad art

Justin Timberlake, Zuck, and making things cleaner (PCxCP vol. 6 of 52)

A lesson from The Social Network: Figure out what the clean version is, but you don’t have to do it immediately

In The Social Network, Justin Timberlake is a Silicon Valley sage and gives some solid advice “Drop the ‘the’…” 

When I first started writing these posts, I had this tagged as “Pop Culture x Productivity”. I threw the “Creative” in there to

  • Make it a little more focused
  • Make it symmetric

PCxP vs. PCxCP

It’s cleaner.

In the end, either would be fine. But it gives me a little joy seeing that symmetry and that’s enough to make it worth it.

Some words matter a lot more than others. “Facebook” really is cleaner than “The Facebook”. I have no insight, but I’m guessing it mattered.

Spending an hour re-arranging a sentence in the middle of a book? Probably doesn’t matter.

MrBeast spends hours thinking of what title a video will have before actually making the video. In his case, every single word in the title really matters.

Spending hours thinking of a video title when you haven’t made or published a single video? The title doesn’t matter as much as actually making the thing.

MrBeast built up expertise to the point that single words  matter.

Zuck was in a situation where single words mattered.

Figure out when individual details matter and when they don’t.

Take the extra effort when they do. Don’t waste a bunch of time when they don’t.

Hobbits and moving slowly to move far (PCxCP vol. 5 of 52)

A lesson from The Lord of the Rings: Go very very far by walking

I remember getting the Extended DVDs of The Lord of the Rings—anyway, in one of the making-of DVD specials, someone points out that Frodo and Sam and always walking left to right. Which was a pretty important distinction, because they walk a whole lot throughout the trilogy.

You’re better off with a walking mindset if you want to create something for the long term.

There are times for sprinting, but Frodo and Sam would have never made it if they tried to sprint the entire way from Hobbiton to Mordor.

You need rest, you need to hide, sometimes you need to fake die.

I’m sprinting on this project right now. All the posts in this series so far have been written on a Saturday afternoon. This is #5 so far. I have some momentum and I want to use it wisely.

But I know I won’t get to post #52 today. Or even #20. I can sense some slow down and I’m going to take that rest soon.

Maybe I’ll do 3 or 4 more tomorrow also, but I won’t keep that pace up. Eventually it’ll slow down to (hopefully) 1 a day. That’s sustainable.

I’ll do 20% with the initial sprint, but the rest will come in that walking pace.

Figure out when you can sprint, it’s useful. But if you have a longer goal, remember that you’ll cover most of the ground by walking.

Interstellar and figuring out the time warps to avoid (PCxCP vol. 4 of 52)

A lesson from Interstellar: Good god don’t waste your time

You’re walking around taking measurements, shin deep in water. You look up and a 1000-ft wave is approaching. All you can see is a wall of water.

You are, of course, on Miller’s Planet. You escape (with a little less cargo!) but when you return to your ship, you realize just how long you were on that time-warped planet.

Years evaporated.

Don’t let that happen to you. Figure out your time sinks and avoid them.

For me, lately, it’s been Twitter. Don’t get me wrong, it can be a great tool. Same with all other social media and social news sites. I haven’t set myself up for it to be a great tool, so it’s become an incredible time sink.

I just logged off of Twitter right before writing this, but I should really just have someone change my password for me and stay off it for a longer period of time.

It’s an ongoing thing where I’ve been trying different things to stop using it. But it can be so tempting to see what other people are thinking, what they’re making, and checking to see if anyone liked that thing I posted. 

I can do it for hours at a time just checking the same thing over and over.

It might be a different app or site or activity for you. But figure out what the Miller’s Planet of productivity is for you. Where time melts and you have no work to show for it.

Then do everything you can to avoid it.

What is NBA Top Shot? (Remove the game, remove the shoes)

Made this video about NBA Top Shot and a hunch about why it’s popular: people hate standing in lines but love to talk about standing in lines. It’s really cool packaging for gameless loot boxes. (Also: People love money.)

NBA Top Shot allows you to stand in a digital line to get a digital pack of digital highlights. The packs are limited. Rare highlights can be resold at a much higher value.

Digital collectibles were made popular through computer games. You could buy different items, skins, that sort of thing, and then resell it for real money.

NBA Top Shot allows you to do that without the game.

Number two: NBA Top Shot removed the shoes. You used to stand in line outside of a physical store to get in on a drop, buy shoes, and then you could resell those. Some people were building up their collections, but the value comes from reselling and the reseller market.

That experience became digital through things like the SNKRS app, where you could stand in a digital line to get physical shoes.

NBA Top Shot removed the shoes from this. You stand in the digital line to get a digital good that you can resell without having to go to the post office.

NBA Top Shot removed the game and removed the shoes.

Tony Stark and starting with a bang but going through a cave (PCxCP vol. 3 of 52)

A lesson from Iron Man: Remember that you’ll go through a cave

Okay so after 11 years, everyone comes through the portal and it’s the greatest live theater moment in decades.

But it all started with a bang. The first scene of Iron Man has Tony Stark riding in a truck that explodes. Then he’s locked in a cave.

You’re going to need to work through a cave at some point in your creative work.

Shaan Puri, host of My First Million and just one of my all around favorite internet people, often talks about the importance of mindset. With some experience, he learned one of the most important things when starting a new business (but this can be applied to your creative work too).

There’s going to be a plateau.

It’s like being in that cave. Tony Stark was able to get out of it without preparing beforehand because he’s a generational genius and could MacGyver right outta there.

You’re not a generational genius.

So you’ll just need to remember that, with any project, you’ll probably start off with a bang. The enthusiasm is there. But you’ll need to go through the cave. The plateau.

If you know it’s coming, you can prepare for it.

If you don’t, you might never leave the cave and go on to save the entire MCU. (Or at least come back to write your next page.)

Inception and realizing your superpower (PCxCP vol. 2 of 52)

A lesson from Inception: Realize your superpower

There’s a scene in Inception where Ariadne becomes aware she’s in a dream. She starts creating and moving huge objects in the world. She can manipulate the world on her own.

She’s realized her superpower.

You have one, too. And when you realize it you can start leaning into it.

I often think of Seth Godin’s Linchpin where talks about the idea that everyone is an artist*. Whatever you do at work that can be easily done by other people, that’s not art. But the tasks that only you can do: that’s your art. 

That’s your superpower.

Some people’s superpowers involve business, running meetings, a/b testing ads, presenting to groups.

Once you figure out what that is—even better if you enjoy it—then you can:

  • Develop that skill further
  • Increase the amount of time you’re doing it
  • Figure out ways to apply it to the rest of your work
  • Teach your art to other people

Then, like Ariadne, you can create doors from nothing and open them to new opportunities.

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[*] I also appreciated Bob Iger’s answer to a question about creativity in an interview. The interviewer asks if he looks at himself as a bit of an artist—one of those business is more art than science sort of things. He basically says, no, the people writing Marvel and Pixar stories are artists. Wouldn’t want to compare mysef