Active Recall!

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Plan right in the editor (how an editorial calendar is helping me be more consistent)

I started using a WordPress plug-in that gives you a calendar view of your posts:

This is another step toward writing in the editor by default. Asking ‘why’ a couple more times:

  • Why write in the WordPress editor if it’s easier to just write in Ulysses, Evernote, Cold Turkey Writer… (all tools I also really like)? I’m writing with the intent to publish posts regularly. There’s a little more friction up front to writing in WordPress: if I’m just waking up, it’s a lot easier to open up iOS Notes and start writing there. No need to think. It delays the friction. Once I think something is shaping up then I need to move it over to WordPress at some point anyway. Some integrations make this seamless so that I could skip going into WordPress at all. At some point I do end up with two copies: the published version and the text editor version.
  • Why are you trying to publish posts regularly? I write just about every day. A lot of times it is with the intent to publish, but with the above process I end up not actually transferring things over to WordPress. I end up not publishing anything. Writing in a frictionless text editor where I also write 1 word or 3 sentence notes for things means I’m kind of used to writing in a brainstormy way. (“Nobody’s going to see this anyway.”) Lots of ideas can be good until they start to look like evidence that you don’t finish things. One way to ward off that negative lens is to also have a lot of evidence that you do finish things.
  • Why do you want to be someone who finishes things? That’s too far up the ‘why’ chain. Emotions are involved. Let’s get back to this editorial calendar.

Okay so the good thing is that I can plan out posts and stick to the schedule. I can build trust in some past self that deemed this order of content the proper order of things. If I have something that’s really exciting to me at the moment, then I can bump it up sooner but at least do a quick check to rank it against other ideas I wanted to write about.

There’s also a view for opening up a small text-only editor. It’s the right amount of space for me to jot some topics down and add a quote. At the same time, it reminds me not to go too deep into the post yet.

If I’m good about things, I’ll always have a book quote and some bullet notes ready to write about first thing in the morning. Then I can create before consuming.

Summary: Having a calendar is helpful, who would’ve thought???

Create before you consume (and maybe stop consuming some things altogether)

Check out the full notes for “Creative Calling: Establish a Daily Practice, Infuse Your World with Meaning, and Succeed in Work + Life” by Chase Jarvis

I’m reading Creative Calling by Chase Jarvis (I’ll write a book stack update tomorrow). I’ve listened to Chase Jarvis’s podcast for a few years and his appearance on Tim Ferriss’s podcast is one of those episodes that, if it were a book, I would put face out on the bookshelf. I was excited to see that he released an actual book.

It’s got a lot of practical advice for living a creative life and building creative practice into your day. One good time to try out: first thing in the morning. One way to make this work: aim to create something before you start consuming things.

If the first thing you do each day is pick up your phone and cruise all your favorite creators and entrepreneurs for inspiration, you probably end up feeling anxious or depressed that you’re not far enough along. The simple act of creating something with intention first, before consuming the work of others, alters the dynamic.

In Stillness is the Key, Ryan Holiday writes about the importance of protecting your mind from all of the inputs of the outside world.

The way you feel when you awake early in the morning and your mind is fresh and as yet unsoiled by the noise of the outside world—that’s space worth protecting. So too is the zone you lock into when you’re really working well. Don’t let intrusions bounce you out of it. Put up barriers. Put up the proper chuting to direct what’s urgent and unimportant to the right people.

You have stillness when you wake up.

There are a few things you can do to maintain that stillness1. One thing you can do is create something without any inputs—journal, draw, take some pictures.

Once that’s done then you can get on with the millions of things you do that break that stillness.

October Book Stack Progress

My October book stack currently looks something like…

  • Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday—He wrote The Obstacle is the Way (Wally and I discussed this book in one of our earliest episodes) and Ego is the Enemy (which I mentioned in this post about keeping your ego in check). I read this about half with the physical copy and half with Kindle. I think this book will convince a few people to slow down, sleep a little more, and check in on news 50 times a day instead of 500. Some action I took immediately as a result of reading the book: I started writing in a Moleskine again along with writing in Five-Minute Journal app every day.
  • Creative Calling by Chase Jarvis—Jarvis’s appearance on Tim Ferriss’s podcast is one of my all-time favorites. (Check out my notes on that episode here. And this video I made about their focusing question: “What might this look like if it were easy?”) Some action I’ve taken: I suspect the last few blog posts I’ve written have been because the book has got me itching to publish smaller things more consistently. In the same vein as “love is a verb”, being consistent is one of the best ways to express passion for whatever your art is1. It’s a feedback loop: you do it frequently, you get better at it, you grow more passionate about it, and you can continue to do it frequently.  2

Those notes got a little long so I’m going to just list out other books and send this off into the world.

I’ve started these recently and am still deciding on which to continue on with this month:

  • A Fighter’s Mind by Sam Sheridan
  • Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
  • Insanely Simple by Ken Segall
  • The Laws of Simplicity by John Maeda

Some things I’m re-reading (aka re-skimming) or which I’m not counting toward the 4. Worth mentioning because they’re some of the things I’m thinking about but I’m not giving them deep reads:

  • Bigger, Leaner, Stronger by Michael Matthews
  • Lean vs. Agile vs. Design Thinking (I finished this but it was a 45m audiobook so I’m not counting it toward the 4 for the month)

Journaling toward stillness

Check out the full notes for “Stillness Is the Key” by Ryan Holiday

I’m writing this at the gym and have made it here every day for a week. Miracles can happen. Consistency over intensity is a principle I try to follow. Not that I lean toward intensity—it’s that my workouts are already not that intense so I should at least aim to be consistent with them.

Anyway, I want to get back to posting regularly and I can apply that principle to creating content as well. Though I guess it’s more like consistency over quality. (Which, now that I’m writing it, is restating quantity over quality.)

Actually, maybe it really should be this idea of consistency over intensity. I often create 4-hour time blocks on a weekend where I think I’ll write 2 posts and make a podcast episode and a video. It of course leads to just making a draft of a video, 0 posts, and no podcast.

So I’ll try doing this for at least 3 posts: 1 book quote with some thoughts.

Here’s the first, from Ryan Holiday’s Stillness is the Key (which I finished reading last night):

What’s the best way to start journaling? Is there an ideal time of day? How long should it take?

Who cares?

How you journal is much less important than why you are doing it: To get something off your chest. To have quiet time with your thoughts. To clarify those thoughts. To separate the harmful from the insightful. I want this blog to be a place for collecting other people’s polished ideas and sharing my own rough thoughts. My public journal.

Mission: take this turkey to the editor as fast as possible

I’m starting this in Cold Turkey Writer and I plan to move it to WordPress.

There are a couple things in play here:

1. If I use Cold Turkey Writer, I’ll write. I know that from getting many, many reps turning Cold Turkey Writer on and writing. When Tim Ferriss had Neil Gaiman on as a guest, Gaiman says (and I’m guessing he’s said this elsewhere as well) that, when writing, you should give yourself two things to do: write or do nothing.

Neil Gaiman: 

Yeah, ’cause I would go down to my lovely little gazebo at the bottom of the garden, sit down, and I’m absolutely allowed not to do anything. I’m allowed to sit at my desk, I’m allowed to stare out at the world, I’m allowed to do anything I like, as long as it isn’t anything. Not allowed to do a crossword, not allowed to read a book, not allowed to phone a friend, not allowed to make a clay model of something. All I’m allowed to do is absolutely nothing, or write.

If you can’t write because there’s nothing to write about, doing nothing will help you find something to write about. Hitting the “random article” button on Wikipedia will help you find something as well, but then it opens up a whole lot of other doors, many likely more tempting than the door that exits back to writing. So Cold Turkey Writer gives me two things to do (at least in the digital environment): write or do nothing.

2. Write in the editor. That’s something that’s stuck with me from reading and listening to Seth Godin. Okay this is also from a Tim Ferriss episode, but he talks about the importance of specific locations for specific work. He tells a story (which I will now butcher) about a study group he was in during business school. They’d always work together in a specific room in a specific building on campus. They didn’t take leisure there. When they were there, they got things done. He relates that to Typepad, which he’s used for his daily blog for years. He opens up the Typepad editor and writes directly in there. It’s the specific place he goes to and he knows what he’s in there to do. Write a daily post and get out of there. (Here’s another post where I mentioned writing in the editor. And another. And another.)

So I’m not actually writing in the editor right now. Again, this is in Cold Turkey Writer. I set a ten minute timer and it’s about to be up.

My mission now: get this text to the WordPress editor as fast as I possibly can.

Otherwise this might disappear somewhere in an endless pile of drafts1

If you’re reading this now… (tiny) mission accomplished.

Book Notes: “Indistractable” by Nir Eyal

Check out the full notes for “Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life” by Nir Eyal

Don’t think about a pink elephant right now.

This never works. Similarly, if you want to avoid a distraction, using brute force might not work. Trying to not think about the distraction might just make the urge stronger.

Here’s what you can do instead.

The Indistractable Framework

Nir Eyal wrote Hooked, which explained how to build habit-forming products. The techniques described in Hooked are affecting your life in some way right now. Ever tapped a notification, refreshed a feed, or tried earning a badge?

You’re happy that you’re using some apps consistently. (The Five-Minute Journal app comes to mind for me.) The other like 95%, not so much.

Eyal recently released Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life.  It’s a great book about fighting against all the distractions in your life.

The framework in it has 4 parts:

  • Traction
  • Distraction
  • Internal triggers ?
  • External triggers

You’ll want to make time for traction, remove distraction, recognize internal triggers, and hack away at external triggers.

I’ve starred internal triggers because I think that focus is what separates this book from other self-development books.

Why internal triggers?

It’s easy to see how having an infinite stream of photos and videos of friends a tap away can be distracting. It’s not as easy to recognize that you’re distracting yourself from some negative feeling.

It doesn’t have to be existential pain deep inside you. Often it’s just a slight discomfort that leads to distraction.

You can often trace distraction back to four psychological factors. From Indistractable:

“Boredom, negativity bias, and rumination can each prompt us to dis- traction. But a fourth factor may be the cruelest of all. Hedonic adapta- tion, the tendency to quickly return to a baseline level of satisfaction, no matter what happens to us in life, is Mother Nature’s bait and switch.”

But it’s probably just boredom.

1. Start with why (but don’t go too far up!)

When you feel the urge to dive into distraction, ask why. Maybe just once or twice. Finding your capital-Why is great, but you can save it for another day. Today, you’re just trying not to grab your phone.

And it’s really because you’re avoiding something. From Indistractable:

“A common problem I have while writing is the urge to google something. It’s easy to justify this bad habit as “doing research,” but deep down I know it’s often just a diversion from difficult work.”

I wrote some things down that were whispering to me while writing the outline for this post.

  • Hey maybe I should order that bike pump (as if this can’t wait)
  • Oh yeah the bike shop is open maybe I should just go there instead (as if it’s going to close while I’m writing)
  • I should go grab a snack (this can wait also)
  • Need to use the restroom (not really)
  • Now’s a good time to check email (it’s almost never a good time)

While I made it to the end of my time block, during the break (supposed to be 5 minutes), I decided to take 20 minutes to dig through a bunch of junk to find batteries for an old camera. I didn’t want to use it today or anything.

At a certain point, I should’ve asked why I was looking for it, realized it could really wait, and got back to writing after my break.

2. Write it down (and make it concrete)

Writing down an urge allows you to capture it, give it some shape, and start asking it questions.

“Why are you pulling me away from my work?”
“Why am I talking to you.”
“Oh no you’re actually me.”

Reflecting on how you’re feeling in the moment might be new to you. Now’s the time to practice.

3. Spend time with sensations

If you write your urge down a few times, you’ll be better at recognizing the physical sensations tied to your thoughts. You can inject some logic and see how illogical it can be to give into a distraction right at that moment.

(For example, no I didn’t need to drop everything right at that moment to go to the bike shop.)

Even better, you cast a vote for yourself each time you capture and fight through an urge. If that same urge toward distraction comes up in the future, you’ll know that it will subside with some time.

4. Anticipate the urge and surf it

When you catch yourself doing something that will take “just a second”, consider how much time it’s actually going to take. Are you walking into a room and grabbing something, or are you walking into a room that has an infinite number of portals pulling you away?

One thing that’s stuck with me from reading Cal Newport’s Deep Work a few years ago is to try your best not to grab your phone when standing in line. Each time you do, you’re practicing being bored. (Read more about embracing boredom here.)

Standing in line is a liminal moment. There are plenty of others. From Indistractable:

Liminal moments are transitions from one thing to another throughout our days. Have you ever picked up your phone while waiting for a traffic light to change, then found yourself still looking at your phone while driv- ing? Or opened a tab in your web browser, got annoyed by how long it’s taking to load, and opened up another page while you waited? Or looked at a social media app while walking from one meeting to the next, only to keep scrolling when you got back to your desk?

If it has an endless feed, links to other articles, or previous items you might have left open, take 10 minutes before you open it up.

The harm comes in the consistency over time. It might truly be harmless to open it up in that moment. For that single time. But dozens of times a day, day after day adds up. You’ll condition yourself to never have a silent moment in your day.  Any amount of boredom is unbearable.

If you’re working and you stop to think through a problem, you’ll be prone to just distract yourself with something else instead. Small lull in a conversation with a friend? You’re playing with your toddler and you remember something from work…?

Surf the urge. It’ll go away soon enough.

Sum up

With some practice, you’ll be able to recognize and eliminate internal triggers (or at least minimize them just a little bit).

  • Indistractable Framework: traction, distraction, internal triggers, external triggers
  • Internal triggers are the step before the distraction

And the steps to reimagine your internal triggers

  1. Step back when you get distracted. Find out what the source is (boredom, shying away from work…)
  2. Write your distractions down to help recognize the feeling and to see patterns
  3. Spend time with the sensations to see how they progress and eventually go away
  4. Anticipate the urge and surf it. Learn where the liminal moments are through your day and make extra effort during these moments to apply the techniques

Now go off and be less distracted. And definitely don’t think about how great it’d be if you shared this post with a friend.