Active Recall!

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Get to the bottom of it (and then work up to your life’s purpose)

To find your purpose, start with the dishes.

In the past year, I’ve continued to take action on a couple things I heard on The Knowledge Project podcast. First, I stopped feeling so guilty about abandoning books (after hearing Naval Ravikant share his approach to reading). Second, I started finding odd pleasure in doing the dishes.

That’s because of something Ed Latimore said during his appearance in reply to “What’s one habit you’ve changed recently that’s made a profound impact on you?”:

This is silly man, this is really silly but it’s true: I wash the dishes as soon as I’m done eating.

Further on:

All I’ve done is a small thing but I’ve relieved so much. Maybe that is a sign of how cool life is these days. That like, that little hijack makes such a big difference. But I think the bigger lesson is that if you take advantage of inertia, and just do things when you’re already moving so you don’t have to start, restart, start, restart. Your life will be a lot easier. You won’t have to think about motivation to do the dishes, or clean your room, or do your homework, or go running.

You’re searching for your purpose in life. So am I. You can start with why, but it might be hard to get to the 4th and 5th why if your immediate surroundings are in disarray.

David Allen wrote Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. He knows a thing or two about teaching other people how to get things done. Here’s what he has to say about starting from the bottom:

“Intellectually, the most appropriate way ought to be to work from the top down, first uncovering personal and organizational purpose and vision, then defining critical objectives, and finally focusing on the details of implementation. The trouble is, however, that most people are so embroiled in commitments on a day-to-day level that their ability to focus successfully on the larger horizon is seriously impaired. Consequently, a bottom-up approach is usually more effective.”

David Allen also suggests organizing a drawer if you’re ever stuck. It’s probably bugging you a little bit anyway, and you’ll very quickly think of better things to do.

Before you go on organizing your entire life, start with a drawer. The small things add up. It’s important to remember that small bad things also add up. Day to day, the good choice is only a tiny bit more effort than the bad choice. But that tiny bit is enough to stop you.

In The Slight Edge: Turning Simple Disciplines into Massive Success and Happiness, Jeff Olson explains how it adds up:

“The truth is, what you do matters. What you do today matters. What you do every day matters. Successful people just do the things that seem to make no difference in the act of doing them and they do them over and over until the compound effect kicks in.”

Alright, so you know it’s important to start small. You knew that before you started reading this. We know that first piece of cake is enough and maybe we don’t need the second and third. But it tastes good.

So how do you stop yourself day to day? First understand how bad habits work. In The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, Charles Duhigg explains that it’s a loop:

“This process within our brains is a three-step loop. First, there is a cue, a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use. Then there is the routine, which can be physical or mental or emotional. Finally, there is a reward, which helps your brain figure out if this particular loop is worth remembering for the future: THE HABIT LOOP Over time, this loop—cue, routine, reward; cue, routine, reward—becomes more and more automatic.

That loop works for bad habits and good habits. Get the quick wins in. Look for small bad habits and figure out which part you can easily change.

It might be removing the cue. You keep a jar of candy on the counter? Well, toss that jar in a cannon and shoot it into the ocean.

You can try changing the routine. Put a padlock on the jar. Add a little bit of friction so you can be a little more mindful about what you’re indulging in.

Maybe you can change the routine. Fill the jar with something very healthy that chews like cardboard. (Don’t you wish you just shot it into the ocean?)

In any case, it’s okay if you aren’t making life changing decisions and finding a new life purpose every day. Start small.

Clean a drawer. Do the dishes. It’ll add up.

A non-master class on writing (based on Steph Curry’s MasterClass course on basketball)

Steph Curry didn’t shoot from distance for an entire summer.

He was in high school working overhauling his shot. It was mostly from the hip and his release was too low for it to work well against bigger varsity defenders. So he worked with his dad to start from scratch.

Curry talks about this in his MasterClass course on basketball.

If you’re teenage Steph Curry and shoot like a catapult and you want to shoot like an adult Steph Curry, how do you fix it?

Shoot from inside the key. A lot. Like the entire summer. (And then keep doing that.)

There was a time where I—basically for three months in the summer I couldn’t leave the paint. To really work on the mechanics of my shot, the rhythm of my shot, getting stronger so I could repeat that form every single time. You had to be patient.

Curry says the worst thing you can do is start launching from the 3-point line right when you walk in the gym. You want to start with some makes. Make from up close so you establish the mechanics when you’re fresh. If you can establish the mechanics then you can tweak the variables to increase range and adjust if you’re missing left or right. But if you start launching from the 3-point line right when you walk in, you’re going to miss a few. Or, in my case, you’re going to miss a lot. Get on track first.

Try to miss short or long (instead of left or right)

That means your mechanics are in a good place, but you just need to get in rhythm and get your touch correct. Missing left or right means something in your form is off. It’s more off than if you’re missing short or long.

All the little wins add up over time (a little bit of simple math)

The warm up he has is starting right in front of the rim with 5 makes and then taking a big step back, 5 makes, and so on until you’ve shot from 4 different distances.

Then you start right in front of the rim again but from a different angle. You do 5 angles, 20 makes each, for 100 total makes.

Do that 5 days a week that’s 500 makes. That’s 2,000 in a month. And 20,000 in ten months.

The math is straightforward step-by-step. If I guessed right at the top I wouldn’t think a ten-minute drill repeated would lead to 20,000 makes in less than a year.

Shooting is Steph Curry’s specialty.

My specialty is taking lessons from one field and ham-handedly applying them another. Let’s take basketball lessons and convert them to writing.

  • Shoot inside the key: Start your session with quality. If you’re practicing writing then do something you know to warm up before stretching yourself. Don’t jump into the hard stuff yet. Warm up a little with some quick wins.
  • Miss the right way: If you’re writing and you’re telling great stories, making brilliant connections, and writing beautiful prose but you’re making a few typos here and there. Well, good job. There are tools and copy editors that can catch those things. On the other hand, you can get all your grammar perfect and not have a single typo and create something completely boring. (Ahem.)
  • The little wins add up over time: You probably already know that. But it can be motivating to step through the math again and see just what you can accomplish over a year if you dedicate 10-30 minutes to something daily. If you write 1,000 words every weekday then you can write 250,000 words in a year. If you publish half that, then you can turn that 125,000 into many, many blog posts or a couple of books.

Don’t shoot any 3-pointers for the entire summer. Don’t aim to write a book every session.

Write a section here, a section there. Get your mechanics right in smaller chunks of text. It’ll add up.

It’s not them. It’s you. (Even if it’s actually them.)

“Bad crowd out there.”

I was listening to Jocko Willink’s appearance on James Altucher’s podcast and enjoyed a small interaction at the end. They’re cut a little short because of the studio schedule, and James jokes that it’s the producer’s fault that he didn’t schedule enough time for it.

Jocko calls him out. You should’ve done a better job communicating how much time you’d need.

Jocko’s all about claiming responsibility for mistakes. His first book was “Extreme Ownership”. Tim Ferriss often brings up Jocko’s technique of replying “Good.” to bad situations. Not to create false silver lining, but to get your mind thinking about what you learned from this particular failure.

From Tools of Titans:

“Now. I don’t mean to say something clichéd. I’m not trying to sound like Mr. Smiley Positive Guy. That guy ignores the hard truth. That guy thinks a positive attitude will solve problems. It won’t. But neither will dwelling on the problem. No. Accept reality, but focus on the solution.”

I like that Altucher isn’t defensive. In fact, he seems to enjoy whenever he’s called out on something so that he can improve. Then he relates it to stand-up comedians. (Seems like Altucher’s been immersing himself in the stand-up comedy world with all the comedians he’s had on as guests recently.)

They’ll often come back from the stage and talk about how bad the crowd is.

It might be. Some crowds are better or worse for different people.

Still, it’s useful to take ownership over it if you want to improve.

Bad crowd. Good. You’re a live performer so now you can practice switching on the fly, trying a new bit, and seeing if any part of it has wide appeal.

Or you can go through your set as usual and blame the crowd again. Which one would help you improve?

Let’s say you’re a writer and someone leaves a bad comment. You start typing, “You’ve totally missed the point…”

Did they? Did you make it clear enough in the first place?

Take ownership. Don’t blame the audience.

(But if you didn’t like this then you’re a bad reader!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Will you remember this a week from now? (How about a year from now?)

Probably not. Will you remember anything you read a week from now? Of course.

If you read 25 articles this week, which ones will you remember next week? Of those articles you remember, what percentage will you remember? What ideas will you remember?

Now what about a year from now? What stands the test of time?

Malcolm Gladwell talks about going to the library for research in his writing course on Master Class1. He talks about research and using older sources:

Another mistake people make is they assume that if something is not current, it’s not useful. Nothing could be further from the truth. Right? In fact, I almost feel like the better stuff is the older stuff. Particular the stuff that has stood the test of time.

Here are some things that make me think of standing the test of time.

  • Getting Things Done (by David Allen) is standing the test of time of self-development material. I re-read it recently (a decade after I first read it) and had so many moments where I thought, “Oh yeah… that’s why I do it this way now.” There are things that I still do almost directly from the book (Stopping to think “What’s the next action?” if I’m blocked on a project) and things that were heavily influenced by it (Setting reminders like a tickler file to review certain things a few months down the road).
  • But What if We’re Wrong (by Chuck Klosterman) made me realize just how little is actually remembered as you get further and further out in time. People basically only remember Babe Ruth from 100 years ago. Then again, with technology we’ll be able to remember everything. Which might make it even harder to stand out. Twenty years from now, think of the word “Jordan”. If you’re 20-40 years old in 2040, will you think of him flying through the air, getting your first pair after standing in line somewhere, or a crying face? Do you care about players and games you didn’t actually watch? Maybe, but not as much as games you watched as they were happening.
  • How to Win Friends and Influence People (by Dale Carnegie) stood the test of time. Never forget that it has a sentence starting with “Charles Schwab told me…” The lessons in the book will remain relevant for as long as people enjoy talking about themselves.

If you read enough self-development books you start to see the same things referenced. Eventually you realize that most (not all) of these new books are some version of a book written in the 80s which is some version of a book written in the 60s and on and on.

Go read something old.

Prune your garden (even if you don’t have an actual garden)

Questlove’s garden is his collection of MP3s.

Well, it’s AIFFs now.

He talks about gardening in Creative Quest:

When I’ve had the opportunity to do that, or when I have met people who do that, they find it immensely gratifying. They notice things they wouldn’t ordinarily notice. Their senses sharpen. Their heart rate slows down. Many mornings, I try to do something equally Zen-like, and most of the time that means going into my MP3 catalog and pruning it. I notice song titles. I notice how things are organized. That starts me toward thinking about my own work in a structured creative context.

Later in the book, he talks about all those files missing all their metadata except a title: “Track 1”. He Shazam’s them so he can fill the data in.

First, Questlove must have a pretty incredible music library.

Second, this made me stop and realize how completely streaming services have taken over. If something isn’t streaming, I wait or I just don’t ever hear it.

An MP3 collection is like having a library of CDs 10 years ago. A library of cassette tapes 20 years ago. A library of vinyl 30 years ago.

If you had any of those it signaled that music was an important part of your life.

Music is clearly important for Questlove. His day starts with organizing his music.

So what’s your garden?

Get it out of your head—that’s one of the main points in David Allen’s Getting Things Done. I listened to it recently after more than 10 years since first reading it. And… I’ve actually started taking action on some of the things in it.

David Allen suggests making lists for everything:

They usually, though, only make a list about the specific area that’s bugging them. But if you made that kind of externalization and review a characteristic of your ongoing life-and work style, and you maintained it across all areas of your life (not just the most “urgent”), you’d be practicing the kind of mind like water management style I’m describing.

With that guidance, many many things go out of my head and right into Evernote. A single thought only a few words long? Don’t want to forget that! New note.

Instead of Questlove’s MP3s, I have notes in Evernote. (Which in some cases, where I want to talk to my future self, actually are MP3s.)

Search has become really good. I can find any single note that I need at any time just searching through Evernote.

But when I wanted to use a few notes for something, things were getting messy.

My garden was in disarray

Mind like water, notes like an insane, unkempt garden. So I’ve started pruning. I was trying a thing where I set an hour aside on the weekend to prune it.

A lot of stuff in Evernote is some outline for something I want to write. It’s hard to prune for that full hour because I’ll come across something I want to read or an outline I want to flesh out.

Marie Kondo talks about organizing photos in The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up:

There is a good reason to leave photos for last. If you start sorting photos before you have honed your intuitive sense of what brings you joy, the whole process will spin out of control and come to a halt.

It’s hard to toss any photo then you eventually get distracted just looking at all of them.

I’m going to try doing just 10 minutes each day. Reviewing, tagging, titling.

Pruning.