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Focus on What Won’t Change

Things don’t change.

I’ve been going back through Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson’s Rework. It’s inspiring. That hasn’t changed.

I’m reading it at a different time in my life, so the ways I’ll try applying the lessons are different.

Actually, this reminds me of something from Paul Graham’s essay “How You Know”:

For example, reading and experience are usually “compiled” at the time they happen, using the state of your brain at that time. The same book would get compiled differently at different points in your life. Which means it is very much worth reading important books multiple times.

Let’s say there’s some code folding going on here. You unfold “reading” and it’s just whatever that book is. Great. But then you unfold “experience” and…

There’s a lot bouncing around your head at any time. And that’s just any moment in time. Rework hasn’t changed. The printed words are the same. I’m compiling them with a different set of experiences. It feels even more useful now.

One principle: have principles.

Even better if you choose them yourself. At least be aware of where yours came from.

(Which reminds me of William B. Irvine’s A Guide to the Good Life: “Furthermore, in almost all cases, a person is better off to adopt a less than ideal philosophy of life than to try to live with no philosophy at all.”)

Oh yeah. The excerpt in the notecard. From Rework:

For 37signals, things like speed, simplicity, ease of use, and clarity are our focus. Those are timeless desires. People aren’t going to wake up in ten years and say, “Man, I wish software was harder to use.” They won’t say, “I wish this application was slower.”

Even if your company name changes, the principles remain.

Jason Fried and DHH have a new book out later this year, It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work:

Are there occasionally stressful moments? Sure — such is life. Is every day peachy? Of course not — we’d be lying if we said it was. But we do our best to make sure those are the exceptions. On balance we’re calm — by choice, by practice. We’re intentional about it. We’ve made different decisions than the rest.

The principles remain.

Wear a uniform (But don’t tell anyone)

I (sort of) wear a uniform.

It’s just roughly the same outfit. I have:

  • 2 pairs of khakis
  • 2 pairs of black pants
  • 2 black sweaters
  • 2 gray sweaters

Cold Stone gives you like 372,027 combinations. I can mix and match 4 combinations.

Here’s the trick: don’t tell people you’re doing this. I learned this from a friend. We had worked together for six months and he got a package delivered. He said he was adding it to the repertoire. His third shirt.

Again, we had been working together for six months. I didn’t notice he wore the same two shirts day in, day out. I don’t know if I ever would have noticed until he told me he added a third shirt.

I noticed the same thing. People at the office didn’t notice until I mentioned it. (Another good life lesson: people don’t think about you—and it’s not a bad thing on either end.)

These days people then think you want to be like Steve Jobs if you wear the same outfit. You probably have to wear a suit for the Barack Obama comparison. There’s also Doug Funnie. I had heard of people wearing the same thing every day. I took the plunge (buying 4 of the same outfit) after hearing Jerrod Carmichael talk about it. (I’m also realizing I wrote about this before.)

I was wearing the same… I bought a lot of the same… white sweatshirt, gray pants… Timberlands. Everyday. Every day. It worked in any place that I went. That’s what I liked. It worked everywhere. I’ll go to your wedding in this thing.

I thought it’d be good for willpower and all that. It frees up mental space. Gives some of your decision making power back and all of that.

Tim Urban doesn’t quite wear a uniform, but he talks about being super conforming in clothing choices in Tools of Titans:

I think the key to life is to figure out when it makes sense to save mental energy and be like Keating (I’m super conforming in my clothing choices because it’s not something that’s important to me) and when in life it really matters to be like Roark and reason independently (choosing your career path, picking your life partner, deciding how to raise your kids, etc.).

Okay so I haven’t read The Fountainhead, but here’s a quick look at Keating and Roark from Wikipedia:

The novel’s protagonist, Howard Roark, is an individualistic young architect who designs modernist buildings and refuses to compromise with an architectural establishment unwilling to accept innovation. Roark embodies what Rand believed to be the ideal man, and his struggle reflects Rand’s belief that individualism is superior to collectivism.

Roark is opposed by what he calls “second-handers”, who value conformity over independence and integrity. These include Roark’s former classmate, Peter Keating, who succeeds by following popular styles, but turns to Roark for help with design problems.

You can analyze everything. You can overanalyze everything.

I wish I could remember where I heard that story, but imagine a stadium packed for, well let’s say it’s a high-school football game. You and the facility team can plan and plan and plan and optimize and get everyone out of there after the game in 10 minutes. If you just let people organize this on their own, they’ll get out of there in 15 minutes.

Are you overanalyzing and overplanning something in your life? Maybe it actually is your outfits.

If I was a better thinker, I could now explain the other side of the coin. You’re probably also underanalyzing and accepting defaults for important life choices. I’ll write about that in the future, but for now I’ll just say you should check out Tim Urban’s latest post: How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You).

I’m gonna go put my uniform on.

We are a nation obsessed (Chuck Klosterman IV)

I’ve been listening to Chuck Klosterman IV. In 1996, he only ate Chicken McNuggets for a week.

American culture is nothing more than a pastiche of fixations. We are obsessed with health. We are obsessed with pleasure. We are obsessed with speed. We are obsessed with efficiency. In simplest terms, we are obsessed by the desire to accelerate every element of our existence in a futile attempt to experience as much life as we can in the shortest possible time. We have all entered a race to devour the largest volume of gratification before it kills us.

I’ve fallen into this trap. Not the nuggets. The trap of speed and efficiency. I’m sitting in it right now.

  • I want to write this post as quickly as possible.
  • I don’t want to revise because that’s slow so I want to make sure I have some structure
  • I want to build that structure as quickly as possible

Then I get into this thing of becoming efficient, freeing up time, then filling in that free time with more things to make more efficient.

This morning I was listening to What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (because, of course, listening to book is faster if you do it while you’re doing other things) and came across this:

As I run, I don’t think much of anything worth mentioning. I just run. I run in a void. Or maybe I should put it the other way: I run in order to acquire a void.

Every day I write down that I want to live an unrushed life. (Among other things. The other things also somehow probably originated from some Tim Ferriss podcast.) Then I go off and try to see how I can do things as fast and efficiently as possible.

Anyway, I need to think about living a life of unfilled voids. A life of premium-quality, 100 percent white chicken breast meat Chicken Selects instead of Chicken McNuggets.

33: How to deal with setbacks (according to Mario and Ryu Hayabusa)