Active Recall!

Podcasts, videos, and iPad art

Decide what you aren’t (even if you haven’t decided what you are)

I am not a world class DJ and drummer.

I am not sending people to Mars. I am not a world renowned in marketing.

In Creative Quest, Questlove talks about looking in the future and figuring out what you do not want to become:

And once I cleared all of that out, the essence of what I was doing—breakbeat drumming, feng shui melodic DJing—became something I could wear proudly, rather than something I felt apologetic about. Deciding what you’re not before you decide what you are lets you stand strong in your own category.

I’ve been trying to write, make videos, and do a podcast. I try to keep them in a format that I’m able to do from start to finish in a few hours. (Short posts, short videos, and a low-production podcast.)

I won’t write books with deep, deep academic research. I won’t be a world class illustrator. I won’t make highly produced podcasts.

I’ll try to learn what I can about being creative and share that with others. It’s not the most niched-down, strong stance, but it feels a little bit stronger now than it did when I started writing this post.

(Check out a few recent posts if you’re interested in space or marketing.)

Write right (in the editor)

If I want to build a fence, I just might feel a little friction if I had to build it inside the house and then copy and paste it into some other house and then take it to the yard and then adjust some things there.

I like writing right on the platform. Particularly for blog posts.

In my case it’s WordPress. I’m happy to see that they’re actively working on the iOS version and responding to feedback. I didn’t use it before because the words wouldn’t wrap. Now it does. Now I’ll probably write right in WordPress a lot more. Instead of the hodgepodge of apps I’d write in to move things from this to Markdown to that to this to WordPress.

Seth Godin talked about his daily blog post and his writing method (“I have no method.”) on Tim Ferriss’s podcast (episode #138 at 34:40):

I feel the same way about my blog. If I am in the Typepad editor, I know exactly what my brain is supposed to feel like. And then the writing happens.

  • If I am in Evernote, my brain feels like generating really rough ideas
  • If I am in Docs, my brain feels like I’m at work
  • If I am in Ulysses, my brain thinks of how much I like the Ulysses interface but dislike writing in Markdown

If I am in WordPress, I want my brain to feel like I’m writing for pleasure and sharing one good idea with the handfuls (and handfuls) of readers.

Have a vision (even if it isn’t to save humanity)

I don’t want to go to Mars.

It seems like hard work. Too hard. Brutally hard.

There’s that scene in Troy when Achilles is about to ride out for the 1-on-1 to save an army. The kid sent to get Achilles tells Achilles that he wouldn’t fight the very large man. Achilles says something like “That’s why no one will remember your name.”

Nobody will remember my name, but people will remember Elon Musk. Why? Because his vision is to do something really good:

Turning humans into space colonizers is his stated life’s purpose. “I would like to die thinking that humanity has a bright future,” he said. “If we can solve sustainable energy and be well on our way to becoming a multiplanetary species with a self-sustaining civilization on another planet—to cope with a worst-case scenario happening and extinguishing human consciousness—then,” and here he paused for a moment, “I think that would be really good.”

That’s from Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance.

What’s your vision? Why have one in the first place?

Your vision might not literally be Mars like it is Elon’s. But you can have your Mars to align to. There are variations on this (sometimes it’s a compass), but you want to have that TI-86 calculator computer that readjusted course over and over to get people the moon.

A life is a collection of days and a day is a collection of moments. If something is hard in any moment, it’s a little bit easier if you know it aligns to your vision. In Smarter, Faster, Better, Charles Duhigg writes about the Crucible, a 54-hour test for Marine recruits. During that span, you only get 6 hours of sleep. (And you can guess that the other 48 aren’t reading books and gardening.)

If you see things are getting tough for someone, ask them “Why are you doing this?” From Smarter, Faster, Better:

If you can link something hard to a choice you care about, it makes the task easier, Quintanilla’s drill instructors had told him. That’s why they asked each other questions starting with “why.” Make a chore into a meaningful decision, and self-motivation will emerge.

That line of code? Make it perfect. Why? To make this function perfect. Why? To make this application perfect. Because it’s going to control some part of this rocket ship. It’s going to Mars to provide supplies for future humans. That’s important because Earth is running out of time.

I will now draw on some more notecards. Maybe some people might consider that really good. (Or at least good enough!)

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.