Welcome to my first weekly learning roundup. I would love to bring you behind the scenes of the content I have consumed all week and share my key take-outs.
My goal here is two-fold: One, I want to distil the lessons learnt in a short and precise way so you can take them and apply them in your life. Two, I want to keep myself accountable for everything I learn so that I do not become another learning junkie who just consumes content and never does anything with the insights. Trust me, taking notes and summarising this stuff is hard work alright but it makes my learning process so worth it.
How To Be More Productive (Quantum Mastermind Recording)
- Have a routine: Go to sleep and wake up at the same time every single day.
- Meditate and visualisation every day.
- Get good sleep, it’s not worth screwing your hormones and working against it (at least 7-8 hour sleep). Use technology like Ora ring to track your sleep.
- Don’t multitask even on activities that are not work-related Eg: don’t eat and work at the same time, just focus on eating
- Exercise every day.
- Stay hydrated. Don’t worry about having to use the restroom often, because small breaks are good.
- Don’t travel all the time. it’s disruptive for productivity. Find a fixed aboard and hanker down.
- Have fewer variables so your lifestyle is simple
- Optimise your environment e.g. Good lighting (Get rid of fluorescent light), get plants, comfortable desk and chair.
- Eat good food and preferably get a chef to prepare it.
- Don’t drink alcohol.
- Do something that’s the best option. Don’t be a victim of sunk cost fallacy.
- Don’t bother looking at things that don’t matter e.g. comment etc. If it’s not within your field of vision, it probably does not matter.
- Block your newsfeed.
Hugh Jackman on Best Decisions, Daily Routines, The 85% Rule, and Much More | The Tim Ferriss Show
- Create and maintain daily routines e.g. Cold showers, reading on the morning with the wife.
- Be humble and respect everyone regardless of their level. Always honour your commitments others even if other seemingly important opportunities come up.
- Make short term sacrifices for the long term good. e.g. HJ sacrificing joining casting on neighbours to join a college that set up for more opportunities.
- Show what you believe with your actions.
- Re the value of education and learning: If unless learn more.
- Teach kids to make their own decisions and choices.
- Cultivate your gut instinct and learn to trust it.
- Leverage coaching and accountability.
- Retrospective journaling where you start the day by writing a retrospective journal of what you want to happen as if it has already happened then look back at the end of the day and compared how the day went.
- Find what you love and it’ll make hard work a lesser effort.
Jocko Willink Interview (Full Episode) | The Tim Ferriss Show (Podcast)
- Detach yourself from the situation so you can get perspective and see what is happening.
- Desensitise yourself to bad situations so that when they happen you know what to do.
- You don’t have to be the best at one specific thing you can have a collection of things you are good at and then the combined total is your competitive advantage.
- Discipline = freedom.
- Cover and move technique: Working within a team to achieve a common goal and understand the interdependencies.
- The dichotomy of Leadership – avoid both extremes
- You should get close to your employees, your team, but never forget there is a job to be done, and that the good of the company/mission needs to come first.
- Organise teams based on speciality putting things together based on what they need to do and accomplish.
- Break down a project into smaller deliverables and then achieve one thing at a time and then once you’ve accomplished and moved to the next step until everything is sequentially accomplished
How to Create an Abundance Mindset With Investor Arian Simone
- Money needs a purpose.
- Follow biblical principles of giving. Be a smart steward of your money.
- Have something to base your truth on.
- Be fearless.
- Consider your current struggle an adventure.
- Be persistent – Arian applied to 153 different jobs and got hired for exactly zero of them.
- Develop an abundance mindset. There is always more from where that came from.
- Other people’s reality does not have to be your reality.
Thomas Frank – What to do if you have multiple interests
What to do it you have many interests: The myth of Warrant Buffets pilot.
- Write down his 25 top goals, and then circle the top 5 most important.
- Separate the top 5 into their own list — and goals 6-25 get put on a ‘not to do’ list.
- Ignore everything on the ‘not to do’ list until you’ve achieved your top 5.
Further reading:
- This story about Warren Buffett and his long-time pilot is an important lesson about what separates extraordinarily successful people from everyone else
- Warren Buffett’s “2 List” Strategy: How to Maximize Your Focus and Master Your Priorities
Thomas Frank – How to Make Consistent Progress on Your Goals (Even If You’re Lazy)
The 20-second rule.
- Increase the activation energy. The amount of work it will take to the thing you don’t want to
- How can I make it easy to do the things I want to do? E.g. Starting with a default editing project so it’s easy to do editing.
Further reading:
Thomas Frank – What to Do When You’re Too Lazy to Stick to Your Habits
- Use “If the logic” to bind those things to the things you do every single day
- Design your environment so that the things you see every day remind you of the things you need to accomplish.
- Put yourself in a position to make the habit easier.
How to Build Self-Discipline Lesson #1: How to Form a Habit
- Automating your habits e.g. At the sight of the temptation, see the craving for what it is: a detour to the long term goal.
- Identify non-destructive alternatives to satisfy the craving.
- Once you repeat the habit it’ll get easier and easier.
- Implement keystone habits. E.g.
- Exercise
- Meditating
- Waking up early
- Saving money
- Trying new things
- Gratitude
- Food journalling.
