Sleep is good

Hey friends!

I just finished attending a workshop hosted by Packy McCormick and David Perell on online writing as part of the build-up to WoP 7. It's so full of energy; it reminded me of my time in WoP6. It's 3.30AM on my side, and I realised that I haven't written shit yet.

I have an early class tomorrow, so instead of taking time to write, I'm just going to write for 5 minutes and go to sleep instead. Writing is fun, but lack of sleep causes dementia, so I'd prioritise my sleep instead. Here's a reminder to take breaks and make sure you get enough sleep.

I'm usually done writing before the evening, but it's a bit busy today. Instead of killing my streak of publishing daily, I will write something simple in 5 minutes and still keep my streak alive. This is what James Clear calls reduce the scope, stick to the schedule. It's a golden piece of advice for anyone looking to build new habits.

If you planned to run 5km, but a meeting killed off time to do so, just run for a minute.

If you planned to publish daily, but an event killed your time to write, write for 5 minutes and publish whatever comes up.

If you planned to work out at the gym, but your friends had movie invitations, just show up at the gym.

It doesn't have to be perfect; what matters is showing up every day. If you can't do what you set out to do, simply reduce the scope, but stick to the schedule.

That's 5 minutes up! Brb, sleeping. See you tomorrow!

P.S. Here's some links I've found interesting lately

How to Stop Being Lazy and Get More Done - 5 Expert Tips - Barking Up the Wrong Tree

This is how to make a big change:

To Get Going, Create A Fresh Start: You just read an amazing, truly awe-inspiring blog post about change! What a momentous occasion! Sounds like “fresh start” time to me…

To Get Motivated, Make It Fun: Start pairing everything you “should” do with something you love to do. This not only takes the pain out of doing the right thing, it also allows you to spend more time doing fun stuff.

To Keep Going, Use Implementation Intentions: Remember the “if-then” structure. If I read good advice in a blog post, Then I will actually do what it says.

To Not Give Up, Use [[commitment device]]s: When my friend Billy goes to restaurants he dumps the entire pepper shaker on half his French fries. Wasteful? Maybe. But he’s definitely not going to struggle with resisting them now. Odysseus would be proud.

To Keep Improving, Cut And Paste: I didn’t know Elon Musk during college and I don’t think I’ll be reaching out to the murderer for tips on anything. But I do have some good friends I will be copy and pasting advice from.

How to keep getting smarter by Julian Shapiro (it's from his newsletter, not sure how to link that)

How to keep getting smarter

The smartest people I’ve met:

They retrain their minds to enjoy being wrong.

They get a dopamine hit when proven wrong because they’re excited to be closer to the truth. The truth is addictive.

In contrast, if you refuse to lose a debate, your brain keeps running old firmware.

(I realized this after comparing humble versus tribalist people arguing on Twitter. Personally, to be comfortable being wrong, I needed to appreciate that being occasionally wrong doesn’t make me look dumb to people I admire. People judge you more on your trailing average of thoughts than on the last thing you said. And good friends don’t care either way.)

Make Something Out of What You Read by David Perell

I try to create something out of every book I read. The Internet is filled with full book summaries, so instead of talking about the entire thing, I explore one idea deeply. With Arnold Schwarzenegger, I’m making a YouTube video about his marketing philosophy. He said: “No matter what you do in life, selling is part of it.” He didn’t just become the world’s best bodybuilder. He promoted the sport itself and persuaded people to take fitness seriously. And he didn’t just film movies. He was one of the first actors to promote films with global speaking tours and late-night talk show appearances.

Yep, 5 minutes. Make sure you get enough sleep!