“We tend to place a lot of emphasis on our circumstances, assuming that what happens to us (or fails to happen) determines how we feel. From this perspective, the small-scale details of how you spend your day aren’t that important, because what matters are the large-scale outcomes, such as whether[…]
All posts under nature
#747 Easiest in the moment
The Principle of Least Resistance: In a business setting, without clear feedback on the impact of various behaviors to the bottom line, we will tend toward behaviors that are easiest in the moment. From “Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World” by Cal Newport
#746 Converging rays of attention
“Let your mind become a lens, thanks to the converging rays of attention; let your soul be all intent on whatever it is that is established in your mind as a dominant, wholly absorbing idea.” – Antonin-Dalmace Sertillanges From “Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World” by[…]
#745 Carefully directed concentration
I build my days around a core of carefully chosen deep work, with the shallow activities I absolutely cannot avoid batched into smaller bursts at the peripheries of my schedule. Three to four hours a day, five days a week, of uninterrupted and carefully directed concentration, it turns out, can[…]
#744 (Fe)Male sexual over-perception bias
One of the aims of error management theory is to explain sexual overperception bias.[5] Sexual overperception occurs when a type I error is committed by an individual. Under this type error, the individual falsely concludes that the member of the opposite sex has a sexual interest in the individual.[5] Males are more[…]
#743 An assertion of rationality
The most important of his edits was small but resounding. He crossed out, using the heavy backslashes that he often employed, the last three words of Jefferson’s phrase “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable” and changed them to the words now enshrined in history: “We hold these[…]
#742 A little bit of reflection
Understanding this difference between under- and mis-regulation, a key coping strategy becomes obvious–at least it has in my own life. Instead of thinking of how awful, weak, or inadequate I am when I feel like “giving in to feel good” by breaking a nutrition plan, skipping a work out or[…]
364/365 Passing the marshmallow test
Every time you sit down to work, remind yourself: I am delaying gratification by doing this. I am passing the marshmallow test. I am earning what my ambition burns for. I am making an investment in myself instead of in my ego. Give yourself a little credit for this choice,[…]
363/365 Prepare for pride and kill it early
We must prepare for pride and kill it early—or it will kill what we aspire to. We must be on guard against that wild self-confidence and self-obsession. “The first product of self-knowledge is humility,” Flannery O’Connor once said. This is how we fight the ego, by really knowing ourselves. From[…]
362/365 You are the best
“It is impossible to learn that which one thinks one already knows,” Epictetus says. You can’t learn if you think you already know. You will not find the answers if you’re too conceited and self-assured to ask the questions. You cannot get better if you’re convinced you are the best.[…]