Productivity Prawn
Summary:
If you’re working on a book, switching to smart note taking might make it ten per cent less difficult. But the hard work of thinking hard and trying to produce new thoughts is always going to be hard. If these complicated productivity tools don’t call to you, that’s o k. You knowt go easy on yourself. And if they do kind of call to you, an, you don’t have a lot of time to learn em.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
All right, so if you have very inefficient note taking and you’re working on a book, and you move to really, really smart note taking that took you three months to learn, you might make it ten per cent less difficult. Similarly, if you’re a novelist and you’re kind of just hacking away in microsopt word and a, you know, it is kind of slow to load as your document grows longer and the formatings condo messy. And you switch over to scrivener, it takes, well, learn, you got to pay some more money. It’s going to help, but it’s going to be ten per cent easier to write your novel, which means it’s still going to be really, really hard. So i think it’s an important calebration. I wrote about this in my new yorkor piece from earlier, in the fall, the rise and fall of getting things done, i really talk about productivity prawn and when it arose in the early two thousands, and its promise, and how that promise din it really completely pay off. An. So you can get a deeper treatment of that topic in that long form article, but this is a, i think, the t l d r summary. If are gong to really throw the leat, speak at each other here, it helps, but not as much as you think. So part of this is calebration. Don’t go into learning a new tool, like a zettl cast, a note taking system, software, thinking that the hard thing you’re doing is gong to feel a lot less hard. It’s not coan be a litle bit easier. And that might matter. You know, there’s drag, right? So ten per cent improvement when you’re doing something every day, year after year, product after product, maybe that makes a difference, right? So i don’t want to dismiss it, but i don’t want your hopes to be too high. So when is this worth it? Well, i think if you’re into it, if like me, and i got to say, i mentioned before, in a recent episode, my friend shreeney row from the unmistakable creative sent me these vidios about rome and a notion. And he was really going on about some of the setups he has. I i love this stuff, bright. I mean, i’m our productivity geek. I love the prawn. And so i want to learn this, and i probably will at some point, if i can find the time. So if you’re really into it, than yet, there’s just a pleasure in learning the system. There’s a pleasure in that ten per cent improvement. You feel better about it. You fel more professional. There psychological boots there. But still just not going to make it super easy. Hard things are still going to be hard. You’re still going to have to, at some point, break out your steven pressfield, get into the war of art and do the work. So if these complicated productivity tools don’t call to you, that’s o k. You’re probably not missing much. And if they do kind of call to you, but you’re like me, an, you don’t have a lot of time to learn em. You knowt go easy on yourself. It’s that ni ty per cent of the hard work of thinking hard and trying to produce new thoughts and capture them in the world. And that’s the hard stuff. Is always going to be hard. There’s not a miracle cure that you’re missing. So i think this is reflected in my systems. I keep a lot of things pretty simple. For my theory work, i have a stack of note books for working out rough notes, and then i use latec documents and overleaf to capture and polish those notes and share them with collaborators. For my writing work, havent simple ever note set up. Ton of note book stacks, a notebook for each project, like article or book idea. And where can i just throw stuff in there? Got throw stuff in there. And if i have files, i us t have a directory in my writing directory and my share drop box directory tree that access with a bunch of diferent computers. And just here’s a directory for this book. Throw the p d f that are relevant. They’re the scans that are relevant. It’s very straightforward. It’s not a comp ted note taking system, but it’s fine. It doesn’t create a huge amount of frictiona. It’s fine for what i need to do. And writing the book is still hard, and that’s where most of my focus goes. I’m thinking about switching the scrivener for my non fiction writing. It might make some of the organization easier, and i’ll take that ten per cent. And also, i think it’s fun. It’s not mission critical. I might move to a zettle casting system like rome offers, because i think itwould be fun, and it might actually help me with some of my writing. Probably not a lot. It still could be hard to write, but i like that type of thing. Allright. So that’s where i would leave it. Complicated productivity systems get
Speaker 2
you small winds. They’re
Speaker 1
not winds that you should ignore, but they’re not winds you need to chase if they’re not calling to you. I with that, a mine. Let’s go on to a question now about phantom part time scheduling. (Time 0:07:06)
What Do You Do When Your Mind Is Tired?
Summary:
When i’ve been doing deep work and had a busy day, i find i’m craving an hour just to watch something mindless. I don’t have the energy to do anything which requires engaging my brain. Does all leisure have to be quality leisure? Whyle: Mineless is fine for leisure, especially if you are exhausted. If you go to your phone and say, entertain me, you’re putting yourself at the mercy of some pretty merciless algaritms.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
I come and my question is, what do you do to sone out when your mind and body is tired? When i’ve been doing deep work and had a busy day, i find i’m craving an hour just to watch something mindless, or scurry on my fome, which i’m usually very discipline about. I don’t have the energy to do anything which requires engaging my brain, and it’s too late, tark cold to take a walk. Does all leisure have to be quality leisure? Thanks.
Speaker 1
I think mineless is fine for leisure, especially if you are exhausted. Maybe you’re a little bit sick, or you had a really hard day, and there’s only so much more you can muster out of your brain. I get that. I’m there times. Two things i would point out, one, intention matters, even if what you’re doing is not demanding. So in other words, if you
Speaker 2
you have an idea of
Speaker 1
what you want to do, when you get kind of excited about that idea, you’re gong to get a lot more relaxation out of it than if you just sort of fall into the couch and say, e whatever. Right? So let’s say, for example, what you’re going to do as it’s a guilty pleasure t v show. There’s nothing intellectually demanding about it. But if you just build up with some intention, this anticipation, i’m going to watch this show. It starts at eight a you know, maybe im going to do it with my friend. I’m going to have a drink with it. It’s not a hard, commonly demanding thing. But by just anticipating it and sort of building up a little bit of a routine or some special circumstances around it, you’ll get more relaxation out of it. Or there’s i just gong to read a book that’s not very hard, a thrill or a book, or something like this, that’s not that demanding, but i’m really looking forward to it. I’m gong to make this snack and go to my chair and put my feet up and just really get into it. Or im gong to do it in the bath. And, you know, whatever i mean, right? You know, you can, you can put some intention in planning, a little bit of intention and planning into a non demanding leisure pursuit, and you’ll get o that pursuit. That’s a hack. The other thing i would say is, bewary of your phone. In this instance, s i’m completely fine with things that aren’t demanding. That’s not reading great literature or carving wood, that’s fine. You’re trying to recharge. But if you go to your phone and say, entertain me, you’re putting yourself at the mercy of some pretty merciless algaritms. Right now, you are throwing yourselves into jeron lineer’s machine of meshing gears that’s going to convert you into a gadget that can be chewed up and sped out the other side in some sort of metaphorical, monetisable soilent. It feels kind of like its react. It’s a relaxing but in a manipulative way. It’s pushing your buttons. It’s showing you outrage. Its showing you humor that then goes into the weird. It’s, it’s plain, your brain stim like a fiddle, and it’s going to keep you on there, and you’re going to use it. And it is diverting, and it is distracting, but it’s having all these side effects, psychologically and emotionally. Whyle, there’s also the the just philosophical side effect of that, you are being converted into a gadge. At your attentions being harvested. All your information is being gathered. And so i put a astric around that one particular activity, numbing with your phone is something that i’m very, very wary about. The internet is fine, right? It’s like, o k, a, what i’m going to do during my mindless reaction is i’m going to watch, you twu vidios of, you know, atam savage on tested dot com, building d i y projects, right? I know a lot of people, during the to lock down portions of the pandemic, those brief periods with their shelter and place orders, depend on where you lived. Adam savage, the former myth buster, would lie stream him like building something. And sometimes it would literally be like building legos or a model. And there is a real comfort in that for a lot of people, and they would follow along with hem or just have it on. It was a positive, nice force, like, that’s great, like, that’s the inner net. But that’s no exposing yourself and just saying, let me scrawl, numb me it’s like, here’s this thing that’s accessible through the inner net that i know about and i like, and i’m going to go, it’s not that the man dine a. It makes me feel good, and i’m going to go look at that, right? Soter, some intention, some focus on what you’re actually looking at. So twitter can be really devastating in this way. It’s really hard to do twitter in a way that you don’t get as much harm as good insta graham can be pretty devastating in this way. (Time 0:28:29)