I’m convinced that it is impossible to be productive without offending people. I accept this price. We live in an on-demand world, and I can’t change it. I can’t convince people to abandon their ways.
But I can keep producing. And I can keep offending.
And I can keep accepting.
In our lifetimes, we will see many things. Of these are two near-certainties:
Taken together, this means:
Instead of becoming more productive because of driverless cars, the world will have a new place from which to text.
Virtual and augmented reality: not a tool to learn and communicate, but another distraction from our longer term selves.
The Internet of Everything: not a way to preserve resources for more valuable actions, just henchmen of our baser, shorter term instincts. “Alexa, put on Real Housewives,” instead of “Alexa, what’s my next task?”
While we cannot change the path dependency of the short term world, we can change the path dependency of our long term lives.
We can be the ones who take advantage of the opportunities that result from these technological advantages:
We can turn commuting time into a side project.
We can conduct virtual meetings with colleagues from the comfort of our home office. (And, soon enough, we can augment our pajamas with dress clothes.)
We can use Alexa, Siri, and whoever else comes, to help us be long term versions of ourselves.
But we have to start now.
The longer we wait, the more entrenched the dependency becomes. Before you know it, you will be one of the many on the sidelines, wishing they’d played. Or worse, you will be one of the many lying in their last bed, wishing they’d lived.
When you pursue your long term interests, you are being your authentic self.
Becoming a long term person is nothing more than becoming who you are.
This was primarily sourced from How to be a Long Term Person in a Short Term World, available on Amazon.
Inevitably, there’s a tension between A.) habit formation and consistency and B.) rest, relaxation, and social interactions.
Mindfully proportioning our time and other resources between these two poles is one of the great challenges of the productive life.
The best example of the inevitable clash between Habits and Life is the weekend. The battlefield is our mind. The weapons are our thoughts and, ultimately, our actions.
Well, it’s Thursday, which is almost Friday, and half of Friday is the weekend, so Thursday is the weekend.
I want to sleep in.
I don’t want to exercise.
I want to drink.
I don’t want to do any work.
I want to keep my habit.
I bet I’ll keep my habit even if I skip a day or two.
I don’t want to lose my habit.
I hate Mondays.
I deserve a recovery day.
I’ll start exercising again tomorrow.
I’ll start writing again tomorrow.
I’ll start eating better tomorrow.
It’s Wednesday?!? Where’d the week go?
It’s almost Thursday… <BLEEP>
The tension between habits (or what I’d call the “long term world” and life as it presents itself (“short term world”) is inevitable for those who pursue long term goals and simultaneously balance various other obligations.
But, like most tensions, the adverse effects can be mitigated.
My latest experiment — fairly successful — is pretty straight-forward.
For purposes of scheduling, I treat Friday and Saturday as one day. This means that I’m allowed to skip doing x on one day, but not the other. I do the same for Sunday and Monday.
This allows me to get things done and maintain my habits, while providing enough flexibility for me to relax for an afternoon of Netflix or spontaneously go hiking. (My wife likes this productivity hack more than my others.)
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday are treated normally. This is the stretch during which I schedule my most important and impactful actions.
It also happens to be the stretch when the weekend has the least amount of pull.
This tempo, so far, has sustained my habits, reduced my stress, and allowed me to balance my various tasks and obligations with more-than-my-life-average success.
(This was primarily sourced from How to be a Long Term Person in a Short Term World, available on Amazon.)