Day 92 – The Diderot Effect: We Can Overcome Excess
Last year, I decided it was time to organize my life. My office was cluttered, my filing system was chaotic, and my tools for managing tasks were scattered across a mix of notebooks, apps, and sheer mental willpower. I had read enough about productivity to know that the first step toward efficiency is creating an […]
Day 91 – The Myth of the High-Performance Flow State
We live in an age where peak performance has become the holy grail of human achievement. From elite athletes to professional musicians, high performance is often tied to the elusive “flow state.” This state of mind, where focus is total, time seems to disappear, and work feels effortless, is glorified in countless self-help books, articles, […]
Day 69 – Rest is Not Weakness
There was a time, in my younger days, when I believed rest was a sign of weakness. I thought taking a break—letting someone see me idle—would make me appear less capable, less determined. I wanted to be seen as the person who was always there, always working, always pushing forward. Rest, to me, was the […]
Day 64 – Compound Your Interest
In the pursuit of personal growth, we often confront a frustrating paradox: some actions come naturally, while others feel insurmountable, like scaling a mountain in ill-fitting shoes. Why is it that we can dive headfirst into certain tasks, yet others drain us before we’ve even begun? The answer lies in how our brains perceive effort […]
Day 37 – Thinking is Work
Today, I’ve been reflecting on something that’s been ingrained in me for years: the idea that thinking isn’t “real” work. Somehow, I’ve been conditioned to believe that productivity only counts when it’s visible—when there’s a finished product, a checked box, or something tangible to show for my effort. But the truth is, thinking is work. […]
Day 21 – Waiting for Perfect Time, is Wasting Time
There’s a subtle lie we tell ourselves when it comes to personal commitment and growth. We convince ourselves that we’ll start when the timing is right, as if there’s some mystical alignment of the stars that will make our first steps effortless and the journey smooth. We look for that “perfect” moment when all conditions line […]
Day 240 – Motivation is a Liar
What exactly is “motivation?” Have you thought about this concept? Does motivation actually exist, meaning can we trace this to an exact chemical relay inside our brains or bodies that triggers this sensation of feeling motivated? The answer is a resounding, kind of. We have an idea of what may cause this feeling of motivation, […]
Day 193 – Law of Conditional Progression
Anyone who has ever played a video game understands conditional progression. This is the concept that you cannot advance in a game until certain conditions are met. Once the conditions have been achieved, you are allowed to progress. When you learn how to develop software, one of the most basic algorithms you learn is conditional […]
Day 184 – The Impact of Daily Writing – Part 1
This is the 2,286th article I have written in a row since I started on January 7th, 2018. I make a note of this because I had to deal with an archiving issue last night that was an annoying disruption to my process. This caused me to have to go back and re-index several articles […]
Day 183 – The Basics will Kill You
This post is a reminder that you cannot skip the basics. If you ignore the basics, then they will wait quietly in the background and then sneak up slowly and stab you in the back when you are the least prepared. Am I being too dramatic? I do not think so. We think we are […]