Insight Synthesis

Small tasks pile up quickly. One tip I use is to simply remind myself that if the task takes less than 10 minutes, Its best to get it out of the way right now.

Doing the dishes right after eating or cooking takes about 1-5 minutes tops for 1-2 people’s dishes. It takes about 3x as long to finish the same load if you let food dry onto the dishes overnight.

Doing your dishes encourages others to do theirs as well. You should continue to do at least your own dishes regardless of whether your roommate/partner/family take notice or not.

Taking out the trash takes no more than 2-3 minutes. Before adopting this habit (took awhile) I used to let garbage pile up in my garage and take it out in big batches monthly.

It’s unlikely you would have productively used the 5-10 minutes each task takes. When depressed, anxious or just unproductive, time seems to fly by very quickly. In fact, 10 minutes is a very long time. Adopting a habit of learning something, recreational reading or exercise for 10 minutes a day is a great start.

There are some excellent self-help material out there. Some of it can change lives, or at least instill excellent habits and help one see things in a new light. Think and Grow Rich is a classic. Steve Pavlina’s articles are informational and motivational. Joe Novarro’s books on body language are a must read for everyone. There’s something I noticed about people who don’t get many benefits from self-help.

Self-help books assume that you’re healthy to begin with. How can you Get Things Done when you can’t even change the cat litter less than once a month, or do the laundry or dishes?

These things aren’t easy, but for some people they just aren’t possible. It’s not that one may be physically incapable of doing something, but for people who suffer from depression (clinically, not just occasional sadness,) it’s easy to justify against doing anything. No matter how good this advice is, telling a depression person to exercise daily will never produce results. Telling a depressed person to quit smoking will never produce results. That person may be able to exercise and quit smoking after the depression is taken care of. In this sense, these things would serve as symptoms of depression rather than a cause.

If you’re stuck and you can’t seem to move forward, especially if it has been this way for a prolonged period, I recommend seeking professional help. It takes a lot of courage to get past the stigma of mental illness (it takes about 8 years to diagnose depression, on average) but it doesn’t make sense to loiter through life until it gets bad enough that you will end up seeking professional help anyway.

After the mental illness is being taken care of, the self-help material begins making sense in a new light. It’s no longer just mental masturbation, but begins being actual habits that you can work into your life slowly. Treating the depression will not change the bad habits a person depressed for years may have integrated into his life, but once you treat the illness (either via medication or psychoanalysis, or both) getting things done, exercising on a regular basis, getting over shyness, socializing, etc become feasible, especially after you begin seeing changes occur at such a rapid rate.

Spend at least $10+ buying something you really want to eat. The healthier, more expensive, more ethnic – and anything else that may make it easier to justify eating the meal, the better.

Buy this meal, prepare it, unpack it, etc, and then have it sitting in front of you. Oh, and don’t eat it. Just sit.

DO NOT taste any part of the meal. Don’t even taste the ketchup packets.

DO NOT eat anything for the next 8 hours.

DO notice the smell and freshness of it.

DO make note of every justification you’re coming up with. (See list below)

Remember that this is a test of self-control, not healthiness, finances, or anything else. The cost of the meal is the cost of the experiment, not “a waste of money.” Yes there are starving kids in Africa, but when did you give a shit?

This will likely take a few tries, but try to 1up the last meal you failed to resist.

Justifications that may be going through your mind:

• I’m wasting money
• I’m wasting food
• My mom/Gods told me never to throw food out.
• I never tried food from this place
• I never tried this dish/item
• I’m gonna be awake for a long time so I should eat
• I’m hungry. It’s not healthy not to eat
• I need protein (or carbs, or fats, or calories, …)
• I have dry mouth (water is OK but don’t fill yourself up)
• I’m afraid of getting an ulcer (or some other medical condition)
• I just drank coffee, alcohol or <insert other drug>, it’s better if I eat something with these drugs
• I don’t have self-control, who cares?
• I’ll try this again some other time
• Just a bite (1 bite is justified same way as entire meal)

Notice that in the back of your mind, the goal that you will eat the food will remain. What’s stopping you from eating the food is your search for a reasonable justification. The point of the task is to stop this searching and just accept the unwanted end result – no soup for you.

It’s something we know deep down but continue to ignore and try to find alternatives for, sort of like physical exercise. We look for tips, shortcuts, medicine to take, people to copy and people to push us. Ultimately, all the experience, wisdom, knowledge we gain, and all the self-help books, will lead us to this same conclusion: Just Do It – it’s the only mantra you need.

Knowing this, begin looking for an answer not on how to be more productive (I just told you how), but on why you avoid things that aren’t enjoyable right now. It’s because you’re not future oriented, and it’s the same reason you don’t exercise on a regular basis. The kids who sat in the back of the class in junior high school and didn’t do any work probably had the same problem. Imagine you’re teaching them why they should suck it up and go to class, and then use the same thing you tell them to motivate yourself to suck it up and just do what needs to be done, right now.

Sometimes we avoid doing trivial tasks because while the task itself takes 5 minutes, there’s a burdensome process that must happen before and after the task. One example is upgrading your computer. Putting new computer memory (RAM) in is easy. It’s simple and takes literally a minute. The entire process of upgrading your RAM can take much longer, or at least seem to be a huge burden psychologically. We need to shutdown, move the pc, open it, put the RAM in, close the pc, move the pc back, run some RAM tests, etc.

In reality even the entire process done fully as hypothesized above doesn’t take too long, but we will subconsciously avoid or procrastinate on tasks that we think might be a chore. One way to counter this is to always think about maintenance while you work. Don’t do a half-assed job because you’re in a rush. Take extra time to make sure your work is quality. Leave your work in a state in which neither you, nor anybody else would mind going back to and maintaining. Depending on what you’re working on, document your work (for yourself as much as for others), clean up properly and make sure things are as close to how you left them as possible. Try to be consistent.

I have a major problem taking the garbage out, not because I mind spending 60 seconds picking up bags from every room and tossing them in a bin, but because I can’t find the garbage bags. Irritated, I fumble through my garage for a garbage bag, get the chore done, but then have the same problem a few days later. If I take an extra 5 minutes to organize all the things I need (bags, twist ties, etc), probably close to the bin going out, then the chore will remain trivial.

Another major cause of stress is not being able to find something, because I didn’t put it back in its usual place the last time I used it. This is especially aggravating when somebody else does it to me. Living with others who have bad habits is probably the best catalyst in getting you to make positive changes in your own habits.

Spending a little extra time in every single task you do takes considerable effort to make a habit, but is well worth it. I suggest starting small. I began by always putting things back where they belonged, and then moved on to doing the dishes as soon as I’ve used them, instead of having them pile up. It’s especially important to keep the flow going when you absolutely don’t feel like doing so. The best time to keep pushing and go with it is when you can logically justify putting the chore off. Being able to realize that washing a just-used plate will only take a minute and is worth it, when you can easily justify not washing the plate because you’re studying or otherwise very busy, is one of the last steps you’d need to get through before this habit becomes regular.

Like most people I know, I do my best and most productive work late into the AM. This is generally seen as a bad habit, even by those who do it, and I’m sure I’m not the only person who tries to “fix his schedule” every other day.

One reason I’d like to fix my schedule is because I feel if I wake up early and get my work done, I have “the whole day ahead of me.” This is true, but in reality, I have the rest of the day ahead of me no matter what my schedule is like. If I wake up at 5 AM, 12 PM or 3 PM, I have the same amount of time between when I awoke and when I’m going back to bed. It only feels like waking up late eats most of my day because I subconsciously go through the day still intending to sleep at the early bed time I set for yourself; i.e., 11 – 1AM. If I give up the idea of trying to fix my schedule and accept that I will be awake late, I suddenly feel I unlocked more time.

For people who have jobs or classes to attend in the morning, getting up early isn’t a choice. In that case, there’s no doubt you need to fix your schedule. What matters is getting enough sleep. That aside, there are many benefits to waking up early in the morning:

• Being up late at night can be depressing, especially when there’s nobody around.

• Staying up late is usually the result of worse habits, like bad time management. Perhaps a feeling of “I wasted the entire day, and now I don’t want to sleep before I get something done.”

• In most places, even  New York, being up late in the AM is much more limiting than being up at night. Things you might need to get stuff off your todo list, like banks, libraries and post offices, will be closed.

• People are far less likely to think you’re a drug abuser or a zombie if you wake up early morning.

With those benefits, why not fix your schedule? Accepting that your schedule is bad and taking the above factors into account, there’s really not much harm in staying up late. If you do wake up and sleep early, you might not get anything done if you’re poor at managing your day.

I noticed if I wake up early, I feel lazy just because I know I have so much time ahead to get things done. It’s idiotic and easily fixed if I look at the big picture, but I generally have no obligations in the morning and so no real reason to be up. I work from home with no fixed schedule, and if I take classes they’re almost always after 12 PM.The stress and pressure of feeling guilty for staying up late aren’t worth the benefits of waking up early. Being up in the morning is overrated, especially when you’re getting enough sleep and getting things done.

Re-evaluate if you really need to fix your sleeping schedule, and then if you do: Fix it. Wake up at the same time everyday, no matter when you sleep. Don’t take naps and your body will naturally adjust to make sure you get the right amount of sleep. You’ll begin to feel tired later in the day, and more energized in the morning, provided you give your body enough time to get used to the change. Just be aware that you will likely not be able to get anything done the first 2-3 days. I tend to feel like indifferent, tired and dysphoric while waiting for my body to adjust. That’s OK. Just realize this is normal and will go away, otherwise this withdrawal syndrome will keep you tied to your bad schedule.

There’s no question that buying in bulk means you’re paying (much) less per individual unit, but in the long run does it save you money? The obvious answer is yes – how can it not? Instead of buying 1 train card for $4 everyday for 30 days (total $120), you would save $40 if you buy an $80 30 day unlimited card. In fact, you would likely save more because on some days (maybe weekends) you might use the train multiple times.

With metrocards, or anything you purchase on a regular basis that you can sit down and calculate a near exact cost of (cable bill, monthly memberships, etc), buying in bulk is a no-brainer. However, things you consume or use up, like gas or food, likely end up costing more when bought in bulk.

This happens if you don’t have a system for how you plan on using what you bought over an extended period. Instead of buying one Twinkie a day, you might think you’re saving $20 buying a big monthly supply (monthly supply being 31 Twinkies, for example). Without any form of control or restriction placed on the Twinkies, it’s likely you will now just end up eating more than one Twinkie per day. You might finish the Twinkies in a week instead of a month, and then probably either get sick of them and quit buying them for a week or two, and then resuming the cycle, or resuming it right away. Food isn’t the only thing we can abuse…

With a full tank in the car, I’m much more likely to speed or drive aggressively. With multiple bags of cat food in storage, I would probably take out scoops without caring much about losing any bits of food. I.e., some bits fell on the floor, or I put too much and need to throw out the old bits.

This also happens with money. If you have $100 in your bank account, you’re much less likely to charge small purchases, and become very vigilant about what you’re buying. With $3,500 in your bank account, this self monitoring is inhibited because suddenly, the loss is insignificant relative to how much you have in the bank. This is illogical. Saving $1 is saving $1,whether you have $2 in the bank or $2,000.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t buy in bulk. Buying in bulk is an excellent way to save money, but also requires that you micromanage your supply.

Giving up can be beneficial, or rather: Not knowing when to give up can be detrimental to your health (in the form of stress) and to your productivity. Being overwhelmed with many things to do and no sense of priority (no deadlines) usually means nothing will get done.

We all do it. We write down ideas we have with the intention of getting to them eventually. We register domain names for projects we plan to work on, and we might even begin working on a project as soon as we get the idea for it.

You wake up in the middle of the night and write down some new idea. You note it on your Blackberry, or in the corner of your notebook in class, or you record a voice note, or create a new file for it.

Eventually, we end up with a notebook or a folder containing dozens or even hundreds of ideas and plans. Most of them we have not started, nor even thought about after we recorded them. Some are maybe 5-10% complete, and a few maybe at least 50% done. This is normal, but it can quickly turn into a bad habit.

We become so backed up, that new ideas which may be brilliant quickly get thrown to the end of our project queue, which by now is populated by ideas we’ve had months ago that we still plan on getting to, eventually. This means that most new ideas will remain deferred.

We also feel an accumulating amount of stressed because each plan we have allocates a little space in the back of our mind (the idea stays in our mental RAM). Prioritizing becomes damn near impossible. This is especially a problem when we believe that an idea is “easy” or will take a short amount of time. This is a bad habit.

“Giving up” on some of these ideas and plans doesn’t occur to some people. It didn’t occur to me for a long time. I had intentions to work on all the projects I brainstormed, even when I was renewing the domains I registered for them years ago, that were sitting around inactive.

My brain was full of things I wanted, or felt I needed to get done, but in reality my interest in most of my previous plans had dwindled long ago, and I only held on to them because they remained unique (at least as far as I knew), or because I still thought they had potential, and many of them probably did, and still do. Maybe I felt guilty that I had paid for some resources for a project (such as a domain name, or supplies), and felt a dire need to get at least something done with the resources.

I just let a few hundred dollars worth of domain names expire, and I’m looking for all the books I planned to read years ago, and putting them up for sale. This problem occurs a lot with books. I hate having a queue of books I plan on reading, and then going to the library and coming home with 6 new books that I feel a greater urge to get through because of the return date. And when I go return them, I usually come home with more.

We all have an overwhelming number of projects we’d like to work on. We have a lot of things we’d like to pursue. This is normal, but we don’t have the manpower to get all of these projects even half way done – at least not with any amount of quality that would suffice ever starting on them. It’s time to give up.

Give up. Admit to yourself that you have not gotten to this in a year, and will probably never get to it, and that’s OK. It’s OK if somebody else releases something you intended to a year ago. Keep in mind that not doing anything is the same as intending to do something but never actually doing it.

Also realize that you’re impeding your time, brain power, and other resources from being used to improve things you’ve nearly finished, or on starting a new project that you might have thought up this morning.

Let it go. You might have wasted $10, $20, even $100 registering that domain name, but if it’s just sitting there – and if it has been sitting there for 2 years, what makes you think it won’t remain inactive for another 2 years – then you’re only wasting more money.

It’s similar to how people hold on to a falling stock just to avoid taking a loss, because they fail to see that losing a little is not the same as losing everything. This is also why some people become pack rats, or hold on to certain things they don’t use anymore.

Keep in mind that very few of your brilliant ideas and projects will actually come out as you see them in your head. Most will flop, and the ones you least expect to flourish, will.

No matter what type of project you’re working on, it will require a lot of time, money, a lot of thinking and problem solving, and even way more doing – mostly tedious work. If you think your idea is simple and will only take a few days to release, you’re probably wrong. The actual technical work might take 2 hours, but when you calculate a more realistic, objective, estimate of how long something takes, you almost always come up with a figure way larger than you expected.

For example, changing your car’s oil might take 15 minutes, but this figure might not count all the other necessary steps: Getting the supplies, moving the car to a suitable location, jacking up the car, doing any initial cleaning and preparations, doing the work, cleaning up, and taking into account the fact that in real life, shit happens. I.e., a small nut gets lost, or you realize you’re missing something essential, or you make a mistake.

Besides, do you really want to put all the effort into some small project that you think might have a chance of getting anywhere? Especially when you’re competing with some other people in the world who are focusing solely on this exact idea, and have much more passion about it?

Sit down and jot all the things you need to get done, and then examine each one realistically. Prioritize, and realize that you don’t always have to note down or pursue every single idea you get.

We naturally put the blame on others. We blame people for making us angry. We blame somebody for consistently being late. We blame our professors for not teaching well. We blame our cat when she creates a mess. We blame the the government, the rich, and the poor. It’s easy to put the blame on others. All we need to do is believe it, and justifications will form and help us hold our opinion indefinitely.

Eventually we might get tired of just getting screwed and take matters into our own hands. We learn that nobody can ‘make us’ do anything, and we stop getting angry at people. We realize that our friend will always be late, and get over it by just not depending on him. We figure out that our professors are there to help, but we need to pick up the book and actually do some work if we’re not satisfied with that C-. We learn that cats always knock the jug of water over, and we should adapt by just not putting the jug and the cat together.

Every single thing we do is our own choice. We choose to go to work. We choose to pay our bills. We choose to drive safely, or to drive recklessly, or to walk 20 miles to work. We choose our friends, and we choose to get angry or depressed over certain things. It’s easy to put the blame on anything else, but it won’t help solve the underlying problem. It’s part of our ego’s self-defense mechanism. Spending all day complaining and ranting all day is a waste of your time, and the time of the person your yapping to. Nobody cares. Putting yourself in the 3rd person might help make you aware of this bad habit.

Who did you blame today?

Specific goals are important. They provide a direction, and more importantly, a finish line. Here’s what happens when you set goals, but don’t get specific enough.

On the whiteboard went a list of sites I planned on releasing for the month. The only thing I wrote was “Next Sites Up” with a check off list of 5 sites. Obviously no thought was given to the goal, although the sites were small and I had a general idea of what I wanted to do with each one.

I began working on each site, but a week later noticed that I was only focusing on the 1-2 sites that I enjoyed working on. Which is fine, except I had no idea if the sites were done or not. What was the goal, again?

What does “releasing a site” mean, anyway? Should the sites have a specific amount of content? Should the code or content by refactored or revised? What ended up happening was, 4 sites were barely started (2 of which weren’t touched), and 1 had too many drafts and content for me to work on before losing interest. The month goes by and I look at the whiteboard again and feel discouraged that zero sites have gone up, more so because I did put in the time required to “release” all the sites on time, whatever that means.

To get over this, I created sub-tasks for each goal. I began by using the first 2-3 days of every month to plan out the goals for the month, and using Trac, created only 3-5 tasks for each site. The very essentials that I _hated_ doing, were the first things I needed to get off the todo list. I only put down the absolute minimum amount of work needed to get the sites up and running, knowing that once they were, adding things here and there was no longer a turn off since a foundation was in place.

A goal should have a general timeframe, and a set of actionable tasks, both of which should be realistic. This applies to any goals you set. When it comes time to actually put in the effort and finish a task, if it requires any sort of thinking, and there are other things you could be doing that are either 1) more enjoyable (like the sites I enjoy worked on) or 2) require no thinking (mundane, mindless tasks, like dishes), then you’re going to avoid doing what you have to do. It’s easy to rationalize not doing something important when you can tell yourself that you’re something productive anyway.

Remember that productive for you, doesn’t mean “producing results,” but “producing results that matter.”