Weekly Mix #182 - Procrastination, Work/Life Integration, Building in Public and Finding Your Calling

Weekly Mix #182 - Procrastination, Work/Life Integration, Building in Public and Finding Your Calling

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Happy Monday!

As you may know, I've been writing every day as part of Ship 30 for 30, a program designed to build your writing habit.

I just signed up (again) for the March cohort, and you can get $20 off by signing up with this link.​

I signed up again for two reasons: a little extra motivation to continue my habit, but more importantly, the community. I've made friends with a bunch of amazing people, and I want to continue being part of the group.

I encourage you to join me!

Cognitive Load

I took three days off in the past two weeks, but I didn't write anything new on the blog. Why not?

I think it's cognitive load. Too many open threads and projects going on, so that each time I sit down to do some work, it feels like I have to finish all of them.

Of course, the way to get them all done is to sit down and get started, but the enormity of the tasks in front of me seems to make procrastination worse.

That's part of why a daily writing habit is important to me...it smooths the friction of getting started.

But it's also why I enjoy writing this newsletter so much.

It's a private way for me to share amongst a community that I feel comfortable with, and that helps me write little thoughts like this.

Thank you.

In this week’s newsletter:

📖 Reading

​On learning in public - Ava​

​Mailbag #1 - Wait but Why​

​Good and bad procrastination - Paul Graham​

​Lessons From Year 28 - Nat Eliason​

​How Liz Fosslien remains prolific - Nick deWilde​

​Liz and Mollie's art on work/life integration​

10 Tweets

🎧 Listening

​0.001% - Kaytranada​

​Lessons on writing & creativity — Brian Koppelman on The Knowledge Project Podcast​

Have a wonderful week!

Graham

​On learning in public - Ava​

Some thoughts and ideas on learning something new in public:

"Be competitive, but try to focus on effort and not output...So when I see someone doing really well, I think: they’re trying really hard, I should try really hard too, instead of they achieved x, I should achieve x as well. Then I continue to try hard at my own thing."

​Mailbag #1 - Wait but Why​

Tim is a fantastic writer, and very entertaining, and this post answers fan's questions on everything from "Why did you decide to buy a tortoise?" to "Would you call yourself a transhumanist?"

One of my favourites:

"Do you have any insights as to how one finds their calling? – Akshat V. (Bangalore, India)

Say two people want to find the love of their life, Person A and Person B.

Person A never goes on dates, opting instead to sit alone debating in her head about who the exact kind of person is she will fall in love with. She scours online profiles, but never contacts anyone. Instead, her plan is to wait until she comes across the profile so perfect for her that she’ll know she’s found The One. Then and only then will she reach out to that person for a date.

Person B goes on a lot of dates, constantly meeting new people and keeping an open mind, because she knows she probably doesn’t know either herself or the type of match that makes sense for her as well as she thinks she does.

Who’s more likely to find the love of their life?"

​Good and bad procrastination - Paul Graham​

An excellent article on the right kind of procrastination.

"...the most impressive people I know are all procrastinators. They're type-C procrastinators: they put off working on small stuff to work on big stuff.
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What's "small stuff?" Roughly, work that has zero chance of being mentioned in your obituary.

...Good procrastination is avoiding errands to do real work."

​Lessons From Year 28 - Nat Eliason​

Nat's annual post on learnings around his birthday. Nat is the envy of many: successfully "retired" at age 28.

Some of the takeaways that stood out most:

"Get Outside...After a couple months of life indoors, I started making an effort to try to at least spend some of the day in the sun. The psychological difference was immediate. Just getting a couple hours outside each day helped my sleep, stress, mood, even food choices. It turns out to be an extremely high leverage intervention to make for having a better sense of wellbeing.

The difference worked even if I was spending that time outside in front of my laptop working."

"Trust your negative gut, but question your positive gut."

​How Liz Fosslien remains prolific - Nick deWilde​

Liz Fosslien is Head of Content at a startup called Humu, and outside she is an author, illustrator, and speaker.

This piece is full of great ideas for marketing yourself, working a day job while creating, and how to shape your content for different platforms.

"The biggest lesson I’ve taken from content marketing is that you shouldn’t be creating new content all the time. It’s exhausting, and it also means you’re likely putting out a disjointed message. A great content strategy starts with some kind of big seminal piece, like an eBook or white paper, that you turn into five blog posts, the script for a webinar, 50 social posts, and so on."

​Liz and Mollie's art on work/life integration​

Liz Fosslien does illustrations as part of her work, which are documented on their Instagram account @lizandmollie.

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10 Tweets

​The best content for learning to speak better, and build a podcast from Austin Schlessinger and I​

​The biggest struggles of remote work from Buffer​

​The easiest way to make $9,000 every month​

​Why startups fail from Profitwell​

​An illustration on why our lives are in our hands from Tim Urban​

​Reasons to grow a Twitter following​

​Why everyone should have a personal podcast from David Perell​

​How to trick your brain out of buying things​

​0.001% - Kaytranada​

This mix from Kaytranada (Montreal's own) is "beats, loops, remixes and sounds made during the process of 99.9%."

A great no-vocals track for work (and what I listened to while writing this newsletter).

​Lessons on writing & creativity — Brian Koppelman on The Knowledge Project Podcast​

A bunch of great takeaways in this one about the creative process and enjoying the work. Some highlights:

"The more you try to calculate the odds and game something out, the more you realize you won't win."

"Momentum is an incredibly powerful tool, and inertia is an incredibly powerful force."

"The work is what creates motivation."

Photo of the week

My iPhone struggled with the darkness here, but we spent Thursday night with friends playing hockey under lights on a frozen lake.

Nights like these are always a reminder on why community is so important (and the upside of Canadian winters).

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Thank you for being part of the newsletter every week.

It means so much that you let me be part of your inbox, and I love building a community of like-minded people with you.

If I could ask one thing: could you forward this to one person you think would enjoy it? They can sign up directly for the newsletter here.​

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