Free Will

Free Will – Sam Harris

We don’t have free will. And if we learn more about the brain we have less agency. But knowing that you can know better what to do with the rest of the ‘freedom’ you have.

Brave New World

Good book about society highlighted by doing a contrast of orderly and the savages. Story not too grabbing / moving.

Read in 2017 and before during high school.

Artemis

I liked this second book by Andy Weir quite a lot. It’s a great vacation read where the pages just flow away. Like The Martian (his debut novel), it’s full of science and interesting twists. Here is my take on the storyline.

You: smuggler on the Moon, scraping by and doing your thing (being funny and all)

Need: Money (to repay dad)

Go: join in a plot to help a business man you’re smuggling for

Search: find out how to do this (evil) plan

Find: try and execute this dastardly plan, sabotage the rover

Take: it goes wrong, and many more things go wrong, you hurt the people around you

Return: a plan is made to return the city to normal and get everything right again (they stay in this phase for quite a while)

Change: everything works out in the end, although there is not much focus on the change. Of course she is able to pay her dad and life picks up again, her character stays quite the same (fun and not caring too much)

Solar

Hmm, this book, Solar by Ian McEwan, was recommended by a friend and I did like it. But it was not among the other fiction books that I liked better. That being said, there is some very fun dark humour in there.

Michael Beard is a Nobel prize-winning physicist whose best work is behind him, and whose fifth marriage is crumbling. However, an invitation to travel to New Mexico offers him a chance for him to extricate himself from his marital problems, reinvigorate his career, and save the world from environmental disaster. Can a man who has made a mess of his life clean up the messes of humanity?

Hmm interesting note from a reader:

“I’m writing a paper arguing that Beard is himself meant to represent humanity’s approach to the environmental disaster: he lacks the ability to take responsibility for his own actions, acts in his own self-interest, and relishes in excess (both in food and women) to achieve his own pleasures at the detriment to himself and others.

I think McEwan’s trying to tell us that by ignoring/failing to take large-scale concerted efforts against Global Warming simply because environmental issues don’t seem to cause immediate catastrophe in our own lives we are effectively acting like the despicable Michael Beard.”

Hyperion

It has been a while but I remember Hyperion by Dan Simmons as a great audiobook. There is a lot of thriller, myth, and good storytelling.

Here is some synopsis:

Hyperion: On the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man, there waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all. On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hope—and a terrible secret. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands. 

A stunning tour de force filled with transcendent awe and wonder, Hyperion is a masterwork of science fiction that resonates with excitement and invention, the first volume in a remarkable new science fiction epic by the multiple-award-winning author of The Hollow Man.

The Fall of Hyperion: In the stunning continuation of the epic adventure begun in Hyperion, Simmons returns us to a far future resplendent with drama and invention. On the world of Hyperion, the mysterious Time Tombs are opening. And the secrets they contain mean that nothing–nothing anywhere in the universe–will ever be the same.

Legendary Flexibility

These are my notes on Legendary Flexibility by John Call (or Jujimufu). This year I’m working on getting better flexibility, mostly for (olympic) lifting, so what better time to read this book than now.

• Do the hard work. I like this advice because he positions it next to doing ‘new’ or ‘exciting’ movements. Things like rollers etc, they are good and have value, but gaining flexibility (or strength for that matter) is about doing the hard work.
  • This also makes me think about YouTube videos on all these things, the incentive is wrong here. And by that, I mean that you can only make 5 videos about the basics and be done. But you can make 100 videos about crazy movements that are not the hard work.
  • “But from the start, which is right now, you have to accept that hard, direct, PAINFUL, and often BORING work is the only way to ever make it in the flexibility game. Brute force it.”
  • “Do 1000 reps. 1000 minutes worth of time deepening your splits or squats, or increasing your kicks. Whatever it is you want, begin brute forcing it now.

• Find a strong enough why. What is your motivation? Mine is to 1) do the snatch (and likewise movements) full range of motion. And 2) to be able to touch my toes. And why these, because I feel better/good being able to do this.
• Live the flexibility lifestyle. In your daily life, incorporate flexibility movements! Do them when picking up something from the floor, when doing the dishes, etc.
• Strength and coordination (technique/repetition) are the keys to flexibility. It’s about training your nervous system those new movements.
• Choose the right supplementary flexibility exercises.
  1. Select exercises that resemble your goal’s position or movement (i.e. you can only do so many snatches/aerials/etc per session)
  2. Always maintain full control in your flexibility exercises. (don’t force yourself into positions)
  3. Prioritize flexibility exercises that involve movement and tension (this can also mean moving against a wall (so no motion)
  4. Prioritize flexibility exercises that involve structure or make use of equipment (to help create tension and range of motion)
• Book tip: Stretching Scientifically by Thomas Kurz. “when you’re fully stretched, flex your muscles”. Then relax and stretch a bit further. You can even increase the (power?) of the stretch by adding weight when doing the stretches.
• Example, do stiff-legged deadlifts (on a platform) (with a straight back of course) to increase your back stretch! (goal 2) instead of just bending forward.
• Get some tools to help you stretch. This can be weights but also things like a well-cushioned mat (thicker than a yoga mat). When was the last time you wanted to do a stretch on a hard floor?
  • “training in unnecessarily hard conditions is going to make you quit early or skip stretching.”
  • Other tools: walls, chair, fixed beams (lower squat), barbell, yoga blocks, rings, weights, (cossack squat with weights!), bands, stick/pvc, straps, timer, knee sleeves, etc

• Part II: Flexibility Training Strategies
• Collection 1: Circumstances – train flexibility when you train other things
  • “add movements that stimulate flexibility and ranges of motion during your warm up.”
  • E.g. light but very deep squats before going heavy
  • Also do them throughout your workout to target weak points (e.g. parts of the snatch)

• “You get flexibility stimulation throughout the day in little bits here and there by living a flexibility lifestyle, but that’s not enough to develop very high ranges of motion. You must add in the intense stretches that are very uncomfortable to build the control and pain tolerance needed for those ranges of motion. That will do a great trick, but you also need to spend more time training flexibility in long sessions with relaxed and refreshing work. Particularly for the latter, you should be doing your long sessions in supportive and motivating environments with other people.”
• Consider performance-enhancing drugs for flexibility (pre-workout supplements for flexibility). Jon suggests some painkillers (for relaxing the muscles). And caffeine, L-Tyrosine, DMAE?, ephedrine, L-theanine (etc)
• Eat a flexibility friendly diet:
  • Drink a lot of water (duh) (Jon drinks 7-11 LITERS per day)
  • Eat anti-inflammatory (greens, fish(oil), curcumin?)
• Collection 2: Tracking – Measure your flexibility progress
  • Do this via making regular videos of yourself
  • When doing flexibility exercises, 1min stretch, 4min rest, 5 sets is a good amount (25min total)
  • The rest period is there for a reason, for your nervous system and cellular machinery to calibrate themselves to the new range of motion demands you’re placing on them.
  • Make a log, just like one for lifting. Write what you did, but also write about your experience and tips for next time!
• Collection 3: Parameters – Choose the right intensity and volume in flexibility training
  • As with weightlifting, you can do sets at 80% flexibility and still have positive effects. You don’t need to go to 100% each time.
  • Try and work on flexibility every day, but do it lighter when feeling crap (and cycle heavier and lighter days)
• Collection 4: Programming – Correctly sequence your flexibility work within a workout
  • ‘traditional’ timing doesn’t really matter and although most ‘static’ stretches are useless, they also don’t hurt your performance by doing them before a workout.
  • you do want to warm-up before going all-out, so do that! active stretches and light-weight exercises (aka also stretching).
  • do stretches that resemble the movement that you want to do! (duh)
  • If you want to learn something, prioritise it for a cycle of 12 weeks! Take a week break every month or so.
  • “Flexibility improvement is not linear. Eventually, you will need to step it up, or back the hell off to make new improvements.”
  • “Backing off is not only hard to do, but it’s also completely counter-intuitive for flexibility training. Yet it is the best advice I can give people who are doing everything right already with any intensive flexibility training.”
  • Really do nothing, not even light training.

• Collection 5: Psychology – Get rid of harmful flexibility expectations
  • You are influenced by everything around you and if you did a hard workout or a busy week, don’t expect the next time of the workout to be as good.
  • “If it were easy, everyone would be doing it…”
  • If you’re sore, stretch through it.
  • “For many people, the “mobility problem” they experience with some movements and skills aren’t caused by lack of flexibility, sometimes it is caused by not committing to the full range of motion. Not committing is a confidence issue. Commitment is scary!”
  • Please do know that there is a difference between letting yourself go to max depth and forcing (bad) yourself.
  • Build your confidence by visualisation!
  • “So now, here’s a secret about sport confidence: it’s best developed by physical preparation and difficult performance. So the best way to push yourself past your physical limits is to prepare for, and perform in, high-pressure situations.”

• “flexibility gains last a very long time. With a proper flexibility training cycle to build it up initially, then general maintenance after that, and retention of confidence throughout your training lifetime, you can achieve something seemingly akin to permanently increased levels of flexibility, even high levels of flexibility can become seemingly permanent.”
• Attain permanent flexibility – when you incorporate other exercises than the one you want to keep, you will still keep that flexibility (it’s about control and keeping your central nervous system still active).

• Part III – Flexibility Training Programs
• Routine 1: The splits
  1. The full splits are a worthy goal (good for reputation)
  2. Full front splits are easier than full side splits
  3. The full splits are not an advanced skill (Jon compares it to being easier than 2.5x bodyweight deadlifts)
  4. Not many people have full splits because not many people train them
  5. The splits are a technical skill (like a flip or lift)
• Workout 1 – Extreme relaxed splits (1 hour)
  • Do 2 of these 3
    1. Front split with left foot in front
    2. Front split with right foot in front
    3. Side split
  • Set up mat, get timer, 10min warm-up, 1 min mildly uncomfortable, 2 min moving relaxation, repeat 3-4 times, then 3 min instead of 1 min depth, repeat 2 times, repeat for second type
• Workout 2 – Weighted Splits
  • Ditto exercises
  • Set up mat, 10 minutes active warm-up (thoracic extension variations), some weightlifting (optional) with focus on flexibility, 1min split/2min rest, repeat x times, add 5kg, 3-5 sets/3-10 (side) or 6-20 (front) sec hold, rest 3:30/5:30
• Example 12 week split program: 1. Monday/Wednesday, 2. Thursday/Sunday (see page 167)
• Routine 3: Ass to grass squats
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xm3-OeZp1k&feature=youtu.be&t=1s
  • use movement (up-down/left-right/etc) instead of only static stretching
  • goblet squats
  • Hmm no more guidance here, but I can do 2 routines of 30min per week / combine it with day when I squat

• Universal flexibility routine
  • These do not have to be done in any particular order.
  • These are not done for X amount of reps or sets. Although, I generally spend 20 minutes doing this daily, usually before training.
  • Stay in constant motion and move in and out of the positions. It’s best to combo these movements. What you should be doing is fidgeting around.
  • Do not pause for more than a couple seconds at any range of motion.
  • You should actually be feeling blood flow to the muscles as you do this. A very mild muscle pump is possible.
  • Rely on support initially, but then wean yourself off of it. Afterwards, begin using a structure (or weight) to increase the difficulty.
  • Add in a rest period of 2-3 minutes every 10 minutes or so, even if you aren’t feeling any fatigue.
  • Exercises examples: Cossack stretch, squats, warrior lunge, extending spine, twisting, bending, reaching, kicking, etc
  • Thoracic extension: do it with large pvc pipe. Butt on floor, foot on floor, back on the floor, arms across body (or behind back etc), head/top-body back (hunt for tight spot) Upgrade: use weight overhead/horizontal. 3 sets, 1min set/3min rest.
  • The kick: also do knee stretches here
  • “The most important step you can take toward legendary flexibility development is to move into and out of the most stable, full range of motion positions possible every time you move.”

• Conclusion
• Just do it (ghehe)
• And for myself, develop a flexibility (and strength, and coordination) routine for myself! based on this book and further reading

Deep Work

Deep Work – Cal Newport

Summary: In a distracted world, deep work becomes more and more valuable. Protect your time and rewire yourself, only that way you can achieve greatness.

Part 1: The Idea Chapter 1: Deep Work Is Valuable Chapter 2: Deep Work Is Rare Chapter 3: Deep Work Is Meaningful

Part 2: The Rules Rule #1: Work Deeply Rule #2: Embrace Boredom Rule #3: Quit Social Media Rule #4: Drain the Shallows

Intro

Jung example, not to escape his professional life, but instead to advance it

Deep Work: Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.

Deep work, though a burden to prioritise, was crucial for Jung’s goal of changing the world

Bill Gates think weeks (twice a year) Neal Stephenson, organise time to have long chunks of uninterrupted time

we lose the value of going deep, because (oa) we have network tools 60% of workweek is dedicated to electroning communication and searching online 30% reading and answering emails

Shallow Work: Noncognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tend to not create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate.

Rule of thumb: months that a college educated person needs to study to accomplish task. To define Deep from Shallow Work.

spend enough time in a state of frenetic shallowness and you permanently reduce your capacity to perform deep work. network tools are distracting us from work that requires unbroken concentration, while simultaneously degrading our capacity to remain focused.

Our work culture’s shift toward the shallow is exposing a massive economic and personal opportunity for the few who recognise the potential of resisting this trend and prioritising depth.

Learning something complex like computer programming requires intense uninterrupted concentration on cognitively demanding concepts — deep work

Deep work enables: 1) learning – you must master the art of quickly learning complicated things 2) impact in digital world – only great products survive in this new world (mediocre perish) – to succeed you have to produce the absolute best stuff you’re capable of producing – and this is a task that requires depth

The Deep Work Hypothesis: The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it’s becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive.

Cal Newport – very accomplished in his field and with writing books – but rarely works after 6pm – minimise the shallow in his life – he gets the most out of the time he frees up – he is comfortable being bored

(schedule for me: work, free, blog?)

Deep good, shallow bad (1984, George Orwell)

Part 1: The Idea Chapter 1: Deep Work Is Valuable

Nate Silver (Moneyball?) David Heinemeier Hansson (Ruby on Rails, Basecamp) John Doerr (Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers) – micro, personality traits and tactics overlap – macro, type of work they represent

Erik Bryonjolfsson & Andrew McAfee Race Against the Machine – employers are becoming increasingly likely to hire ‘new machines’ – Great restructuring, dividing jobs (up and down, no middle) – Tyler Cowen, Average Is Over

The High-Skilled Workers – intelligent machines can assist this group

The Superstars – once the talent market is made universally accessible, those at the peak of the market thrive while the rest suffer – the superstars will win the bulk of the market

The Owners – access to capital provides massive advantages – With so little input from labour, the proportion of this wealth that flows back to the machine owners, is without precedent

Winners: those who can work well and creatively with intelligent machines, those who are the best at what they do, and those with access to capital.

FLORIS: Become high-skilled worker and leverage capital to become/stay owner in the projects to reap the benefits (ala DHH)

Two core abilities for thriving in the new economy 1. The ability to quickly master hard things 2. The ability to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed

Intelligent machines are complicated and hard to master You must be able to do it quickly, again and again If you can’t learn, you can’t thrive Or ability to perform (high-skilled vs superstars) All depends on ability for deep work

Deep Work Helps You Quickly Learn Hard Things Antonin-Dalmace Sertillanges – The Intellectual Life – to learn requires intense concentration

Anders Ericsson – Peak – deliberate practice – specific form of practice 1) your attention is focused tightly on a specific skill you’re trying to improve or an idea you’re trying to master; 2) you receive feedback so you can correct your approach to keep your attention exactly where it’s most productive.

The Talent Code – Daniel Coyle – oligodendrocyte cells – to learn hard things quickly, you must focus intensely without distraction

Give and Take – Adam Grant – see productivity as a scientific problem to systematically solve – batching of hard but important intellectual work into long, uninterrupted stretches – it’s important to enforce strict isolation until you complete the task at hand

high-quality work produced = (time spent) x (intensity of focus) – by maximising the intensity of work, maximise the output of work – can only do it a limited amount of time, no extra productivity after that

Attentional residue – switching between tasks has a cost to it

Jack Dorsey – twitter – people who thrive without depth – characteristics of specific job – connection there is most valuable currency

Deep work is not the only skill valuable in our economy, and it’s possible to do well without fostering this ability, but the niches where this is advisable are increasingly rare. Unless you have strong evidence that distraction is important for your specific profession, you’re best served, for the reasons argued, by giving serious consideration to depth.

Chapter 2: Deep Work Is Rare Example, journalists at NYTimes, have to have social profiles – many of these trends actively decrease one’s ability to go deep – the brain responds to distractions

FLORIS: time the moments when I’m taking a break! And when to answer social media and messaging things!

free and frictionless method of of communication had soft cost equivalent to procuring a small company Learjet even though we accept that distraction has costs and depth has value, these impacts are difficult to measure there is a metric black hole – we have a culture of connectivity – does it really help to be more connected (no) – experiment with consultants (BCG) one day per week no communication – more enjoyment in work, better communication among themselves, more learning

FLORIS: At Queal do no communication days? Or already practising this?

The Principle of Least Resistance: In a business setting, without clear feedback on the impact of various behaviours to the bottom line, we will tend toward behaviours that are easiest in the moment.

– many people run work from inbox – If email were to move to the periphery of your workday, you’d be required to deploy a more thoughtful approach to figuring out what you should be working on and for how long. – This type of planning is hard Getting Things Done – David Allen

Surely You Must be Joking Mr Feynman – Feynman – avoiding administrative duties – Clarity about what matters provides clarity about what does not

Busyness as Proxy for Productivity: In the absence of clear indicators of what it means to be productive and valuable in their jobs, many knowledge workers turn back toward an industrial indicator of productivity: doing lots of stuff in visible manner.

Neil Postman – technopoly – Aldous Huxley – Brave New World – the alternative (no internet) is invisible and therefore irrelevant

Deep work is at a severe disadvantage in a technopoly because it builds on values like quality, craftsmanship, and mastery that are decidedly old-fashioned and non-technological. Even worse, to support deep work often requires the rejection of much of what is new and high-tech. Deep work is exiled in favour of more distracting high-tech behaviours.

– stop doing shallow work – delegate? or just make disappear – deep work for few hours – relax/study rest of time – learn to live fearlessly – be myself – no conformity to society

Chapter 3: Deep Work Is Meaningful

Craftsmanship: Every hit, though forceful, is carefully controlled – work in state of depth – find great meaning in work – clarity about goal/mission of work – but, many knowledge workers ambiguity about goal/mission

FLORIS: What is my goal/mission, what am I good at? – document my own journey?! – how to find the time/make it? – how to live more structured? – only teach what I know/am expert in?!

Deep work can generate as much satisfaction in an information economy as it so clearly does in a craft economy.

Deep life is not just economically lucrative, but also a life well lived.

Neurological – skillful management of attention – who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you love – is the sum of what you focus on – ignore the negative and savour the positive

– spend enough time in this state, your mind will understand your world as rich in meaning and importance – Such concentration hijacks your attention apparatus, preventing you from noticing the many smaller and less pleasant things that unavoidably and persistently populate our lives.

– don’t spend your working day on shallow concerns – the world represented by your inbox, in other words, isn’t a pleasant world to inhabit

A workday driven by the shallow, from a neurological perspective, is likely to be a draining and upsetting day, even if most of the shallow things that capture your attention seem harmless or fun. – I’ll live the focused life, because it’s the best kind there its. We’d be wise to follow her lead.

Psychological – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi – flow – the best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile – human beings, it seems, are at their best when immersed deeply in something challenging. – depth over shallowness – going deep is in itself very rewarding (not a focus on content)

FLORIS: Idea, poster with diamond/gold on bottom of concentration chart thing

Physiological – Hubert Dreyfus – Sean Dorrance Kelly – All Things Shining – task is not to generate meaning, but rather to cultivate in himself the skill of discerning the meanings that are already there – a glimpse of the sacred – CAREER CHOICE is not about what fits perfectly, but about finding meaning in the job

Homo sapiens deepensis – A deep life is a good life, any way you look at it

Part 2: The Rules Rule #1 Work Deeply – eudaimonia room example

– people fight desires all day long – desire turns out to be the norm, not the exception – shallow desires will often win – finite willpower? – you have to be smart about your habits

You must be careful to choose a philosophy that fits your specific circumstances, as a mismatch here can derail your deep work habit before it has a chance to solidify.

Monastic – eliminating or radically minimising shallow obligations – all of my time and attention are spoken for – several times over – Stephenson – Anathem

Bimodal – divide time, dedicating some clearly defined stretches to deep pursuits and leaving the rest open to everything else – at least one full day (per deep work session) – e.g. stack courses in one semester – bimodal schedule on weekly scale – be monastic for 2-4 days per week – still value the value received from shallow work

Rhythmic – Seinfeld example, chain, don’t break it – start deep work at the same time – works best with reality of human nature

Journalistic – Walter Isaacson (computer history) – fit it in whenever you can – not for the deep work novice

Ritualise – Everything is specified by routine – artists don’t work from inspiration, work at it every day – great creative minds think like artists but work like accountants – build rituals at the same level of strictness and idiosyncrasy as the important thinkers

– where you work and how long – do not disturb sign – how you’ll work once you start – how you’ll support your work – systematised

Make grand gestures – in expensive hotel – Think Weeks – psychology of commitment

Don’t work alone – tricky relationship between deep work and collaboration – hub-and-spoke – serendipitous encounters and isolated deep thinking are supported – expose yourself to ideas in hubs on a regular basis, but maintain a spoke in which to work deeply on what you encounter

– working together with someone – whiteboard effect – alternate with writing (async)

Execute like a business – Clayton Christensen – Andy Grove – division between what and how of work (need to know how)

FLORIS: tell business how to do it, not what!

1) Focus on the wildly important – the more you try to do, the less you can actually accomplish – The Art of Focus – David Brookshttps://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/opinion/brooks-the-art-of-focus.html?_r=0

2) Act on the lead measures – not lag measures – time spend in a state of deep work dedicated toward your wildly important goal

3) Keep a compelling scorecard – physical artefact – and Toggl online

4) Create a cadence of accountabilty – weekly update to Onno?! – execution is more difficult than strategising

Be Lazy – Tim Kreider – necessary to get anything done – at the end of the workday, shut down your consideration of work issues until the next morning – shut down work thinking completely – 1) Downtime Aids Insights – Ap Dijksterhuis – unconscious mind, distracted group experiment performed best – 2) Downtime Helps Recharge the Energy Needed to Work Deeply – attention fatigue – directional attention (to focus) – talk with friend, listening to music, making dinner, playing a game, restores it – 3) The Work That Evening Downtime Replaces is Usually Not That Important – Anders Ericsson, only so much time you can spend in deep state – other work wont happen at night – shutdown ritual – Shutdown Complete – Zeigarnik effect (don’t have incomplete tasks, in your head)

FLORIS: Update Tasks Daily in Basecamp?!!!!

– regularly resting your brain improves the quality of your deep work. When you work, work hard. When you’re done, be done.

Rule #2 Embrace Boredom – you cannot consider yourself as fulfilling this daily obligation unless you have stretched to the reaches of your mental capacity – daily mental practice – ability to concentrate intensely is a skill that must be trained

Efforts to deepen your focus will struggle if you don’t simultaneously wean your mind from a dependence on distraction. – people who multitask all the time, can’t filter out the irrelevant – take breaks from focus (instead of from distraction) – schedule occasional breaks – 1) strategy works even if you have to be online a lot – 2) keep time outside of blocks absolutely free from internet – 3) scheduling internet at home as well, improve concentration training

Meditate Productively – focus your attention on a single well-defined professional problem – at least two or three such sessions in a typical week – requires practice – 1) be wary of distractions and looping – 2) structure your deep thinking – review of relevant variables, then next-step question, consolidate gains

Rule #3 Quit Social Media – I was less stressed about not knowing new things; I felt that I still existed despite not having shared documentary evidence of said existence on the internet. – infotainment sites (facebook, twitter, business insider) – accept tools as not evil, but have a threshold)

(bad) The Any-Benefit Approach to Network Tool Selections: You’re justified in using a network tool if you can identify any possible benefit to its use, or anything you might possibly miss out on if you don’t use it. – opportunity costs (neglected here)

The Craftsman Approach to Tool Selection: Identify the core factors that determine success and happiness in your professional and personal life. Adopt a tool only if its positive impacts on these factors substantially outweigh its negative impacts.

Apply the law of the vital few to your internet habits – identify the main high-level goals in both your professional and personal life FLORIS – build business & share knowledge to help others – to have a comfortable life, enjoy, tranquility – build Queal & own consultancy, plan & enjoy personal time, find work/balance, keep on learning

– think what has significant positive or negative or little impact – drinking more than 2 drinks! (negative overall) – social media (meh) – reading (positive) – solve (business) problems (positive) – improve physique (positive) – go somewhere together

The Law of the Vital Few: In many settings, 80% of a given effect is due to just 20% of the possible causes. – Pareto principle – power law – zero-sum game (limited time available)

– experiment!!! – ban yourself for 30 days from social networks, see what happens! – they are not really that important in your life

Don’t use the internet to entertain yourself – to perform rigorous self-improvement, not much to find on internet, or also easily distracted – put more thought into your leisure time – structured hobbies – set program of reading

If you want to eliminate the addictive pull of entertainment sites on your time and attention, give your brain a quality alternative.

Rule #4 Drain the Shallows – people should enjoy the weather in the summer – Basecamp, Jason Fried, less work in summer

Schedule every minute of your day – we spend much of our day on autopilot – schedule every minute of your day – 30 min (minimal) blocks – if disrupted, reschedule during the day at next moment – use tasks block for email etc, be liberal with it – have backup things if anything is earlier – if an insight, can work on it, reschedule rest – not about constraint, but about thoughtfulness – treat your time with respect

Quantify the depth of every activity How long would it take (in months) to train a smart recent college graduate with no specialised training in my field to complete this task

Ask your boss for a shallow work budget – what percentage of time?

Finish your work by five thirty – don’t work after that – fixed-schedule productivity – Radhika Nagpal (example) – defend your time

Become hard to reach – 1) make people who send you email do more work (see book) – sender filter – reset expectations – people appreciate clarity – 2) do more work when you send or reply to emails – process-centric approach – reduces number of emails – more time on specific emails – 3) don’t respond – if it’s ambiguous or hard to generate response – no question or proposal for me – nothing good happens if you do / nothing bad if don’t respond – Tim Ferriss, develop habit of letting small bad things happen

Conclusion ability to concentrate is a skill that gets valuable things done deep work is way more powerful than most people understand

I’ll live the focused life, because it’s the best kind there is

Poor Charlie’s Almanack

This will be my summary notes of Poor Charlie’s Almanack by Charlie Munger. He is the right-hand man of Warren Buffet and one of the wealthiest individuals on the world. What I’ve heard about the book is that it’s full of psychology, life-lessons, and other strategies for making good decisions. If it’s anything like Thinking, Fast and Slow or Predictably Irrational (but more personal, less research-heavy) then it would be a great read.

• “My children laugh at me. They think I’m a book with a couple of legs sticking out.”
• “Physics-like problem solving was to become a passion for Charlie and is a skill he considers helpful in framing the problems of life.”
• The short biography of his life shows that he had a drive, he didn’t think he had enough. In particular, this was related to earning money, I wonder where this comes from. (in the same paragraph it’s also mentioned that he was aware of not spending too much and focus on the tasks at hand).
• Key to success in one word? “rational”
• Warren Buffet on Charlie Munger: “there is honesty and integrity, and always doing more than his share and not complaining about what the other person does.
• “I would say everything about Charlie is unusual. I’ve been looking for the usual now for forty years, and I have yet to find it. Charlie marches to his own music, and it’s music like virtually no one else is listening to. So, I would say that to try and typecast Charlie in terms of any other human that I can think of, no one would fit. He’s got his own mold.”
• On the strategy of Berkshire Hathaway, “they have a spectacular track record of identifying undervalued companies and then either buying large stakes in the public markets or acquiring them outright.”
• He learned a lot by studying the great people from history, he would make them his ‘friends’ and read many biographies during his lifetime.
• “Franklin used his self-made wealth to achieve financial independence so he could concentrate on societal improvement. Charlie admires that trait in his mentor and strives to emulate Franklin.” I hope to one day be in this category of people and/or to combine working and giving.

• Munger was heavily influenced by Cicero. Some lessons are around check-and-balances in society, about the value of being lost in thought, life-long learning, and of having your own point of view.
• “Cicero counsels that the study of philosophy, in a life-long search for basic causes, is an ideal activity, usually serviceable for old people all the way to the grave.”
• “To Cicero, if you live right, the inferior part of life is the early part.”
• He also argues against complaining, like so many do, and to look at a positive aspect of everything. E.g. when getting old you lose sexual vigour but also have less attraction to others who aren’t your partner. This reframing is very much in line with Stoic thought.

• When returning a car he had bought, he was sure to top it up, even when in a hurry. Always do good unto others who help you. I like this very much and makes me think of a friend who is always very attentive.
• “Do the job right the first time.”
• Buy things that are durable (e.g. clothes).
• What I think is the biggest difference in thinking between Charlie and me, is that he can be single-minded and focus on just one thing. I have those moments sometimes but I would like to have that state of mind more often. I guess that I do have a very good skill of combining different areas of thought. But the Deep Work part of it could be better.
• “Find out what you’re best at and keep pounding away at it.”

Chapter 2: The Munger Approach to Life, Learning, and Decision Making

• “Take a simple idea and take it seriously.”
• When thinking about business, and comparing it to evolution, the riches are in the niches.
• “You must know the big ideas in the big disciplines and use them routinely-all of them, not just a few. Most people are trained in one model-economics, for example-and try to solve all problems in one way. You know the old saying: ‘To the man with a hammer, the world looks like a nail.’ This is a dumb way of handling problems.”
• “Just as multiple factors shape almost every system, multiple models from a variety of disciplines, applied with fluency, are needed to understand that system.”
• Mungers uses complex models that eventually lead to simplicity, not the other way around.
• As an analogy to baseball, only hit things in your striking range. Don’t try and go for things outside it. Hit those in the middle very hard. Don’t swing when others would have. This way you will have the energy/money to swing hard when you need to.
• I guess the same goes for time investment and how to live your life. Focus on the things that you know you can do (and thus even expand your circle in which you can hit). Don’t go out on different adventures (e.g. affair), but strengthen what you have (e.g. close friends, sports you already do, etc).
• “All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there.”
• “A scientific theory should be as simple as possible, but no simpler.”
• An idea he took from The Intelligent Investor is that the market/humans are rational (at times), but also very irrational, knowing how that works is of utmost value.
• With regards to his investment choices, he also stays within what he can understand, so no to pharma or IPO’s.
• Identify your circle of competence by not only being able to recite what you know, but to answer the next question too.
• Companies are not only assessed on the basis of their financials (this is just the start), one of the main things is the ‘moat’, the competitive advantage they have over their competitors.
• He practices: “extreme patience combined with extreme decisiveness.”
• Sometimes companies/people/species win by outcompeting, at other times they win by outcooperating.
• See page 73 (87) for an investment checklist (The Checklist Manifesto)

• Charlie is also known for his integrity and honesty. “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember your lies. So we try and keep it simple by telling it like it is at all times.”

• How to get rich: Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Discharge your duties faithfully and well. Step by step you get ahead, but not necessarily in fast spurts. But you build discipline by preparing for fast spurts…. Slug it out one inch at a time, day by day. At the end of the day-if you live long enough-most people get what they deserve.

Alright that is it for the notes for now. There are many letters at the end, and I will read them, probably, some day.

Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps

Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps: How We are Different and What to Do About It by Allan & Barbara Pease examines, exuberates and explains some of the key differences between men and women. It is one of the more recent books in a long string published by this amazing couple. The book answers questions like; What do women really want? How do men think about relationships? And what about biology and love? Taking communication as their perspective, the authors have quite successfully dissected gender difference. Not the most urgent read, but definitely one to savour for the next vacation.

The first chapter is about sex in the brain, who would not want to read about that. One of the subtopics covers the topic; I cannot sleep, I cannot eat. The biological explanation is a low serotonin level and high oxytocin level. The funny thing is that this image, of these hormones found in teens who are in love, is similar to people who are considered crazy. More of the chapter states that people have a lot more dopamine than normally, are more creative and full of energy, and need less sleep or food. They even state that being in love can be compared to being high, the same areas are activated as when you were to take cocaine.

But of course, you are wondering where men and women are different. In the brains on love of the different sexes, different areas are activated. Women have more activation in the areas for memory, emotion, attention and mental images. Men have more activation in the areas for visual processing. Reasons for these differences can be found in many areas. Through evolution, males have had to look for women that have good genes, so they looked for young and healthy. Women, on the other hand, have looked for men showing the capability to protect her and their children. This basic process is still present in our genes, even in our modern society.

The rest of the book takes the reader on a tour of what men and women want. It explores the one-night stand, affairs, and finding the right partner. Two of the latest chapters are about mysteries both sexes have about each other. One of these explains the ‘nothing’ box men have (I can confirm the existence) and why some of the smartest women are bad in the love-game.

By using both serious research and a no-nonsense approach to gender differences Allan & Barbara Pease have done a great job in capturing the reader. One cautionary note should, however, be made. And that is that the differences within both sexes are almost always bigger than between them. This means that on average men are more visually oriented, but that plenty of them are driven mostly by emotion and that there are plenty of women that are visually oriented. Nevertheless, it is an excellent book to read.

More on Why Men Want Sex & Women Need Love:

http://www.peaseinternational.com/ – Official site for Allan & Barbara Pease

http://www.scribd.com/doc/119050506/Why-Men-Want-Sex-And-Woman-Need-Love-English-pdf – Why Men Want Sex & Women Need Love (.pdf)

http://nguyenthanhmy.com/courses/2013/WhyMen.pdf – Why Men Do Not Listen and Women Cannot Read Maps (.pdf)

http://e-edu.nbu.bg/pluginfile.php/331752/mod_resource/content/0/Allan_and_Barbara_Pease_-_Body_Language_The_Definitive_Book.pdf – Body Language (.pdf)

David and Goliath

David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell exposes strengths as weaknesses and weaknesses as strengths. In his ever enjoyable writing style, Gladwell takes the reader on a journey through Ireland, New York City, Maryland, and of course Palestine. Using distinctive case studies to guide each chapter the book never ceases to amuse and amaze!

Let us get started right away with the title, the story of David and Goliath. It has been told as an inspirational story for the underdog to achieve victory and take down the giant. David was much smaller than Goliath. He had no armour, Goliath, on the other hand, was covered almost from tip to toe. And David had only a few rocks in a pouch as opposed to Goliath who not only had a sword but also had a spear at hand. You are now probably asking: How in the world did David win? It is because his perceived weaknesses were actually strengths.

Gladwell states that in ancient times there were three ‘classes’ in the armies of those times. They balanced like rock-paper-scissors. And as you may have guessed, David was to Goliath as paper is to rock. Had had no armour and was therefore more agile. He had no sword but could throw his rocks with the precision of a very experienced archer. And this is what decided the battle. Even before Goliath could really identify David, he was struck to the head with the bag of stones. And when he fell to the ground, David used his own sword against him to end the battle and claim victory.

The key message is that seemingly advantageous characteristics can in some (or many) cases be a disadvantage. It is only when the underdog is aware that the normal tactics will not work, he can flip the battle to his advantage by adopting another strategy. Some more recent examples of this have been found when armies outnumbered and outgunned by 10 to 1 have won wars by adapting to the situation and fighting in unconventional ways. In congruence with the third part of the book, it can be stated that there are limits to power.

Next, to the story of David and Goliath, there are many more. Some are concerned with the battles between larger groups of people, whilst some are concerned with the individual. The second part of the book is dedicated to the desirable difficulty, the paradox of the power that overcoming of difficulties can bring with it. The book is as superb as any other book by Malcolm Gladwell. It highlights information that has been around for long, but not yet studied to the extent it has been now. For it will take the average reader only one or two afternoons to finish this book, it should be the next on your list!

More on David and Goliath:

http://test.floriswolswijk.com/psychology-the-tipping-point-book-review/ – Review of The Tipping Point

http://test.floriswolswijk.com/psychology-dog-saw-book-review/ – Review of What the Dog Saw

http://gladwell.com/ – Gladwell’s site

http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20131007120010-69244073-what-makes-malcolm-gladwell-fascinating – More on Gladwell