habits

Bad Mood

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When you are in a bad mood, because of something that you did, something that someone said/did, etc., you are losing twice – once for being in a bad mood, twice for not fulfilling your potential. Don’t be sad, angry, upset, or cranky at yourself or others, but instead focus on fixing your system so that this does not happen in future. If this bad mood comes from someone, don’t be around this person. If you are the cause, change your habits. Think in terms of systems that can be implemented to steer away from these bad mood causing events. This is easier to do than you think. The good news is, this system needs to be created once.

Help calm yourself down by using deep breathing techniques. Think of gentle cool breeze brushing our face while you lay on a warm beach sipping cool drinks from fancy glasses with tiny umbrellas.

Ideas Need Time & Space

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Ideas Need Time & Space

Space-time, is a concept in physics developed by Einstein. In his theory of general relativity, Einstein postulated the idea of a 4-dimensional space-time fabric, where objects with mass warp space-time, which result in the force of gravity.

I believe, an “idea” is also an object that warps space-time. At first, the idea starts small. Seemingly appearing from nowhere. If you consider, the energy in the universe propagates everywhere, and when the conditions are just right, particles can pop into existence. This is also the idea behind the Big Bang.

Before I start going on a tangent and sounding overly “geeky”, let me just say that I find these similarities fascinating. But, this article is not on the hypothetical similarities between ideas and physics, rather I want to explore some practical aspects of how to make ideas work, or better yet, “make work of your ideas”.

Capturing Ideas

The fact is that ideas are cheap. Everyone has them, all the time, and ideas come and go. Like ripples in an ocean. The key is to have a system to capture these ideas and explore them. The challenge is how to keep track and what to do this the ideas?

This is what I propose:

  1. Capture your ideas: have a list on your phone for daily ideas and note them down as they come to you
  2. Follow up on your list: have a system where you review your list and pick the “winners”, that will move on to the next stage. These are the ideas that excite you the most. For this assign “time blocks” (see below)
  3. Spend minimum time and explore the options for the winner ideas: this will be a series of questions that work for you. Things like, why, how, what, competition analysis, ROI, etc. If you like to see what my system looks like, send me a message and I can share my template with you
  4. Work on this refined idea and complete it: the worst thing you can do it allow your projects to go into limbo
  5. Rinse and repeat

Ideas Need Time

To explore and develop your ideas, your system will have “time blocks”. These are set time schedules where you review your idea list, prioritize, sort, and work towards their completion. This is where discipline comes in. If you are serious about accomplishing something, you absolutely have to assign time blocks. Otherwise your ideas are just an exercise in fantasy.

Time blocking is easy. And it becomes easier with time. It is about developing a habit. I suggest putting these time blocks early in the morning (for morning people), or late at night (for night owls). Pick a time that is least distracting and where you can focus. The little time you spend doing this at first, the easier it is to habituate. Once you start enjoying this strategic time blocks, you will look forward to it and spend more time in these blocks.

Think of clever ways to reward yourself at the completion of these time blocks. The best reward would be to see your idea come to fruition when you go through your process and complete it!

Ideas Need Space

The second half of this space-time is, well you guessed it, “space”. As your idea is growing from your mind to paper, you need to allocate more space to it. The firing of neurons happens on your brain, but this needs to be transcribed to paper in order to visualize.

You have successfully disciplined yourself with your time blocking, and part of this is to “space block”. An office-type area where your ideas incubate, where you meditate on paper, where you strategize, is needed. This area is sacred and beyond limits to others. You can have as little or as much square footage as you need to make it work.

A technique I came across is “Scrum”. This is used in the technology and software development world where multiple teams collaborate on one idea. But there is nothing stopping us from tweaking this to have a “personal Scrum”.

Scrum is best explained in this video.

At a more advanced stage, this space is mobile. A work bag with your laptop, notebook, headphones, etc., can accomplish the same thing once you get into the habit. I will write an article on this “mobile working” at a later time to elaborate.

Benefits

What is the point to all this hard work you ask? “If the idea is important enough, it will come back to me”, you say.

It is about creating a system. Ideas and goals come and go. To optimize any action, you need a working system. This system is dynamic and iterative. With every repetition it should become easier. You should aim for automation.

I wrote an article on habits and how systems thinking works. Check it out here.

The human brain has many similarities with how a computer processes information. A CPU has a limited “cache”. This is the buffer memory used to perform computation. It is different from RAM and hard-drive memory. Before a new operation can be performed, the cache needs to be cleared to allow room to process the new workload. The human brain is similar in the sense that we need to clear our mind of any outstanding tasks before we can process new information. Therefore, I propose that we park our ideas and commit them to our idea processing system, to allow room for new ideas.

Finally, once this system is mastered, you will be able to quickly assess a new idea, process it in your mind, crunch the numbers, and decide if it is worth your energy. You develop a systematic understanding of what works for you and what does not.

Now get to it!

Habits and Systems

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Habits and Systems

Habits

“The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken”, -Warren Buffett.

Humans are creatures of habit. Evolution has written this code in our DNA. The program works quite well. It is intended to automate the behaviours that are safe, by providing us with neural rewards. Repeated over time, these behaviours become habits. Machine Learning 101.

Numerous books have been written on this topic. Some of the ones I have read are listed at the bottom of this article.

Habits Lead to Perceptual Control

As we develop intellectually, we want to have a sense of Perceptual Control, i.e. tell ourselves how the world works. Nothing wrong with that; the idea is to have a sense of control in the seemingly chaotic environment.

A perfect example of this Perceptual Control is when you speak to your parents or grand parents. They will tell you how they think the world works and you can detect a sense of calmness in their explanation. Arguments get heated when this perception is challenged. Another good example is religious debates, or any debate for that matter.

This is one of the many ways our monkey brain tries to play tricks on us. It is critically important to challenge one self to always keep this a Perceptual Control in a dynamic state, i.e. always changing with the information available at that time.

Automation

Mental heuristics are shortcuts we learn over time to help us remember certain things. This is a habit. Athletes will tell you that practicing their moves many times over will make the action automatic. This is a habit too. Pick and choose the actions you want to automate, i.e. developing “good” habits.

For example, making breakfast each morning. This is a very tedious task. I do not enjoy it. Mornings are my most creative time of the day and I wan to automate all the mundane tasks as much as possible. I stick to the same oatmeal preparation ritual every morning. I have 2 scoops of oatmeal in the same bowl, add handfuls of seeds and nuts, microwave for a fixed time, add protein powder and milk, mix everything and wait for the same amount of time before eating. This process is fully automated and takes me less than 5mins.

Look for tasks you can automate during your day. This will free up time to be spent on the tasks you do enjoy. This will maximize your ROTI (return on time invested).

Another way to look at this automation idea is to identify all the tasks you do not enjoy doing throughout your day. Then look for time slots where you can fit them without interrupting the original task. Some examples include: making phone calls that involve lots of waiting time while you are driving; reading your daily news digest while using the toilet; brushing your teeth while taking a shower.

Be creative, I am sure you can identify many such opportunities.

Compounding

Time is unidirectional – a result of the Law of Entropy. A consequence of this is actions compound with time, for better or for worse.

If one puts in a little extra effort every day for 365 days, the end of the year result is quite remarkable. Alternatively, if one slacks off even a little every day, the result is remarkable. An elegant way to show this is:

1.01^365 = 37.8

0.99^365 = 0.03

Be strategic with your habits. Put in 1.01 effort every day towards your desired outcome and the results after a year will surprise you.

Habit Triggers

Habits need to be reinforced. Positive reinforcement by rewards, for example dopamine. Negative reinforcement by punishment. Trivial.

Triggers are cues that initiate a habit. Devise your new highly productive habit such that you have a well-defined cue to initiate it. For example, developing a gym habit by placing your gym bag by your door the night before.

Couple these triggers to your new automation habits and you have a very powerful system.

Workflow

Topics mentioned thus far will contribute to your Workflow, i.e. the system you will have in place to accomplish a task. These new action and habits will only take effect permanently if they fit your existing workflows, or fit around your exiting workflows.

Be realistic with any new habits you want to implement. If the new habit interrupts your current workflow, then step back and re-assess. Can you creatively figure out a way to make more time? Trim the fat? Make it work? Is it worth the effort? Is the cost of inaction something you cannot afford? Aka, Opportunity Cost.

Remember, this is an iterative process. Baby steps toward the desired outcome.

The secret to getting ahead is getting started, -Mark Twain.

Crisis

As mentioned above, our brain prefers certainty over new things. If a new thing interrupts predictable, comfortable outcome, then it won’t take effect. We will revert to the know. We are wired in this way. It makes evolutionary sense. Hormonal rewards are administered to reinforce routine.

There is only one cure for Fear, and that is to take decisive Action. If all else fails, then there is one final alternative: Crisis. If there is literally no other way out, if it is a matter to life vs death, then all bets are off. When you emerge victorious from this crisis, you will be equipped with tools that can be life changing; for better or for worse.

Use this knowledge and turn your crisis into an opportunity. Entrepreneurs know this trick well enough. A crisis can be devised such that it helps you grow from the experience.

Systems vs Goals

Goals are good for short term accomplishments. But they come to an end. Then what?

Systems are a result of habits. You can accomplish any goal by working through a system. Sure, there will always be a first time when you develop this system for this specific goal. But when you accomplish this goal, your system carries forward to the next similar goal. Habits lead to Systems Thinking.

This argument is masterfully explained by Scott Adams in his article.

Scheduled Maintenance

Once you understand the building blocks of habits and systems, and you have a workflow in place that facilitates the desired outcomes, it is imperative to have in place scheduled time blocks where you reassess and plan. During these scheduled maintenance sessions, you will take account of your progress, be critical of what didn’t work, and think about how to improve.

Schedule these times in your calendar, put it on repeat.

What gets measured, gets managed, -Peter Drucker

What gets measured, gets accomplished.

Book Summary: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

The king of such books, in my opinion, is this book. Here is a summary on these 7 habits below. You can Google search for wallpaper-type images on the internet and stick them on your wall.

  1. Be Proactive: one of my favourites, the best way to predict your future is to create it. The opposite is to be Reactive, where you are not in control. Take charge of the situation. Your life is a product of your decisions, not your conditions.
  2. Start with the End in Mind: before you start any new project, think about “the why”. Why is it that you want to do this? Envision the end result: is this something that you are looking forward to?
  3. First Things First: Prioritize. Time is a limited resource. Make it count.
  4. First Understand, then Seek to be Understood: if we try to understand others first, before defaulting to the offensive, which is to assume we are misunderstood, this will resolve most of the conflicts.
  5. Win-Win: think win-win. It is not necessarily a zero-sum game. Look for creative ways to solve problems where both parties are better off than the starting point.
  6. Synergize: the whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts.
  7. Sharpen the Saw: finally, after you have perfected all of the above, look for opportunities to grow. Learn constantly.

Identify your weakness, and just work on one thing at a time.

Book Summary: The Power of Habit

This book is another gem. It gets into the nitty-gritty of habits:

  • how they are formed in the first place: choice>repetition>reward>habit
  • what triggers them: cues, hormonal, environmental
  • how to change your habits: cue-routine-reward, keep the cue and reward the same, work on changing the routine
  • cravings: are entrenched habits
  • keystone habits: identifying these keystones and working on changing them cause ripple effects on other habits
  • willpower: a finite resource; not a skill
  • crisis: is an opportunity to change a habit
  • familiarity and peer pressure: reasons to carry on with some habits
  • habits can be changed

Book Summary: The Compound Effect

Compound your habits over time, and what do you get? Your personality.

This is the sequence of events:

  1. Your core values, your “Why”, drives you
  2. Your choices, you always have a choice…
  3. …become your habits, good or bad
  4. Discipline yourself for the good habits
  5. Momentum propels you forward, relying on your willpower and positive reinforcements
  6. Hitting the brick wall of your max, then keep pushing to go the extra mile. This is the difference between a mediocre and a professional
  7. Compound the above over time and you get…
  8. …YOU

Sources:

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey.

The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg.

The Compound Effect, by Darren Hardy.

Lord of the Gaps

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Lord of the Gaps

In science and technology, energy is carried by either a charge, or by a “Gap”. This is called hole carriage. This framework is the reason we have semiconductors, which is the reason we have our beloved tech gadgets.

Achieving any goals is life if not a “journey”. This idea is tossed around a lot: “it’s a journey, let’s just start and see where it leads us”. Sure, this is a good way to get started, but I am afraid it accomplishes little after that. The better approach would be to look where you want to go and then find a template to base your path off. Find people that have taken this path and learn what they have to share. Start with the end in mind.

Part of this process is the Gap. By creating this circumstance for your desired outcome, you are in effect forcing your environment to carry you to your desired end point. It is beautiful.

Crisis is a form of Gap: it takes you out of your comfort zone and you must discover your “hero’s journey” to find a solution. You can create mini-crises to simulate this end goal in an efficient manner. Put yourself in a challenging situation and learn from it. As an exercise, try to do one thing that scares you everyday. This can be as little as asking someone out or as big as swimming with sharks.

Conversely, if one slacks off, then undesired Gaps are created by the Universe. These Gaps will be filled by others more capable of deserving the opportunities. It is one form of survival of the fittest. Be aware of this and Stay Frosty!