deep-life
“In the movies there’s this idea that you should just go for your dream,” Glass tells them. “But I don’t believe that. Things happen in stages.” Glass emphasizes that it takes time to get good at anything, recounting the many years it took him to master radio to the point where he had interesting options. “The key thing is to force yourself through the work, force the skills to come; that’s the hardest phase,” he says. Noticing the stricken faces of his interviewers, who were perhaps hoping to hear something more uplifting than work is hard, so suck it up, Glass continues: “I feel like your problem is that you’re trying to judge all things in the abstract before you do them. That’s your tragic mistake.” (Location 278)
Valerie’s decision to stay on with the mayor’s office had required some thought, but she explained to us why she felt it was the right choice. She described feeling supported by Daley and knowing that she was being useful to the city. Her loyalty, she said, had been to Harold Washington’s principles more than to the man himself. Inspiration on its own was shallow; you had to back it up with hard work. (Location 2565)
Steven Pressfield describes the ritual in The War of Art: How many pages have I produced? I don’t care. Are they any good? I don’t even think about it. All that matters is I’ve put in my time and hit it with all I’ve got. All that counts is that, for this day, for this session, I have overcome Resistance. … Someone once asked Somerset Maugham if he wrote on a schedule or only when struck by inspiration. “I write only when inspiration strikes,” he replied. “Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.” That’s a pro. (Location 675)
Going through progressive summarization has felt like rote yet satisfying work. It requires time, a little bit of creative juice, and a lot of "hard work". IDK, it really does feel like farming with the mind, this whole micropublishing thing 202212181947
It takes approximately 10 to 15 minutes of focused attention to reach a flow state. Once in flow, it may last from 30 minutes to a couple of hours. However, it is possible to achieve flow more than once a day, given the right conditions
time to enter flow state
HEARTBREAKING: Software engineer has to turn around, take out one earbud, and say "huh?" when someone asks them a question even though they finally got in the coding groove (View Tweet)
For an individual focused on deep work, it’s easy to identify the relevant lead measure: time spent in a state of deep work dedicated toward your wildly important goal. (Location 1526)
Also consider the frustratingly common practice of forwarding an e-mail to one or more colleagues, labeled with a short open-ended interrogative, such as: “Thoughts?” These e-mails take the sender only a handful of seconds to write but can command many minutes (if not hours, in some cases) of time and attention from their recipients to work toward a coherent response. (Location 671)
For an individual focused on deep work, the implication is that you should identify a small number of ambitious outcomes to pursue with your deep work hours. (Location 1509)
Notes on "My YouTube Addiction"
YouTube is the perfect evolution of the Peekaboo World Neil Postman warned us about, as it gives the illusion of learning but is often not as effective as reading.
https://youtu.be/p2sQ49Lr8H8
02:45
I empathize. Using YT as a default becomes a toxic, infinite rabbit hole.
03:43
Also empathize. The less projects actively involved in, the easier it is for YouTube to slip in to fill the gaps. YouTube is to mindless consumption as vaping is to tobacco. It feels like learning is happening (albeit less than reading provides 202301130109), but at the end of the day, you'd be hard pressed to explain what information you consumed.
YouTube is the 2023 perfect evolution of the Peekaboo World Neil Postman warned us about.
In a peculiar way, the photograph was the perfect complement to the flood of telegraphic news-from-nowhere that threatened to submerge readers in a sea of facts from unknown places about strangers with unknown faces. For the photograph gave a concrete reality to the strange-sounding datelines, and attached faces to the unknown names. Thus it provided the illusion, at least, that “the news” had a connection to something within one’s sensory experience. It created an apparent context for the “news of the day.” And the “news of the day” created a context for the photograph. But the sense of context created by the partnership of photograph and headline was, of course, entirely illusory. You may get a better sense of what I mean here if you imagine a stranger’s informing you that the illyx is a subspecies of vermiform plant with articulated leaves that flowers biannually on the island of Aldononjes. And if you wonder aloud, “Yes, but what has that to do with anything?” imagine that your informant replies, “But here is a photograph I want you to see,” and hands you a picture labeled Illyx on Aldononjes. “Ah, yes,” you might murmur, “now I see.” (Location 1328)
^af4669
One of my all time favorite quotes, along with 202212291409
AI Generated Read Next
Similar: The Everlasting Grind of Content Creation - 202301240130
Clever: Should I Write a Book? - 202301190216
Chaotic: Feng Shui for WFH - 202301110111
To do a job effectively, one must set priorities. Too many people let their “in” basket set the priorities. On any given day, unimportant but interesting trivia pass through an office; one must not permit these to monopolize his time. The human tendency is to while away time with unimportant matters that do not require mental effort or energy. Since they can be easily resolved, they give a false sense of accomplishment. The manager must exert self-discipline to ensure that his energy is focused where it is truly needed.
Think as often in possible in Quadrant II. Avoid trivial interruption, especially self imposed 202301092304, 202301141347
Quadrant II is the heart of effective personal management. It deals with things that are not urgent, but are important. It deals with things like building relationships, writing a personal mission statement, long-range planning, exercising, preventive maintenance, preparation—all those things we know we need to do, but somehow seldom get around to doing, because they aren’t urgent. (Location 2814)
Compelling careers often have complex origins that reject the simple idea that all you have to do is follow your passion. (Location 295)
What is a compelling career, anyway?
IMO, a good career isn't fully replicable or fully automatable to the point that anyone could be hired.
Working[1] artists fit this bill, because they found a way to create something and then turn it into a profitable medium of their own volition. Artists also usually get people to say "I really like your work! It helped me in a non quantifiable way!"
Scientists do this as well by prodding at the edges of reality with hypotheses and seeing what creativity can create within that realm.
So I guess in some a compelling career is one that is creative while as well being attuned to reality.
people who make money for their craft ↩︎