Good morning all!
Happy Saturday. I hope you’re having a lovely start to your weekend.
What I’ve been up to:
I published my first long-form essay on the process of mastery. My plan is to publish a new essay every Thursday. I figure I have to write enough to get all the mediocre ideas out of me, so good ones can start to flow. At least, that’s the idea.
I've started to get back to a more consistent exercise routine. I tend to keep workout in the 20-30 minute range. It's not much, but it's something.
Below is your edition of “saturday mornings”, a weekly recap of the coolest things I’ve been pondering and exploring this week.
Thanks for being here. It means a lot to me.
✍️ Quote I’m pondering:
“We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are.”
— Anaïs Nin
💡 Idea from me: The Myth of Originality
There's no such thing as an original idea. Every "new" idea is a combination of old ideas presented in a different way.
"All ideas are second-hand", Mark Twain wrote, "consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources."
A few months ago I decided to explore book recommendations from some of my favorite authors. I realized how many of their brilliant ideas weren't a result of their pure genius but rather a conglomeration of other people's ideas, remixed in their own unique way.
The 4-Hour Workweek is filled with traces of ideas from "The E-Myth Revisited", "The Magic of Thinking Big" and "The 80/20 Principle".
James Clear, who wrote Atomic Habits the best-selling book on Amazon in 2021, mentioned he frequently builds and iterates on the ideas of others. "Everyone wants to be original, but I'm not smart enough to have great ideas bubble up naturally without me building on something else."
The most famous sentence James wrote in Atomic Habits: "You don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems."
But, if you go back a few thousand years Archilochus, a Greek poet born in 680 BC, wrote: "We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training."
Originality is a myth. Nothing is created out of the void.
But, great work doesn't depend on originality. My goal is to provide value, not to be original.
What I'm reminding myself: Don't build on the ideas of one person. Do it with many. The constellation of ideas you put together will be unique to you, your taste, and what you're interested in.
💡 Idea from me: The Dangers of Productivity
I don't believe we should try to be more productive.
The Productivity Trap
The promise of productivity is that one day, with the right techniques and discipline, you'll get everything done.
Oliver Burkeman writes in Four Thousand Weeks:
“Productivity is a trap. Becoming more efficient just makes you more rushed, and trying to clear the decks simply makes them fill up again faster.
The day will never arrive when you finally have everything under control—when the flood of emails has been contained; when your to-do lists have stopped getting longer; when you’re meeting all your obligations at work and in your home life; when nobody’s angry with you for missing a deadline or dropping the ball; and when the fully optimized person you’ve become can turn, at long last, to the things life is really supposed to be about."
We prioritize work more, with the hope it will eventually dissipate. But the more time we make for work, the more efficient we become, the more work expands. Parkinson's Law.
We don't clear things off our plate, we increase the size of our plate. And the world will happily pile on more.
Our to-do list begins to feel like a hydra. Every head we cut off, two more appear.
The false promise of productivity is that we'll eventually feel on top of things, simply by getting more done. I don't buy it.
The Productivity Game
When we listen to productivity advice, the desire to be 'more productive' switches on. But it doesn't switch off at any set workload. You can always be more productive. There's always more work you could do.
Nobody ever feels productive enough. And you certainly won’t get there by copying the “six things successful people do before 7:00 a.m."
Worse, with social media, you'll continually feel unproductive compared to other people. The productivity guru on Twitter will always seem more productive than you. Even if he spends all his time on his couch, in his underwear, tweeting.
Searching for More
To me, the seductive whisper of productivity promises money and success.
But, I don't think that's what I'm looking for. And I don't think I'd be happy once I get there. In fact, I don't think 'there' exists.
I've realized the purpose of my life does not reside in some distant outcome but in the present. Here, in the moment, inside an infinite state of enoughness.
Reading The Almanack of Naval Ravikant, I came across my favorite definition of a good life: a calm mind, a fit body, and a house full of love.
And I don't think productivity helps with any of it.
That’s all for this week’s edition of “saturday mornings”.
If you have any feedback, I’d love to hear from you.
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Have a fantastic weekend.
Much love to you and yours,
Tommy