This Week’s BIG Idea
There’s a quote from Atomic Habits that says: “Mastery requires patience.” Sometimes I feel like I’m so eager to do certain things that I rush the process, which negatively affects the results. In this day and age, patience is a superpower. We’ve reached the point where someone who can just sit there and wait has an advantage over everyone else. How do you cultivate patience? I think one of the best ways is by getting immersed in an activity you like so much you get lost in it. Inevitably, if you want to get good results consistently in that activity, you must wait.
I notice that I grow impatient when I read certain books, for example. To be clear, I love reading books and I would never stop doing it. That said, sometimes I pick bad books and I force myself to read them to see if they get better. When the opposite happens and I find the right book, I can’t stop reading. Even transcribing handwritten summaries of the books I like is a joy. So for me, practicing patience regularly should be all about picking the right books and getting lost in them.
With this in mind, I’ve been working on a list of books I’d like to read at some point. The list has two columns. In one column, I have all the books I think I might like but have never read before. In another column, I have books I’ve read before, but I’d like to reread, as well as books I’d like to read out of sheer interest.
As silly as it sounds, I need to read books for pleasure and without working on a summary or article. I love working on summaries, but they’re incredibly time-consuming and hard to write. As important as writing those summaries is, I also need to focus on something I like for a while without committing to an outcome. In other words, I want to keep reading for reading’s sake. I already started using this method and it’s working well so far, but I promise to report back if something changes.
What I’m Working on
For the last couple of days, I’ve been fixing some website-related things. As time-consuming as this can be, I’m more than happy with the result and I think the site’s looking better than ever. Apart from that, I’ve been working on new summaries, including one for Feel Good Productivity, a book I’ve been looking forward to reading.
What I’m Listening to
Steven Pressfield on Discovering Stoicism and Working Without Attachment: I’ve waking up to this interview between Ryan Holiday and Steven Pressfield for the last couple of days. Pressfield has been a writer that’s always intrigued me because I barely scratched the surface of his bibliography. Even if I want to ignore his works of fiction (I know a lot of people think that’s sacrilege), there are still several books to check out. I hope I can change that shortly.
What I’m Reading
Feel Good Productivity – Ali Abdaal: I finally got a copy of this on my Kindle. I’ve been waiting for this book ever since it was announced. In this book, Ali Abdaal shares the secret to productivity: feeling good. Unlike most productivity books, Feel Good Productivity doesn’t have endless to-do lists. Additionally, the book references numerous psychological studies and it feels incredibly well-researched. That’s all I have to share so far since I want to take my time with the book, but expect a summary of it soon.
What I’m Watching
I’m on my own again. – Matt D’Avella: in his latest video, Matt D’Avella talks about running his business solo. According to the video, D’Avella was obsessed with growth for the first couple of years of his YouTube channel, but lately, he realized that he wasn’t enjoying the process anymore. His YouTube channels went from being a personal passion to just a job. As part of the video, Matt interviews a couple of entrepreneurs to get their advice, including Ali Abdaal. I know D’Avella is famous for his 30-day experiments, but this video resonated with me because it’s honest and daring. After all, not many people on YouTube (especially creators with millions of subscribers) are willing to do things independently to recover the passion they feel for creating videos.
This Week’s Quote
“Painters like painting, writers like having written.”
Old saying
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