Systems not Goals

UseTimeToGrow Treat opposition views seriously Success-And-Failure-As-Imposters

SystemsNotGoals

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#Consume

Habits compound interest of self improvement
Ceiling set by Goals, floor set by system
Google 20%
Improve ability to learn new things
Practice is the key
Goal oriented vs Growth oriented > In long run, growth is much more important that weather a particular goal was reached
Growth:
- Cumulative
- Can improve even if goal fails.
- Strategy for long-term success (biggest/most-of-the payoff at the end)
- (Event if you only care about goals, growth enables them!
“You don't rise to the level of you goals, you fall to the level of you systems” James Clever > Idea: Outcomes are a lagging measure of habits
Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement
- Seems insignificant at first
- All payout back-loaded
“You are what you consistently do” - Aristotle
“Purpose of habit is to remove self-negotiation” - Kevin Kelly
Role of Failure: (Bill Ackmann)
- Success is not a straight line
- Successful people have to deal with hardship
- How successful you are is a function of how you deal with failure.
- If you deal with failure well and persist, you have a high probability of being successful
If you want to do something, make a habit of it
- Systems and Habits
- Sleep 8 yrs/night
- Low carb
- Time restricted Feeding
- Meditate
- Exercise
- Bullet Journaling
- Journaling
- Read
How to act; how to figure out what to do. Two simple (but not easy) steps:
1. Dont get upset > Removes bias. > What happened had to, given what came before.
2. Remember your values: principle and purpose > Eliminates the obviously wrong options/choices. > Choose from whats left

"Coming back to a habit is the most powerful habit of all" > Having the right habits are critical: Having habit to form/continue habits. Habit of self-improvement. (these are like wishes for more wishes)
Ideas for daily habits: > Single-tasking session: work on something for XX minutes with no distractions. > Daily gratitude: What have you done well ? What love about yourself/others ?
Progress does not come from one big show of force. > Real, true, lasting progress comes from grinding things out.
When things are going bad … "Good!" When things aren't going as expected … "Good!" Whey you dont get the promotion … "Good!" "Good" for resetting the frame of mind. Allows you to focus on the upside of any situation.
Focus on the present Easy to get bogged down by the big picture. > This is really where the operating system comes in. > Map out the big picture (ie: Zoom out), then focus on what the next steps are (ie: Zoom in). > Then readdress the Big picture as needed.
Education and Stoicism are ongoing processes. > Wisdom is pursued; it is not conferred/obtained/received. You have not graduated. School is for life.
"Going through the motions" is a trick that allows you to overcome weakness on day when you are "not feeling it".
How to push yourself (via Jocko)

> Need to balance emotion and logic to get more from yourself. When emotions are telling you to quit analyze them rationally (where do they come from ? Algorithms for ancient environment) When logic is telling you to stop trying, turn-on emotion.
"Biggest generator of long-term results is learning to do things when you dont feel like doing them" - Shane parish
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
Plan to decisive Points

> Interesting strategy in military planning. Do not plan to achieve > the objective directly. Plan to the "decisive point" which is the > point after which you have a decisive advantage and clear path to > victory. eg: if your a strong grappler in a fight, your decisive > point would be to get on the ground.
Once the situation is upon you its too late.

> You have to be prepared in advance. You need to know already who > you are and what you believe. Not what you organization believes, > not what your peers believe. They way to do it is by working > through issues of morality/mortality/ and honor for YOURSELF.
Habbit Dip:

> You'll always hit a dip in energy/motivation. (Thats the bad > news). The good news: Dips are temporary, provide and opportunity > to learn. "Learn the Dip" Learn how to face difficulty, let go of > the ideal, deal with frustration. Critical to come into dip with > learning mindset. Less idealistic, more curiosity. USE > MINDFULNESS!

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Standard Operating system:

Getting things done: art of stress-free productivity. (David Allen)
Now using Bullet Journal instead.
Same method advocated by Zen Habits
Basically: Write everything down, make a list, triage, focus entirely on one thing at a time.
More detail > Start of the day: scan projects, come up with next actions

> work mode: Pull from next actions

> Stuff list: as thing occur to me write them in inbox.
Daily routine: > List of 3 main things to do and 2-3 minor things

> Focus entirely on one of the top 3 until finished/stalled

> Move on to the next until done

> Select from next actions list

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"Put your day up for review" - Seneca
git commit -am "Perfrection Not Required"
Importance of Filtering.

> Especially in today's world) Knowing what, when and how to filter is critical to being productive. Knowing what to believe, seeing truth.

Baltasar Gracian

> - Dont not let your fortune on a single cast of the die. > - Attempt easy tasks as if they were difficult, difficult tasks as if they were easy.

From nurse at a hospice center: The number one regret was that people wished they had stayed true to themselves

“We are what we repeatedly do,” Aristotle said, “therefore excellence is not an act, but a habit.”

Minimize Cognitive Load

Critical to minimize your own cognitive load from distractions that dont matter. Simplify your life! Esp. daily routines. Hard to overstate the importance of doing this and how haad most people are at it.

Intalling the right habits

Automate good decisions, avoid bad decisions
Come up with rules to automate good behaviors/habits
Need to get the right rules, tricky "Many different versions of yourself, may disagree on the rules"
Formulate them rules, write them down. and them "vote" on them. (With different versions ov yourself over a few weeks) (See lists for rules)

Send emails (write essays) to yourself

Aim for few monthss / year / 1,2,3,5 years
What are you thinking about in the post days,

Positioning vs Predicting:

Positioning: Setting yourself up to have several different options to better respond to future scenarios (Anti-fragile)
Predicting: Taking actions assuming a belief about what the future is going to be like.

Positioning is the better long-term stategy. Prediction can win out in the short-term if you happened to be right Should always look for Positiong over Predition. Build in optionality, treat optionality as an asset and loss of optionality as a cost.

Decisions:

"If its a hard decision, its easy" (The outcome wont depend strongly on the choice)
Oppurtunity cost
Look at ease of quitting
Look for "free rolls" (decisions with little downside)

You get what you incentivize for.
- Story of older model Xeroxes selling much better than new model despite the fact that new models better for customers. Turns out the commission system incentivized the salesmen to push the old models.
- Cash registers one of the most moral inventions. Makes its user moral.
Difference between those that are successful and those that arent: the successful do things that they dont want to do, but know they should
People form habits, habits form futures
If you dont deliberately form good habits, you will unconsciously form bad ones.