Reserving time to think
John Nash was a mathematician and a Nobel Prize winner. He wrote a paper titled "Non-Cooperative Games" with which he laid the foundation for much of modern game theory and had a significant impact in various sciences. The paper was around 28 pages long and as a matter of fact, if you transcript it to digital print, it is only 10 pages long.
When I got to know about this, one of my first thoughts was “10 pages? Seriously? Is that all it took?”. Probably followed by, “wow, it must have taken quite some thought to put those ten concise pages together”.
The book I am currently reading, Essentialism, focuses on removing the trivial many from your life, the idea of less but better. I am rereading the book, and in some ways it seems like a manual for life. Probably because I desire to live by many of the principles of the book, but most of the time they get lost in the rush of life.
John Nash most likely did that work of removing the trivial many to put together the short, concise paper that had such a huge impact in the world.
Anyone can talk about how important it is to focus on what matters the most. It is not a new idea. But upon observation, most of the time, most of the people do not do that. We get caught up on life, missing the essential. From what I have experienced, few truly live by those principles.
Humans are emotional creatures filled with scars from our past experiences. Confronting yourself is often not an easy task, you need to reserve time for it. It is easier to live on autopilot mode because it requires work and effort to stop and reflect. Prioritizing that time to think, to analyze, to summarize is often going against the current. That being said, it is a luxury to devote time to those issues because that means your basic needs are covered.
An essentialist takes a problem and doesn’t just look at it from one angle, finding one solution. An essentialist, takes a problem, analyzes it from many angles, analyzes the different solutions to finally decide on that one solution.
One of the major issues I have identified is not only being aware of the problem, but also truly confronting the issue instead of avoiding it. This is one of the hard parts, it would be the next step after accepting the problem is there. I know it, I am more often than I would like to admit there, in the avoidance side as a mediator.
From what I know, the true learnings in life lie on the other side, following the confrontation, analysis, and definition of what you want. As well as the completion of both the inner and outer work.
Putting in the work means that once you identify that pattern you want to break, you handle it.
Marina, a psychologist I really admire, uses a method to reply to the inner voice that draws you in the direction you don’t want. Instead of fighting against it, you just converse with it, as if it would be a puppet.
For example, let’s say that you want to find a new good client. You have defined how your ideal client looks like. What kind of work you want to do, the amount of hours per week you want to invest and the minimum you want to get paid. Your inner self might trigger disruptive thoughts: “It is unlikely that you find a client with whom you grow in the technical area you want”, “your skill set isn’t enough for that salary”.
Here the plan is to dialog with that voice “hey thoughts, I see you are there, I will keep at completing the task of applying to ten potential clients for today”. And just let them be, while not fighting against them.
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, (go figure how you pronounce that), created the psychological concept of flow. His theory suggested that people experience the greatest happiness when they are in a condition of deep focus or complete absorption with the activity at hand.
In those lines, Laurie Santos, another psychologist I admire and who has shared a lot of knowledge on the science of happiness, highlights how we are quite bad at predicting what will make us happy.
Thanks to the Bullet Journal and other situations in my life, I have prioritized more time to think, to define and to put in the work to go in the direction I want.
Connecting the dots, it might be the case that these moments of thinking are part of what gives more joy into my life. It helps me regain focus and brings the attention to the present. It is like a quality check that things are going alright, that I am staying true to myself, building in the direction of my dream life. Trusting my gut feeling also comes into play in difficult situations, not only objective reasons.
Then, when I define where I want to go, I do the activity at hand. I focus on my list of tasks previously defined, training to be in a state of flow.
My goal is to live by the principles of less but better. There lies the true potential for growth and for creativity. When you start reading between the lines, when you get the essence of your life.
👩💻 What have I been up to
One of the mottos of last week was returning to calmness. Funny enough, the week was quite hectic psychologically. Reflecting on it later on, that can also mean that I am returning to calmness because in order to have inner peace you need to face your inner issues first to put remedy.
Regarding tech projects, I have been working on a new functionality for Sunbathe as well as sharing the project online. With the new release, users will be able to see the time needed for covering their minimum vitamin D from now, instead of getting a list of the three best ones.
One of the patterns I realize with my goals and my tasks is that I want to achieve a lot, and I tend to underestimate the amount of time I need to complete small steps. The Bullet Journal is helping me reflect on my week and to set milestones that since they aren’t urgent or important would get lost in my todo list. That’s one big benefit I have identified.
🧠 What’s next
Remember the text I shared in my weekly review, which I shared in my last newsletter?
“Remember, PATIENCE with everything Juli.”
Well, I have left it there, and it is becoming a ritual to read it on Sundays while I reflect on the past week and prepare for the next one. It is a reminder to not forget to breathe deeply and enjoy the ride.
This coming week I will put more order by selling and getting rid of things I don’t want, I don’t need, or I haven’t used in a while. I started doing that last week, and I will put in the time to reduce the non-essentials.
Other than that, I will finish introducing the new functionality for Sunbathe, finish the theory lessons of the Bullet Journal course and dedicate some time to define how to find a new good client.
Have a good week.
I love you very much world,
Julia