- [[philosophy]] - Author: [[Ali Abdaal]] - URL: https://youtu.be/l3hOrfLuxU0 - 1. The daily highlight - Set one task each day that you want to do. - 2. If this isn't nice, I don't know what is. [[gratitude]] [[Happiness]] - Notice when you are happy and bask in that feeling. - 3. Window openers vs door knockers - Two different approaches to risk or change. **Window openers** have to see through the window before they open it. **Door knockers** knock on many doors without knowing what's on the other side. - [[Be a door knocker, not a window opener]] - Try things that are completely different even if they don't seem to fit into your view of life, even if you don't know what you ultimately want to achieve. - Learn things that aren't immediately "useful". [[Learning]] - Just like learning Dutch giving me a new life in the Netherlands! - 4. What is obvious to you is amazing to others. [[Writing]] - Share what you've learned. Share your journey and don't worry about whether the things you've learned along the way are things that everybody knows-- because someone out there doesn't know some of those things. - 5. Lifelong learning [[Learning]] - Make an effort to schedule time to learn new things. I already have a [[Coursera]] membership that I should be using more. - 6. The Flywheel [[Productivity]] [[Money]] - A flywheel is like a debt snowball-- it's hard to get started, but once you've started, it gets easier and easier to continue until it's kind of running itself. - Related to [[Passive Income]] and starting slowly but gathering momentum. - 7. Master Boring Fundamentals [[Learning]] [[Deep Work]] - Sometimes, the most important things are things everyone already knows - they're not sexy or revolutionary but they are still important! Example: sleeping 8 hours a night, writing a daily journal, meditating, eating well, exercising. - Regular habits are more productive and efficient than sitting down to do a [[Heavy Lift]] in one sitting. - Start with the boring fundamentals for domain-specific knowledge as well (ex: engineering) - 8. Type 1 vs Type 2 Fun [[Happiness]] [[Productivity]] - Two types of fun: **Type 1**: Immediately fun; pure hedonism and luxury **Type 2**: Suffering in the present, but fun in hindsight! - Maybe Type 2 Fun is more productive. - 9. FBR [[Writing]] - [[Fast Bad Wrong]] type of writing - [[Get your first shitty draft over as fast as possible.]] - Write without judgment of quality - most of writing is in the editing. - Trying to get it right the first time is too intimidating and will cause writers' block. - 10. [[The Reitoff Principle]] [[Mental Health]] - Don't feel guilty about not working 100% of the time. - [[Molly Buckham]]'s "Stop should-ing all over yourself!" - It's okay to take a break!! - 11. The Mundanity of Excellence [[Productivity]] - Excellence is a series of mundane tasks done thoroughly and systematically. There's no magic to it. - There's no shortcut. There's just hard work. - 12. The Go First Rule [[socializing]] - Take the initiative and be the first one to take the risk, especially in social situations. - 13. High Leverage Housekeeping [[Productivity]] - Do the housekeeping tasks (sorting out your task management) - [[Weekly Reviews]] - Maybe dedicate the whole day to plan and organize your priorities, refocus rather than just reacting to things. - 14. Inbox for Your Brain [[Productivity]] [[Getting Things Done]] [[Second Brain]] - Capture everything so that your brain doesn't have to. - [[Having a mind like water is a flow state where the mind is free from the anxiety in needing to remember.]] - "Having a mind like water is like getting into a flow state: information flows like water through your mind, following the streams of your processes elsewhere. There's no fear that information will pool in your mind, clogging it up and causing thoughts to catch on other unfinished thoughts." - 15. The Power of Project Lists [[Productivity]] [[Getting Things Done]] - Keeping track of the open loops that you can at some point refer to. - "Background processing" of projects goes on if you've identified them as projects.