“Clear thinker” is a better compliment than “smart”.
The really smart thinkers are clear thinkers. They understand the basics at a very fundamental level. If you can’t rederive concepts from the basics as you need them, you’re lost. You’re just memorizing.
The most famous clear thinker in modern times wass Richard Feynman. He famously would teach his lectures without using any jargon or definitions, just an unbroken chain of logic from basic to advance concepts.
In his book he recounts the story about how Neils Bohr the most famous physcist alive at the time would ask his opinion about the plans for the atomic bomb as he correctly identified that Feynman was able to think clearly and for himself, unlike most of the other experts complied for the Manhatton project.
This also illustrates how clear thinkers deal with reality, they don’t have a strong sense of self, judgments or mind presence.
The number one thing clouding us from being able to see reality is we have preconceived notions of the way it should be.
Clear thinkers are able to think from first principles and derive concepts from the basics all while removing a sense of how things should be so they can see things how they are.
Becoming a clear thinker is the hard part, to start, I am reinforcing my foundational knowledge of the sciences.
To remove the self and be able to make clear decisions I have a hunch starts and ends with mediation. However, I suspect studying mental biases can help too.
This week marks the half way point of this course and a week without social media. My phone has nothing on it no socials and no email. And truth be told I don’t mind it.
Cal lead this week’s lessons with relaxation is overrated, he explains how the common myth that our brains need down time or relaxation time isn’t true, aside from sleep. What our brains really need is a change of activity. This lesson reminded my of the old Irish saying: ‘A change is as a good as a break’.
Following on from this Cal stressed the importance of high quality leisure time, that is not just sitting down to binge tv shows but to plan fun activities like drawing or walking. It is essentially stopping all low quality leisure time for high quality pursuits.
Scott finishes out the week with a recap and to dispel some misconceptions. He emphasises that aiming to have high quality leisure activities is not the same as becoming a workaholic.
Many well intentioned students replace tv with reading classics. This behaviour will not stand the friction of everyday life. The goal is to pick activities you love and go with them.
This week I have finished studying the book Deep Work, it was very helpful to slow go through it in tandem with the course. I have now start with Ultralearning by Scott which will hopefully have the same compounding effect.
This week I was slow to start my deep work only getting 2 hours done on Monday due to lagging hangover. The rest of the week was very productive and time blocking has really transformed the amount of work I can get done in a day and by what time I finish work. I did a total of 13.5 hours in the week. I am doing more work each day now than before in less time. I always finish by 5. My shutdown routine has been on the back burner for three weeks now, I have decided to have one main shutdown procedure at the end of the day but also a small routine at the end of each 90 minute block.
Hard work is really overrated. Long gone are the days of idolising a Prodestant work ethic. How hard you work matters a lot less in the modern economy.
In the age of unlimited leverage, one correct decision can win everything.
How do we define judgment in this sense?
Judgment is wisdom applied to external problems. Wisdom is knowing the long-term consequences of your actions and making the right decision to capitalise on that.
Now the trick with judgment is it requires experience, the more experience you have the better your judgment. Although better judgment can be built faster by having a solid foundational understanding of the world. A good example of this that I like is how Elon Musk was able to break into and dominate the space and electric vechicle industry with no previous experience, he harnessed first principle thinking and problem solving. He understands the basic physics and chemistry at a very foundational level.
Right now I am trying to improve my judgment by taking foundational courses on brilliant and reading loads of books, especially fiction as to my credit I do get through a lot of non-fiction books. Naturally as well I have experience ticking away for me.
The second month of a life of focus began with a new challenge. This month we are tasked with a digital declutter. We are to systematically remove certain personal technologies (for me this is mostly social media) for one month and then determine if you need to reintroduce them with better rules at the end of the month.
Cal takes all the lessons this week as we explore why solitude is crucial. He argues that solitude is an important part of a healthy mental life and it allows for information processing and reflection.
He goes on to highlight that viewing your phone as a constant companion is directly at odds with solitude. Using examples of how Facebook engineered our addictions to social media, Cal arms us with different methods to reduce our phone usage.
The final lesson of the week was practical tips for this months challenge from Cal.
This week was a week of firsts for me. It was my first week using time block planning and it was my first week of hitting my deep work target of 15 hours.
I have found time block planning so far to be very helpful. With the exact same schedule and tasks in previous week I would still be working late into the evening. Using time black planning I am now finishing on time.
I am aware that this may also be due to the fact that I have deleted all social media platforms from my laptop and phone.
I am enjoying doing deliberate reps of my deep work ritual which I feel is getting me into the flow of work quicker. I am still to develop at closing ritual.
We become the stories we tell ourselves. Our capacity for storytelling is both our blessing and our curse as a species.
As part of the Life of Focus course we are encouraged to create a narrative that serves me by using the autobiography method (imagining you’re writing a professional memoir of this phase of your working life).
The random friction of our everyday life is strong and it will suck you back into the frenzied struggle in the shallows.
Without a strong narrative to keep the wind at your back, Scott would go as far as to say that the deep, purposeful work you’re engaging in now is likely not sustainable.
My Narrative:
At the start of 2021 while the pandemic still raged, Eoghan moved to Birmingham to be closer to Nikki. With his move he stepped back from pharmacy to purse his own interests and learnings.
Inspired by Naval Ravikant, Cal Newport, Josh Waitzkin and Tim Ferriss, Eoghan sought to become a perpetual learner and live a life of focus. To do this Eoghan completely transformed how he worked and systematically removed all distractions and barriers in his way.
Most importantly, he for the first time in his life, got out of his own way. He had the belief in and love for himself, he previously lacked.
Eoghan built upon his previous success in physical performance and health and also introduced new routines and practices which strengthen his mental health and ability to focus.
His first challenge was learning the python and SQL coding languages in order to explore and use data. This process was a challenge but he succeed by never shying away from hard work, investing in loss and drill his weak spots.
Since a school boy Eoghan was inspired by internet startups and startup culture. He spend the January and February of that year applying for and interview at various different startups with no success. This perceived failure to be hired by any startup was the tinder needed to start the fire within him of starting his own business.
Around the same time, Eoghan began meeting with a therapist online. They worked through all the buried emotions and destructive tendencies and thought patterns. This crucial work helped Eoghan become a better son, a better brother, a better lover, and a better friend.
My Counter Narrative:
At the start of 2021 while the pandemic still raged, Eoghan moved to Birmingham to be closer to Nikki. With his move he stepped back from pharmacy to purse his own interests and learnings.
Now with an uncluttered calendar Eoghan focused on learning data science. As he approached it in an ad-hoc manner he failed to grasp the fundamentals of python and SQL. Eoghan was happy enough just to do the online lessons available to him, but when they got hard he just looked at the answer instead of figuring it out himself. This was a recurring theme of him not focusing on the fundamental just some arbitrary progress bar on the learning website.
During this time, Eoghan let his hard won gains and progress in the physical arena slide. He rarely worked out and his diet consisted mostly of connivence food. He would never reach his physical peak again but he didn’t realise that yet.
Eoghan’s quest to become a perpetual learner like his heroes started well, he covered lots of ground by reading, listening to podcasts and taking courses. He went an inch deep and a mile wide, the anthesis of what his meteors advocated.
Eoghan’s dreams of starting a business fizzled out again as he avoided the hard work and all feedback. His biggest failure was not believing in himself and having the courage to put himself out there.
As Tús Maith died a slow death so did his dreams on an uncluttered schedule. Eventually his money ran out and he went back into pharmacy full time.
Eoghan’s failure to tackle his emotionally issues and self-destructive tendencies resulted in him alienating most of his friends, at put considerable pressure on all his relationships. Forcing many of them to breaking point. He buried is pain in binge drinking and drug use.
Great people have great outcomes, you just have to give them a long enough timescale. As it never happens on the timescale you want but it does happen.
If you apply specific knowledge with leverage, you will eventually, get what you deserve.
The challenge with being patient is everyone wants results immediately. Naval explains how the world is an efficent place; immediate doesn’t work. You have to put in the time. You do have to put in the hours, and so I think you have to put yourself in the position with the specific knowledge, with accountibility, with leverage, with the authentic skill set you have, to be the best in the world at what you do.
You have to enjoy it and keep doing it, and keep doing it. The most important thing is that you don’t keep track, and don’t keep count because if your counting, you’ll run out of patience before success actually arrives.
People are oddly consistent. Karma is just you, repeating your patterns, virtues, and flaws until you finally get what you deserve. Always pay it forward. And don’t keep count.
In the forth week of a life of focus, the final week of focused work, was centred around the idea that deep work is easily derailed and how to recognise and prevent that from happening.
Cal started off the fourth week by going into detail about time management. Specifically his method of time blocking. He uses his method to control his time and get more done. In his own words “serious time block planners get 2x more things done per week than someone working the exact same hours not using time blocking”.
In addition to going deep on his time block planning, Cal reiterates the idea that these new deep work habits will be derailed easily and the only way to sustain them over time and even improve them is to measure. He advises to measure every single day, even days where you do zero hours. And then if you don’t like your measurements, modify until to do. This ongoing process will see our current deep working practices evolve over time.
Scott drawing on his experience doing the year long MIT challenge, shares a universal truth. That we become the stories we tell ourselves. He advises us to create a strong narrative to keep the wind at our backs, to enable us to overcome the random friction of everyday life trying to suck us back into the frenzied struggle of the shallows.
The first month is concluded with the bonus lesson about avoiding burnout in search of a life of focus. Scott troubleshoots the main causes of burnout in this pursuit, like automatic tendencies to do shallow work, poor project selection and an unbalanced range of pursuits.
My own deep work took a nose dive this week, due to a number of factors namely unexpected pharmacy locum cover and a silly hangover. My actually deep work was only 3 hours.
This minor setback has some silver linings though. I have manage to practice and cemented a deep work ritual which has proven effective in getting me focused and ready for doing deep work.
My focus for the coming week is still to deliberately practice my ritual and to start using time block planning. Cal’s statement that time block planners get double the work done has caught my attention and warrants a trail to validate it.
1pm- The shallows (emails, texts, work related stuff)
2pm
3pm- Walk outside or JuJitsu
4pm
5pm- Make dinner
6pm- Eat with Nikki
7pm- Chill with Nikki
8pm
9pm- Read in bed
10pm- Fall asleep
Working backwards
If the ideal day is my output what are my inputs?
So I a few deep work cycles so I am being paid or making money as a knowledge worker.
This means that I am using leverage and tools to disconnect my inputs from my outputs, as I have only a few hours scheduled for deliberate work each day.
I have physical activities scheduled twice each day which is important to me, reaffirming my modern knowledge workers are like professional athletes approach. I train hard, sprint, rest, review.
I have autonomy over my schedule allowing me to schedule activities during the day, not to mention deep work and time to spend with Nikki.
This means I either run my own business (internet or other), I am an independent consultant, writer or I have managed to negotiate my own schedule with my employer.
All of these options indicate, I am effective, able to work deeply and focus.
One thing is clear, I am not a pharmacist. This timetable is at odds with the current community pharmacy working day.
The title of the tweetstorm that inspired my learning and made naval into a guro of sorts is ‘how to get rich, without getting lucky’. And in this tweetstorm naval highlights how you can in fact create your own luck, not the blind random lucky we usual think about. Naval wants use to create a system for ourselves that we would be rich in 999 or 1000 parrallel worlds.
He goes on to explain how he thinks there are four main ways to get lucky.;
Blind luck, i.e. hope luck finds you
Hustle hard until you stumble into it.
Prepare the mind and be sensitive to chances others miss.
Become the best at what you do. Refine what you do until this is true. Opportunity will seek you out. Luck becomes your destiny.
Somes examples of the respective categories:
Winning the lottery
Working hard, putting out loads of content and building your personal brand e.g. Ali Abdaal
Entrepreneurs or investors that detect opportunities e.g. Kevin Rose
Tim Ferriss, Elon Musk, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates
So in reality there are three ways to get lucky that aren’t random. The easiest one to start with is to start hustling hard until you stumble into it. That hustle and iteration of work, helps prepare the mind to be sensitive to the opportunities that work, allowing you another avenue to luck.
Over the years of hustling hard and being sensitive to opportunities people miss you will invetiabiliy become the best in the world at what you do. When you are the best in the world at your job, opportunities will come to you and as naval says, luck will become your destiny.
I am still on working on getting luck through hustling hard. I have only started my hustle and it may take years but I will eventually get there.
Eoghan‘s Blog 