2-3-4 Friday

‘Seeking to spark the most potential within you per word of any online newsletter’

1 thought

It’s 3 months into the start of the year, and you may already feel bone tired. 

You stare at your screen, and you struggle to really push past the mountain of work you feel.

Many people’s early interventions here would involve:

1. Taking a holiday for 4 days to a nearby country
2. Going on a weekend away

But my guess is that hasn’t lasted.

Why? And how can we do better?

On 24 February, I was in Khon Kaen, a northeastern city in Thailand, with nothing, absolutely nothing for tourists to see.

Sure, there were a few temples, but little else.

One Sunday morning, I decided that I would be productive and sit in a cafe and work hard at reflecting on the quarter that had passed. I had just slept 10 hours the previous night. I thought I was ready.

But I ended up doing nothing.

I just sat there, drank coffee, and watched the world go by.

Not a very productive entrepreneur, eh?

You definitely should not be learning from me.

But it led me to thinking about just how fast cities move, and how we are dragged along with them.

Singapore is classic for its business efficiency, and we’ve prided ourselves for being reliable and efficient. If we say we would get something done by a certain date, you would guarantee that we would go all out to making it happen.

What’s often advised here is that rather than being dragged along by the cities we are in, we need to ‘be’, rather than ‘do’.

That’s good advice, but cliche, and it doesn’t necessarily prompt us to take any concrete actions.

What’s perhaps more helpful is to step back and think how you can make rest a regular rhythm of life.

I don’t just mean rest in a sit down, watch Netflix kind of way. In the past, I’ve spoken about active recovery, where you do a sport or volunteer.

Some healthy ways can already include:

1. Watching a movie in a cinema on a Wednesday night (not at home on Netflix, so that you’ve a better sense of the treat of the movie)
2. Planning a day off every week where you do something you enjoy
3. Finding an oasis in the city, a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed

1 talk

You don’t rest to work,

You work from a place of rest.

• Dr John Andrews

1 tip

Cal Newport pointed out in his book ‘Slow Productivity’ that this 365 days a year of work, with 21 days of leave isn’t the way humans are made to work.

It was something we adapted to after we moved away from the Agricultural Revolution to the Industrial Revolution. We moved away from products that depended on the seasons, to goods that could be made day in, day out, without caring about the seasons.

But what this does is to push us to working unproductively.

Realising that doing more may lead us to producing less is a first step.

Simply adjusting our work seasons so that we regularly shift into down seasons, slowing down the pace for a month, can mean that our work becomes higher quality for longer.

You don’t want to be the phenom that died after 3 good seasons in Major League Baseball.

Try this:

1. Every June, simply drop your pace of work. Take less meetings, focus on less projects.
2. If you’re wondering how to deal with your boss during this time, try telling your boss, “I think this work you’re assigning me might take longer. Would you be okay?” Often giving a heads up can be better than just slowing things down.

Doing this helps you to sustain a higher quality output for longer, and recognizes that you don’t have to work at a frantic, impossible pace all throughout the year.

John

Live Young, Live Well - Work Your Love