I realized in a world of abundant and instant knowledge, I've been applying the laws of scarcity: "I won't be able to do Y and Z if I spend too much on X". Hence the anxiety to get to the Y when doing X. But it's not going to be a finite list ending in Z. It is an infinite stream and that I have to treat it as drinking from a river vs a cup.
Lately, I've been deliberately giving up on reading about topics, unfollowing people at the edge of my interests and focusing on the areas that are more central. If you look a little bit, you can identify a couple of interests that are stronger than the other. Then it is a matter of eliminating the time spent at the edges.
... Flint replied, "Well the top 5 are my primary focus, but the other 20 come in at a close second. They are still important so I'll work on those intermittently as I see fit as I'm getting through my top 5. They aren't as urgent, but I still plan to give them a dedicated effort."
To which Buffett replied:
"No. You've got it wrong, Mike. Everything you didn't circle just became your 'avoid at all cost list.' No matter what, these things get no attention from you until you've succeeded with your top 5."
https://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffetts-not-to-do-li...
You go to a gym to learn to lift weights. You see a big strong guy and ask him to teach you. He must know how to lift weights and get big and strong, right? He's done it after all.
Sure enough, the big guy knows just what to do. He's got all sorts of advice, he disagrees with conventional wisdom, he shares his training schedule etc. The only problem is, when you follow the big guy's advice, you don't see much gains - or maybe you get injured, or you plateau.
What you didn't know is that, in addition to all of his advice and idiosyncrasies, the big guy takes steroids. The big guy is big not because of his lifting schedule or the chant he says before he works out or whatever, he's big mostly because he's taking steroids. Following his advice without the steroids won't really be that useful for you.
To relate this back to the Buffet story, Buffet has been rich for decades. His wealth came from his ability to value companies, make deals, etc. Then with money he lives a very different lifestyle.
If you don't have the steroids - the vastly better ability to do something the market puts a lot of value on, then Buffet's advice may not get you very much and may actually hurt you. Where Buffet lets lower priority tasks slide or delegates them they still get done by his employees. If you do it then your house is going unmaintained or a relationship is getting neglected etc.
Perhaps that's the lesson.
I'm reminded of the startup aphorism "You don't have to be good if you're great." It's really a statement about market dynamics. If you are "great" (the monopoly provider of a service, asset, or technology that other people value) then you will attract capital and people who are "good" (hardworking and skilled people who specialize in the non-monopoly fields you need). You can then trade access to your skill for access to theirs, and do so with great leverage because there are many more of them than you.
If you don't have a monopoly skill or asset, then - assuming you want to take advantage of these market dynamics - your first priority should be to acquire one. And yes, that means that your house is going unmaintained and your relationships are getting neglected. So what?
Your relationships and the state of the environment you maintain for yourself are important.
Together, they likely have more impact on your long term happiness and physical and mental health than any kind of ability “to take advantage of these market dynamics”.
That said, I don't disagree with Buffett, but I do struggle with it :-)
I have huge lists of ideas for projects (everything from designing my own index cards, to a ridiculous idea for demonstrating the curvature of the earth), lists of books that I want to read, lists of lists of books that I might find interesting, lists of music to listen to, and smaller lists of things like places to go, things to see, and skills to learn.
By keeping track of the things outside my head, it seems to declutter my everyday thoughts and I can focus on doing meaningful work on the few things I choose to work on right now. Obviously projects and reading are two things that are important to me, so I try to do a bit of each every day when possible. It doesn't always work, but it works better than when I had no such system.
Make some fun IoT projects with a raspberry pi. https://pi-hole.net https://blog.adafruit.com/2018/07/13/how-to-make-a-raspberry...
Buy a cheap car with known (but not massive) problems and Learn how to fix them.
Read or watch Richard Fineman’s physics lectures. http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu
I highly recommend you check out "The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains", by Nicholas Carr [0].
[0] - https://www.amazon.ca/Shallows-What-Internet-Doing-Brains/dp...
---
edit: grammar
We live in an age where the ability to say "no" has become more important than saying "yes". It used to be the other way around. I grew up in the 80s and all I had was my VC-20 learning basic and later assembler. That's it. Then there was the library or bookshop, where I would find once in a while something really interesting. Nowadays, the possibilities are endless.
On top of that, I have realized that my brain has changed over the years. Feeding it constantly with new stuff is not healthy. The good news is that this process is reversible. Things like practising meditation can help a lot.
To combat it, I divide my long term, life changing goals into one or more of three categories: healthy, wealthy, wise. It's an idea taken from Time Ferris' book, Tools of Titans.
If a goal I have doesn't fit into one of those categories, it's not worth my effort and is simply a diversion. If it's a diversion, I only look at over the weekend, when I wind down, to ensure I'm not losing focus or procrastinating throughout the (highly focused, productive) working week.
Hopefully you can find some wisdom or knowledge in my approach and either adopt it or craft your own.
Cheers.
What I do divide split different cycles out.
-dev cycle -I only focus on development only or 1 specific project. I limit myself to working on 2 projects max/day
-exploratory cycle -I let my mind wander. I realize how potentially unproductive it can be, so i limit this time to a few hours at most/day. Normally I do this when Im constantly distracted by clients / coworkers at work. Or when I get tired on my dev cycle.
What helps is I write what I wish to accomplish everyday. Its 1 to 3 things that take at least a few hours to do.
At the end of the week, i look back to see what I accomplished. What did I accompish for work, personally, and what major events transpired? How do I feel about this weeks productivity vs the last 2 weeks? Am i getting shit done?
I used to keep getting lost in lots of moocs and finish none of them.
Although, now I use a habit tracker with a stopwatch and the goal for ticking off the habit is to atleast spend a minimum amount of time in learning one thing everyday.
This year I finally told myself that I'll focus on only one thing for 6 months and see the results. I actively push away all thoughts of working on B while I'm working on A