The Best Minute: On slowing down, being the right type of person, and following your own advice
2 QUOTES FROM OTHERS
I. John Mark Comer on the importance of slowing down:
“It’s wise to regularly deny ourselves from getting what we want, whether through a practice as intense as fasting or as minor as picking the longest checkout line. That way when somebody else denies us from getting what we want, we don’t respond with anger. We’re already acclimated. We don’t have to get our way to be happy.”
II. Cal Newport on the importance of focus:
''Knowledge work is not an assembly line, and extracting value from information is an activity that’s often at odds with busyness, not supported by it… For example, Adam Grant, the academic… who became the youngest full professor at Wharton by repeatedly shutting himself off from the outside world to concentrate on writing. Such behavior is the opposite of being publicly busy. If Grant worked for Yahoo, Marissa Mayer might have fired him. But this deep strategy turned out to produce a massive amount of value… Adam Grant doesn’t work substantially more hours than the average professor at an elite research institution (generally speaking, this is a group prone to workaholism), but he still manages to produce more than just about anyone else in his field. I argue that his approach to batching helps explain this paradox. In particular, by consolidating his work into intense and uninterrupted pulses, he’s leveraging the following law of productivity:
High-Quality Work Produced = (Time Spent) x (Intensity of Focus)
If you believe this formula, then Grant’s habits make sense: By maximizing his intensity when he works, he maximizes the results he produces per unit of time spent working.''
2 IDEAS FROM ME
I. It is often said that we are the sum of the five closest people to us. So while it is important to keep the company of people we want to be like, we should also ask ourselves if we are the type of person we want others to emulate.
II. Wisdom is more about doing what you know is right than simply knowing what is right.
1 INTERESTING FACT
From Kendra Cherry: Being tested on information actually improves retention.
“While it may seem like studying and rehearsing information is the best way to ensure that you will remember it, researchers have found that being tested on information is actually one of the best ways to improve recall.
One experiment found that students who studied and were then tested had better long-term recall of the materials, even on information that was not covered by the tests. Students who had extra time to study but were not tested had a significantly lower recall of the materials.”
1 CHALLENGE FROM ME
What is one piece of advice you would give someone who is dealing with an issue that you are dealing with? Follow that advice.
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