#626: Insights from Tara Brach, Ryan Holiday, Maria Popova, and Cal Newport

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Optimal minimal. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. So now I'll do a personal question. No, we're just seeing it. I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

So Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs, this is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show, where it is usually my job to deconstruct world class performers to tease out their routines, habits, et cetera, that you can apply to your own. Life and lives. This episode is something different. It's an experimental format that I am super excited about, and apparently so are many of you. It's backed by popular demand. This is an episode that scratches an itch I've had for many years now. I'm not always able to listen to every great podcast episode out there, even when they are by some of my closest friends. To answer that predicament, I decided to ask them, many of my friends, to send a top segment from their own podcast.

podcasts that I could listen to and more importantly also share with you, my dear listeners. My team edited them together and here we are. This episode is a compilation of roughly fifteen to thirty minute clips from some of the best podcasters and also best interviewees in the world, and certainly some of my favourites. At the beginning of each clip, you will hear an intro from the host and where to find their work and podcast. At the end, I'll also share one or two of my favorite clips from episodes of the Tim Ferris show. You can view this episode as a buffet, and I strongly suggest that you check out the shows included. If you like my podcast, You will very likely enjoy the featured shows in this episode. For the full list of the guests featured today, see the episode's description, or as usual, head to Tim.blog slash podcast for All the details. And before you go. Do you like this format? Please let me know on Twitter at T Ferris, T-F-E-R-R-I-S, and also mention slash C C at Team Tim Ferris if.

You remember. Without further ado. Please. Enjoy.

Greetings, friends. I'm Tara Brock and I've been teaching meditation primarily from the Buddhist tradition for about forty-five years. And I spent about twenty of those years as a clinical psychologist. I'm also author of several books, including Radical Acceptance and Trusting the Gold. My weekly podcast of talks and guided meditations, which goes by my name.

draws on Buddhism, psychology, and science, And we explore everything from how to work with self judgment. Fears, trauma, losses, to how to resolve conflicts and increase intimacy with each other. To how in these times of such global trauma and dividedness

We can be part of a larger societal healing. And in the deepest way, the weekly talks are guides to realizing Who we are. Beyond the story of a separate and often deficient self.

Realizing The love and the creativity and awareness of That expresses our true nature. In addition to the podcast, I lead A mindfulness teacher training program with my colleague Jack Cornfield that is thousands of participants from over fifty countries.

All dedicated to teaching others the practices of mindfulness and compassion. So friends, I hope you'll visit my website. It's tarabrock.com to find information about all my offerings, including an upcoming introductory course to meditation, links to the books, and you'll find hundreds of free talks and guided meditations and other resources. Namaste. Greetings, friends.

A good number of years ago now the Dalai Lama was interviewed network news and the inquiry was really about happiness,'cause that was the subject of his latest book. And they asked him a question which was what Was your happiest moment. In memory. And his response he first gave that Kind of now classic

mischievous look and his response was I think now. I've always loved that story because, you know, for many listening

Being present here and now is not a new idea. And yet as we know, often it's Mostly an idea. You know, we're usually On our way somewhere.

We're usually checking things off the list. So often we're lost in thought and and thinking that the important moment of our life is We're on our way to it or it's already in the past. But it's rare that we sense well right now this

moment really matters. The gift of meditation. Of training. in present is that it really allows our body and mind to be in the same place at the same time.

It allows us to arrive in the one place where the Love and happiness and creativity and healing. Freedom. All is possible.

So our inquiry really is what Takes us from present and If we Yeah.

We're in a trance of thinking most of the time. And that trance is typically driven by wants and fears, by the sense that something's missing right now. Or something's wrong. And

Even under that It's often and this is usually our core focus that something's wrong with me. With how I am with what I'm doing. That tend to Never enough.

That I'm in some way deficient or flawed and that failures around the corner. Yeah. And the expression of that is a a background sense of Of fear or anxiety.

And uncomfortableness and sometimes shame. So this will be our Our subject for this talk, which is how do we Wake up out of this trance of feeling like there's something wrong with us. How do we

Uh. disentangle from the self judgments and and live our lives. And one of the stories I'll always remember a woman described being with her mom when her mom was dying and she was in a coma and At one moment her mother kind of woke up from the coma and was very lucid and looked her in the eyes and said. You know, all my life.

I thought something was wrong with me. And those were her last Art. And For this woman in a sense it was a

Kind of a gift because It made so clear that How we can go through decades. How many moments we miss. Of living.

of loving, of enjoying beauty. When we're all wrapped up in uh Thinking that we need to be different. That we're falling short in some way. And this is

What drew me to write my first book, Radical Acceptance. as a response to that sense of being flawed, being caught in what I Call the trance. Of unworthiness. I remember after writing the book, I was on book tour and one stop I was given a workshop on this and there was a big poster of me

And the caption at the bottom was Something is wrong with me. It was a a great welcome to a a new community there. Um

And Yeah, you know For those of you listening, if you start looking at your life, most of you know I mean Huge amount of self judgment. And

What we don't always realize and this is why I call it a trance. Is how much that underlying sense of not enough affects our moment. affect how generative and creative, we are

At work. affects our relationships, how intimate we can be, because it's very hard to be close to others if we feel something's wrong with us. It affects everything. And the Buddha said that the great suffering we experienced is Is

Not realizing the truth of who we are, our true nature. And being caught up in a in an identification with a a small limited self. And there's a story I've always loved that I think describes this so beautifully true story that there was a enormous clay statue of the Buddha in Thailand And it wasn't beautiful, but it was loved and revered uh by the populations that had survived over centuries of storms and battles and so on. And in the fifties there was a long dry season, and during that time there were some cracks appeared, so

An enterprising monk. Shined a flashlight into the crack. And what came back was the gleam of gold. and shin into another crack and another and they took off what turned out to be just a covering of plaster and clay and found the largest solid gold statue of the Buddha in that part of Asia.

And what's interesting Is the monks say that the statue was covered to protect it during tumultuous times? And uh it's much in the same way. That we Protect our innate goodness and purity we cover it over when we feel that

threatened to be able to navigate our world. And the suffering. Yeah. When we cover over with our defenses and our aggressions and so on is that we get identified with the covering.

We think We're the covering. Not. controlling, promoting shelf. And we forget who's looking through.

We forget the The tender awake heart, the awareness of That's looking through. No, the Essence.

Of all sickness is homesickness. There's a suffering when we Forget the gold. When we leave home. We forget what we really belong to, that aliveness and awareness and loving. We forget who we are.

It becomes such a Profound inquiry, you know. What? Leads us to forgetting who we are. to judging ourselves so harshly to becoming so identify with the coverings.

And really we can look first to main culprit the messaging of our culture. Our culture tells us what it means to be А респективо персина лайкал персен. The primary funnel for our messages.

That trap us in the trance of unworthiness is through family and caregivers. Course, this is the domain of most psychotherapy, and it's a primary channel for the culture of insecurity and fear of failure. I mean If you could ask What a child most Once.

What a child a young child most wants and needs. It's to be understood. And loved. Yet out of their own insecurities and fears, they Most parents don't know how to see clearly.

And mirror back. Who this child is. Most parents. aren't equipped to love unconditionally. So for so many there's an experience of severed belonging.

cut off from the most significant other and really severed belonging from the not okay parts of ourselves. And in the core wound. I'm not lovable, I'm not loved. I'm not worthy. This is the trance.

of unworthiness. A healing. the path to Realizing who we are and living from that freedom.

in terms of the trainings of meditation is learning To bring radical acceptance. An unconditional compassionate presence. to the experience of the moment. This is what helps to dissolve the coverings, to make

The covering's transparent, so our light Our creativity. Our love. Our intelligence. can shine through.

Yeah. Radical acceptance really opening to the present moment. But I want to note here The objection. Most people have a fear of

of accepting how we are in the moment, our fears, our shame. And the fears I'll never change. I'll never get better. And yet as American psychologist Carl Rogers put it, it wasn't until I accepted myself just as I was

That I was free. To change. In other words, the prerequisite for true transformation and healing. Is this radical acceptance

This present and kindness with what's right here. So the rest of this exploration is how do we do that? And what I'd like to do here is introduce a practice, a meditation that weaves together mindfulness, a mindful presence with self-compassion. That can really free our hearts, that can wake us up from the coverings.

And Allow us to rest. and express the gold of who we are. And the meditation is called the Rain Meditation. I know many are familiar with it. Reigns an acronym for recognize.

Allow Investigate. and nurture. Recognize meaning see what's here. Okay, fear.

Just Name it. Name it. Yeah. Allow.

Allow it to be here. Not to fight it, not to judge it, just let be. Investigate. That doesn't mean cognitively investigate. That can be a trap. It means investigate by deepening the inquiry into the body and feeling what's here.

contacting it. And then nurture The last part of rain had is to bring kindness. to what we find.

When we do that, we experience what's called the After the rain. Which means We start opening the to our natural being, to the gold that's here, to the awareness and love that was here but covered over.

Rain allows us To change very deep rooted patterning. During the pandemic I had Countless emails people saying Rain shave my life.

And I really understood uh what they meant. It's had such an impact on me. I remember when my Mother first moved down to live with my husband and me and And um she was eighty two. And

She had a lot. that she needed from me a lot of a doctor's appointment and t m mostly just needed me to Keep her company some. And at the same time I had a whole lot going on on the work and teaching front and And I started feeling increasingly stretched. And I remember one day being at the computer and

put I was writing a talk. was on loving kindness, she walked into my Awfish. to show me an article and I barely looked up from the screen. And so she very graciously put it down and and laughed, and as I

kinda looked up to see her retreating form. I had this thought. I don't know how long I'll have her. So I decided to do the practice of rain and

Got quiet and the R Recognize was a feeling a sense of you know guilt and anxiety. I you know, I'm just not coming through.

And the A Allow. I just let that be there. Rather than adding more judgment to it. And the allow has this sense of

This is this belongs, just like the waves in the ocean. This this belongs. So really letting it be. And that allowed me to deepen my attention and begin to investigate. And I started feeling The uh feelings in my body, the tightness.

And um I asked myself, what am I believing? And the belief was I'm failing. I'm failing my mother and I'm also gonna fall short teaching The feelings in my body were a real squeeze in my heart, and this r this sense of pressure and tightness. And as I open to it

I asked the question that really deepens investigation, which is What do I need? What does this vulnerable place need? This place of of feeling squeezed and guilty and fearful.

And what I got was I just need to trust. I need to trust my love, I need to trust my goodness, my heart. You know, and so I put my hand on my heart, and this is a part of nurturing it often it makes it even more powerful. And I just gave myself that message, you know, trust your heart.

Trust your goodness, it's okay. And as I did that I just felt more space. Felt more space, more openness. And so I stayed for a few moments and rested in A more spacious

More tender awareness. That's after the rain. You know, there was a shift. I I went from this being this, you know, guilty, anxious. Person.

to the space of compassion, of kindness. And What I noticed in the days and weeks to come, and I repeated Rain. I did what I call a light rain just I repeated it and it was sh shorter and

Very effective because I noticed When I was with my mom. I was able to be really present. I was able to really be with her. and enjoy our

Big salads for dinner and our walks by the river. And when she died, it was a few years later, three or four years later. Um Deep grief. Of course I I adored her. But

No regret. And I realized that Rain shave my life moments. With my mom. When I did

Uh the rain practice. I put my hand on my heart, I gave myself a message, and that's often a beautiful way. Of self compassion. to give ourselves a message that will bring some comfort and healing. But sometimes we can't. And I want to name here that self-compassion doesn't mean that we're offering ourselves compassion.

that the self is offering a self compassion, you can draw on a larger source. Um, I worked with an a vet who came back after uh Being in Iraq. And when we explored what would help him nurture a very, very uh

traumatized place in him. It was the love of Jesus. A man described being with the Dalai Lama and telling the Dalai Lama about his fears and the Dalai Lama said, You know, just let yourself be held in the heart of the Buddha. And a physicist I was reading talks about touching a tree and feeling the nurturing there, the connection. You can call on a friend, you can call on a deity, you can call on your ancestors.

I sometimes call on formless loving awareness some larger source. What Rain does When we offer ourselves attention and when we bring in that nurturing is a kind of Spiritual reparenting.

We're bringing The presence and kindness we need to heal. And if you're more you know, science oriented, you might think of it. that we're actually rewiring the brain with rain.

Because it creates new Neuronal pathways. To feeling empowered creative. Loving, lucid. Okay, friends, let's do a

Brief practice we'll do what I call a light rain to give you a taste of it. And wherever you are, you might Uh adjust. how you're sitting, so that you can just know you're feeling comfortable, at ease. Awake.

You might take a few full breaths. Letting your eyes close or your gaze be downcast. You might bring to mind a A situation in your life Where you turn on yourself in some way. It might be in a

Relationship. Might be at work. Might be related to an addiction, To a health challenge. But somewhere, some situation

Where You land up feeling judgmental. And down on yourself. Let yourself go to the most triggering moment of that. And we begin a light rain by recognizing what's going on.

And you might just mentally whisper the word that most capt's going on. It might be Judgment. Shame. Embarrassment. Fear, anxiety, anger,

Then allow it. That means in some way you're saying this belongs, this is part of The experience of the moment. Letting it be. and beginning to investigate it.

You know, what am I believing when this is going on? Am I believing that I'm failing? That I'm flawed. That I'm creating pain? For myself or for another?

And with whatever I'm believing, what's the strongest feeling in the body going on? You might feel your throat, your chest, your belly, and just sense where you feel vulnerability, where you feel tightness or activation. And you might even let your face and your posture Express what you're feeling. It's a powerful way to get more somatically connected.

You continue to investigate and feel right into the center of the vulnerability. and ask yourself what do I need? Now how does this part want me to be with it? And explore nurturing. You might put your hand on your heart, especially if you've never done it, vary the touch so it expresses kindness.

Just send some message inward. that you think might be healing. Could be I care about this suffering. Yeah.

Trust your heart, trust your goodness. Or I'm here and I'm not leaving. It's okay, you're enough. Whatever. Use sense.

We'll bring Some healing, and you can have it come from an outside source. A friend. A grandparent. Your dog.

The trees. A deity Formless. Loving awareness. Not that it.

Energy of kindness move through your hand, right into your heart. To wherever you feel vulnerable. and then let go of all doings and sense the presence of tear. Times the shift from a Flood shelf to the

The awakeness, the awareness, the tenderness, noticing the gold. Noticing This Tender present. That's more the truth of who you are than any.

Limiting story or belief. More you trust this. The more freedom. Creativity. Love.

Aliveness she'll find in your life. Take a few full breaths. Your eyes are closed, opening your eyes and the last part. And focusing on inner healing and as we hold our own being with radical acceptance. As we practice rain and come home.

That loving presence naturally extends to others. We're able to see their vulnerability and see their goal. And I've worked with so many parents been reactive with their

Children. done a kind of inner rain process and much more able to To see and respond to their children's unmet needs, less judgmental. No. And I've work with so many people who are in conflict with partners, other people in their life.

And that inner work. enables us to put down blame and really communicate In a much more intelligent, open hearted way. And it takes practice. We go into trance.

We disconnect from our own loving away cart and gold and then We're really looking through the filters of our culture. Our society We don't see others, we We see their coverings.

If we're in Our ego identify with our ego. That's what we see in others. So I'll share a final story that's been a real guide for me in the path. And this story is told by a minister describing a family holiday trip

And stopping at a restaurant that's nearly empty and she says she sat her son Eric, her one year old in a high chair, and suddenly she hears him squeal with Glee. Hi there, two words you think share one. Hi there. His face is alive with excitement, and Then she says I saw the source of his meriment, and my eyes could not take it in all at once.

A tattered rag of a coat, baggy pants, gums as bare as Eric's hair uncombed, unwashed, his hands were flapping in the air, around loose wrists. Hi there, baby, hi there, big boy. I see a buster. My husband and I exchanged a look that was across between what do we do and poor devil. Eric continued to laugh and answer hi there, every call was echoed.

This Old Gizer was creating a nuisance with my beautiful baby. I shoved Cracker it, Eric, and he pulverized it in the tray. I whispered why me?

Our meal came and the nuisance continued. Now the old bum was shouting, D'ye know Patty Cake, Attaboy, you know Peekaboo? Hey look, he knows Peekaboo. We in silence, except Eric, who is running through his repertoire. for the admiring applause of a skid row bum. We had enough. Dennish went to pay the check imploring me to

Get Eric and meet me in the parking lot. I trundled Eric out of the high chair and looked toward the exit. The old man sat poised and waiting, his chair directly between me and the door. Lord just Let me out of here before he speaks to me or Eric. I headed toward the door.

It soon became apparent that Both the Lord and Eric had other plans, as I drew closer to the man Eric. had his eyes riveted to his best friend and leaned far over my arm, reaching with both arms in a baby pick me up position. In a split second of balancing my baby and turning to counter his weight I came eye to eye with the old man. Eric was lunging for him, arms spread wide.

The Bums eyes both ashed and implored. Would you let me hold your baby? There was no need for me to answer, since Eric propelled himself from my arms to the man's. Suddenly a very old man and a very young baby were involved in a love relationship. Eric laid his tiny head upon the man's ragged shoulder,

The man's eyes closed, and I saw tears hover beneath his lashes. His aged hands full of grime and pain and hard labor gently so gently. cradled my baby's bottom and stroked his back. I stood awestruck. The old man rocked and cradled Eric in his arms for a moment, and then his eyes opened and sat squarely on mine.

he said in a firm, commanding voice, You take care of this baby. Somehow I managed I will from a throat that contained a stone. He pried Eric from his chest, unwillingly, longingly, as though he was in pain. I held my arms open to receive my baby, and again the gentleman addressed me.

God bless you, ma'am. You've given me my Christmas gift. I said nothing more than a muttered thanks. With Eric back in my arms I ran for the car. Dennis wondered why I was crying and holding Eric so tightly. And why I was saying, My God

My God, forgive me. I've shared The store him. Many times. And each time

It feels like a wake up. You know, we think society's thoughts we forget to look past the coverings towards the human heart. And in our current world friends. Where there's so much dividedness and trauma. seeing others as different, as bad, as inferior.

create such violence. There's so much trance. Gifts we bring to the world. Is the dedication to see the gold.

In ourselves and in each other. That's the meaning of Namash Day. I see the sacred in you. It allows us to be part of the healing. It allows us to bridge divides and And bring forward the goodness.

The potential. You know, this capacity To see gold is the blessing of radical acceptance. of learning to meet our moments with open hearted presence. It lets us truly live.

From love. I'd like to close with a A short prayer This is written by the poet Diane Ackerman. You might sit back and close your eyes and just take it in. In the name of daybreak and the eyelids of morning.

And the wayfaring moon and the night. When it departs. I swear I will not dishonor my soul with hatred. But offer myself humbly. As a guardian of nature.

As a healer of misery. As a messenger of wonder. As an architect of peace. In the name of the sun and its mirrors and the crowning seasons of the firefly and the apple I will honor all life.

Wherever and in whatever form it may dwell. Uarth my home. and in the mansions. Of the stars. Thank you.

For your attention, friends. Blessings. Hi, I'm Ryan Holiday, the author of thirteen best selling books. And the creator.

The Daily Stoic. In this episode I'm gonna break down some of the most important questions that I've gathered. From some of the wisest philosophers Most incisive thinkers Greatest leaders

And most awesome badasses. That have ever lived. The concept was actually inspired by something that Tim taught me, Tim's love of asking questions. Which change how you think about things. These particular questions

had a big influence on my life and career. Also, you can check out my new book, Discipline Is Destiny, The Power of Self Control, which is out now and you can buy anywhere. Books are sold. You can also buy a signed copy from me. in the Daily Stoke store at dailystil.com. Or in person at my bookstore.

The painted porch here in Bastro, Texas. Who are you spending time with? Gurture says Show me who you spend time with, and I will tell you who you are. Seneca talks about spending time with people who make you a better. Person.

А дад це домі за кід ю биком лир френд. The question is are you spending time with people who are averaging you towards where you want to go, or are they averaging you away? From where you want to go. This is a question that can lead to some hard decisions, people that you're gonna spend less time with. Who are you seeing after work?

Who are you reading? Who are you talking to? The people we spend time with Are either gonna make us better, they're gonna make us worse. Or they're gonna keep us exactly who we are.

Which is either a good thing or a very bad thing. Is this in my control? Epic Tis says this the key Question This is the chief task of the philosopher in life, which is separating the things that are up to us And the things that are not up to us. And so much of the time and energy we spend in this life are on things that are not up to us, that are not in our control.

It just started raining. I don't need to have an opinion on the fact that it's raining. 'Cause it's not in my control. But what is in my control is what I'm going to do. What's in our control is our actions, our thoughts, our opinions.

And so stoic learns to tune out what's not in our control. And it focuses on what is in our control. And so we ask ourselves About everything we experience, everything we're feeling, everything we're working on. Is this up to me? Or am I throwing good energy after bad?

Am I beating myself against a wall that's never gonna move. What does your ideal day Look like. A life, Seneca says, is made up of days. Annie Dillard said, how we spend our lives is of course how we spend our days. What does an ideal day look like for you? How are you trying to design your life? If you don't know what a good day is like

what your ideal is, then you're just gonna be working on Making more money acquiring more fame, getting more Power or influence. We have to ask yourself, is this getting me closer or further away from the life that I want? I've talked about how I know exactly what my ideal day looks like.

To Saturday where I wake up early. I work out. I do a little bit of writing. I spend lots of time with my family. I have time to think. I haven't signed myself up for a bunch of pointless obligations or phone calls or meetings. I spend time outdoors. I'm connected. I'm present.

And so I have to look at each opportunity then that comes along any day. And ask myself, is it getting me closer or further away from the kind of life I want to lead and the kind of person that I want to be? To be or to do? This is a key question. It comes to us from the great strategist John Boyd. who as he mentored young men and women in the Pentagon would see that you kinda can go down two paths in life.

There's the person who wants To look important. That once a chieva high rank. That wants to be in the newspapers or on TV. And then there's the person who wants to quietly get things done.

I think it was Truman who said it's amazing how much you can accomplish if you don't care about who gets the credit. To be or to do is is largely about credit. Do you care about accomplishments? Or do you care about impact? Do you care about credit?

Or do you care about getting things done? You have to ask yourself, am I trying to be an important person? Am I trying to accomplish important things? And this question is critical to be or to do How are you measuring your life? Hillel said if I am not for me who is Then he said, If I am only for me

Who am I? This I think is related to the idea of to be or to do What's motivating you is it external accomplishments? Or is it making a difference in this world? Yes, you have to fight for yourself, you have to stand up for yourself, you get walked all over.

But if all you care about is protecting yourself, if all you care about is attention. Who are you? I think about someone like George Marshall who accomplished so much. And perhaps his greatest accomplishment is turning down the command at Normandy. He didn't want his personal feelings to be taken into account. Again, to be or to do.

But also Who am I for? And who am I? Yes, he fought really hard to get where he was, to to make a difference.

But then he also knew that Ego didn't matter in the end. What mattered is the team. Effort. There's a great expression I heard that says if you play for the name on the front of the jersey though remember the name on the back. What am I missing by choosing to worry or be afraid? One of my favorite books is The Gift of Fear by Gavin De Becker.

And he says, When you worry, ask yourself, what am I choosing not to see right now? Right, we only have so Much in the way of cognitive resources or time or Emotional uh Energy.

How are you gonna spend it? And then often by being anxious, by being worried, by taking things personally, by being afraid. We're taking our eye off the ball. And so I want you to see those emotions not just as unpleasant. But actively destructive because they are. Stuff's gonna happen in life that makes us emotional, but we have to realize that we're only compounding that.

by acting on those emotions. Are you doing your job? This is a key question, um, when Sean Payton was uh suspended from the NFL. for a year he put up a a big picture of himself in the Saints facility

And three words so do your job. This is a thing, I think it comes from Bill Belichick. But the idea is that Everyone has a job in every moment. Sometimes that's a little job, sometimes it's a big job. But everyone has to know their job in an organization in life. Gotta ask yourself, are you doing it?

I think in the end we end up Focusing on everyone else's job than our own because it's easier than doing our own. And that's why I like this question so much. Are you doing your job? And if you aren't, why not? If you are Good.

Keep doing. What is the most important thing? To you, what do you actually value? If you don't know what's important, how do you know That you're putting it first.

And so to мі, all the other questions of life come. After you have asked and answered What the most important thing to you is in life. If you told me I could sell ten times as many books.

But it come at the expense of my marriage or my relationship with my kids. I'd say screw that, right? Because I know the most important thing to me is how those things are in balance with each other. Yes, my work is important, but it's not. The most important thing. Іно, Сенека такс батько, в Euphemia. It says knowing the path that you're on.

And not being distracted by the Paths of the people who's criscross. Yours. This is especially the people Or hopelessly lost.

When you know what's important, when you know what you value, when you know where you're going. It makes it easy for you to ignore what doesn't matter and focus. On what does matter. Who is this for? This is a question As a creator, you always have to know.

Who are you making this for? А так чи со мні антропнір, бізнес піпо. Creatives who Have no idea. They're just making stuff. They just hope. It will find an audience. They go, Oh, this is a book for smart people. You have to know who you're making this for, you have to know your audience, you have to know the market.

You have to know human beings. This is why empathy is so important. Who are you making this for? Who are they? Where where are they? What do they want? You have to know who this is for. So I always ask myself, They're making a video or putting out a tweeter. We're writing a book, screw your hunches.

Who is this for? Who are they? Does this actually matter? Right, so many of the things we're upset about, that we hold on to, that we focus on, they don't matter. Not to you to anyone at all. They don't they just don't matter. Marcus Aurelius says

Ask yourself in every moment, is this essential? 'Cause most of what we do and say is not essential. He says when you eliminate the inessential, you get the double benefit of doing the essential things better. Stephen Colbert loses his father and and several siblings in a plane crash as a young man, and he said what he took out of this was a question from his mother. She said, Can you look at this in the light of eternity?

Does this matter in the big picture? Right? Because so many of the things we trivially get upset about that we focus on. in moments of crisis we get real clarity about and we realise they didn't matter at all. People. Matter.

matter doing your best matters. Everything else is irrelevant. And yet that's where we focus so much of our time and energy. Will this be alive time or dead time? That's something Robert Greene asked me.

when I was thinking about becoming a writer, I had like a year to kill. for I could go do and he said what's this year gonna be for you? Is it gonna be alive time or dead time for you? Are you gonna use every second or you're gonna sit around and be passive and wait? that came flooding back to me in the pandemic when we went into lockdown. It's this gonna be a live time or dead time. What am I gonna have to show for this, whether it's two weeks or two months or two years?

What am I gonna have to show for this period? A life time treat every moment like a life time because while you have it, you're alive. But after it's gone, it's dead. Now is now can you use this time? What can you use it for? If you always choose a lifetime, then you're always getting better.

And always moving forward. You're not wasting time. Seneca says it's not that life is short, it's that we waste a lot of it. We kill time as time is killing us. And the truth is

You always have the ability to make the most of this moment. So often we choose not to because we we a we don't ask ourselves this question. Is this who I want to be? Is this representative of the person Та і сіл ас та імтра бекам.

Or am I giving into my lower self here? Am I taking a shortcut here? Am I doing something That the person that I see myself as wouldn't do shell straight says. You're becoming who you're going to be, so you might as well not be an asshole. When you do things you have to ask yourself, is this Репрезентити

Of my character. Of my priorities, of my values, of what I said is important to me. The answer is no, you have to not do it. How we do anything is how we do everything. So you have to ask yourself this question, is this who I wanna be? Every Interaction every situation, big or small.

'Cause it adds up in the way that nothing else can. If I give you One more question. A last question, bonus question, if you will, comes to us from Victor Frankel, who survives the Holocaust. He writes the amazing book, Man Search for Meaning. You know, she says we ask what is the meaning of life?

This is Actually It is life that is asking us that question. It's our actions, it's our decisions. To provide the answer.

Meaning is something we create. From our actions, from our decisions, from our choices, from who we choose to be. These are the kinds of questions. That if you ask often enough. You will provide, as Victor Franco says, the kinds of answers.

It make you who you're capable of becoming. Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time what I would take if I could only take one supplement. The answer is invariably AG1 by Athletic Greens. If you're traveling, If you're just busy

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and energy by visiting athleticgreens dot com slash Tim. You'll receive up to a year's supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your subscription. Again, that's athleticgreens.com/slash. Tim. I What follows is a clip from my interview with the incredible Maria Popova. So who is Maria? Maria Popova. You can find her on Twitter at Brain Picker on Instagram at Maria Popova. P O P O V A is a reader.

And a writer who writes about what she reads. This is all a huge understatement. Her website is The Marginalion, formerly known as Brain Pickings, and it is included in the Library of Congress permanent web archive of culturally valuable materials. She is the author also of Figuring and the editor of A Velocity of Being subtitle Letters to a Young Reader. You can find the Marginalian at themarginalion. Or fifteen years it has remained free. and ad free and alive thanks to patronage from readers. I am one of her loyal readers. Her work is incredibly insightful, incredibly prolific. I don't know how she does it. And if this labor of love of Maria's has made your life

more livable in the past year or the past decade, consider a one time or loyal donation to the marginalion. Your support makes a difference, and I want to see Maria, as do millions of people, continue her amazing work for many, many years to come. Please enjoy. Your schedule. So I've I I've read of your schedule, uh but I'd I'd love to hear.

the the current iteration of that. It it seems like you you've had a fairly you have a fairly regimented schedule, which would make sense if you're putting the number of of hours into reading and writing that you do. So what is what is your current day look like? Well I'll answer this with a caveat. The one thing I have struggled with or tried to solve for myself in the last few years, couple of years. Maybe as

this sort of really delicate balance between productivity and presence and Especially in a culture that seems to measure or worth or marriage. Or our value.

through our efficiency and our earnings and our ability to perform certain tasks as opposed to Just the fulfillment. we feel in our own lives and and the the presence that we take in in the day to day and that's something that's become more and more apparent to me. So I'm a little bit reluctant to discuss.

routine as some sort of holy grail of creative process because it's just really It's a crutch. I mean routines and rituals help us Not feel like this overwhelming messiness of just day to day life would consume us. It it's a control mechanism

But that's not all there is, and if anything It should be in the service of something greater, which is being present with One is own life. So with that in mind, my day is very predictable. Um

I get up in the morning, I meditate for between fifteen to twenty five minutes before I do anything else. What time do you wake up? Typically. Exactly eight hours after I've gone to bed. So it varies. Okay. Um, I'm a huge proponent of sleep. I think um I

When I write because what Or when I I guess try to think. What I do is essentially make associations between seemingly unrelated ideas and concepts and in order for that to happen, you know, those associative chains need to be firing. And when I am sleep deprived, I feel like I don't have full access to my own brain.

Um, which is certainly I'm not unique in that in any way. There's research showing that our reflexes are severely hindered by lack of sleep. We're almost as drunk if We sleep less than half the amount of time we normally need to function. And I think

wear our ability to get by and very little sleep as a kind of badge honor badge of honor that bespeaks work ethic or toughness or whatever it is, but really It's a total profound failure of priorities and and of self respect and I

Try to sort of enact that in my own life by being very disciplined about my sleep, at least as disciplined as about as I am about my work,'cause the latter is a product of The capacities you know, cultivated by the former. Um so in any case, so I get up eight hours after I um have gone to bed. I meditate.

Um I go to the gym where I do most of my um longer form reading uh I get back home, I have breakfast and I start writing. I usually write between two and three articles a day and

one of them tends to be longer and when I write I need uninterrupted time, so I try to get the longer one done. earlier on in the day when I feel much more alert. Um, so I don't look at

email or any anything really external to the the material I'm um dealing with, which does require quite a bit of research usually, so it's not like I can cut myself off from the internet or from other books, but uh I don't have people disruptions, I guess. So anything social. Um and then I

take a b a short break. I'm a believer in sort of pacing um creating a sort of rhythm where you do very intense focused work for an extended period and then you take a short break and then Cycle back, you know. Um, and then I I deal with any sort of admin stuff like emails and just taking care of errands and whatnot and I resume

Writing and I write my other article or articles. through the evening I try to have um some private time um just later in the day, either with friends or with my partner, or just

You know. Time that is Unburdened by deliberate thought, although you can never unburden yourself from thought in general. And then usually later at night I either do some more reading or some more writing or a combination of the two.

Got it. And So a a number of follow up questions. What type of meditation Do you practice currently? Just guided Vapasana very Very basic. Um, there's a woman named Tara Brock.

who um she's a mindfulness practitioner How do you spell her last name? B R A C H Got it. And she's based out of D C and she

Um was trained as a cognitive psychologist. mm than the decades of Buddhist training and and Live in an ashram, and now she teaches. Mindfulness but with a very secular lens. So Um, she records her classes and she has a podcast, which is how I um

came to know her and every week she does a one hour lecture on sort of the philosophies and cognitive behavioral, you know, wisdom of the ages, and then she does a guided meditation. Um so I I use her meditations and she has changed my life perhaps more profoundly than Anybody In my life. So I highly, highly recommend her. Um

Tara. Brock. Rock. Yeah. And all her podcast is free. Um she has two books out to um

She's really wonderful. Very generous person. I will have to check that out. And uh so you're listening then, you have earbuds in. uh when you're d or you're listening you're listening to audio while you meditate. Yes. Yeah. And it's interestingly, I mean she she puts one out every week, but

I've been using the exact same one from the summer of twenty ten. It's just one that I like and feel familiar with and it sort of helps me get into the rhythm. So every day I listen to the exact Summer two thousand ten. How does that start? How would people recognize it? How does the audio I think the title is it sounds cheesy, but it is not cheesy. I think it's called Smile Meditation. Uh, and I'm sure she has repeated it in various forms through the years in other recordings. It just happens to be the one that I you know, have on and on my broken three G iPhone without any internet or cell service, which I just use as an iPod and that's on it. Awesome. That's a great answer. Um

I love digging into the specifics. uh to work out are you still using an elliptical For that or or are you You are. I do sprints, time tense intervals on the elliptical for cardio and I do a lot of um weights and body weights to have too. You do, all right. But y when you're reading, is that on the elliptical?

Yes. And what type of uh device if any Are you using for that reading? Well, I prefer electronic, so I use the Kindle app on the iPad or an any PDM viewer'cause I read a lot of archival stuff, but

The challenge of course is that because they read so many older books that are out of print, let alone having digital versions, that's not always possible in case it's rarely possible unless I'm writing about something fairly new. And so in that case, I just go there with my big tome and my sticky notes and pens and sharpe's and various annotation

analog devices and I just Do that. Cool. All right. So that that leads perfectly into the next question, which is what does your note taking system look like? Um and how do you take notes? So for instance Uh you're really good at using Um

Excerpts or quotations, poll quotes. And I found myself asking as I was reading this, like how how are you gathering all of this so that you can use it later. Um so what does your note taking system look like when you s we U i in the case of digital and in the case of hard copy. Yeah.

So with digital, um, it's very simple. I just highlight passages and I write myself little notes underneath each. um that are that have acronyms that I use frequently for certain topics or shorthand that I have developed for myself. Uh but reading is really or understanding really, which is what reading should be a conduit to.

is a form of pattern recognition. So when you read a whole book you kind of walk away with certain takeaways that are thematically linked and they don't usually occur, you know, sequentially. So it's not like You walk away with one incident from the first chapter, one insect from the second chapter. It's just sort of this pattern of the writer's thoughts that that that permeate the entire narrative of the book. And so Especially

As you if you read as a writer, so somebody who not only needs to walk away with that, but ideally wants to record what those patterns and themes are that sort of reading is very different. And so what I end up doing with analog books in particular and it's I've sort of hacked some systems of doing it electronically, but they're imperfect. is at on the very last page of a g uh each book, which is blank usually.

uh right before the end cover. I create a a an alternate index. So I basically list out As I'm reading the topics and ideas that that seem to be important and recurring in that volume. And then next to each of them, I start listing out the page numbers where they occur. And on those pages I've obviously highlighted the respective passage and I have a little sort of sticky tab on the side so I can find it. Um but it's basically uh

An index based not on Keywords, which is what a standard book index is based on, but based on key ideas. And I use that then to sort of synthesize what those ideas are once I'm ready to write about the book. Okay, I have to geek out on this'cause I'm so excited now. Um so as it as it turns out, with analog books I do exactly literally exactly the same thing. Uh I usually start with the in front inside cover, but I create my own index and of course they don't have to be in order, so you can sort of list them in any in my particular case in any any order. Um

I also will have sort of uh two A couple of of lines dedicated to PH. And PH just refers to phrasing. So if I find a turn of phrase or wording that I find really Oh I do that too. Oh really? But I call it BL for beautiful language. Oh that's so cool. Okay. So there's that. And then I have um Like Q or Q if I if they're quotes. So for instance many books will have uh quotes attributed to other people or just uh header quotes uh in some cases and so I'll have uh

you know, quotes, I'll just write that out and then colon and then I'll I'll list all the page numbers for that particular sort of Category. That I'm collecting in the case of quotes. Uh So for when you're gathering this, you mentioned acronyms. And uh shorthand. So besides beautiful language, what are some of the other acronyms that you use?

Oh, they wouldn't make sen they're just very private. It's like too long to get into what they stand for. They're just really my own system. Is there one other example that you just just if you could indulge me. One that is I guess not so much about the about its purpose is L J, which is I have a little sort of labor of love

side project called litter and jukebox, right? Sure. I've seen it. It's yeah, it's it's awesome. Thank you. But yeah, so I I do these pairings of passages from literature with a thematically matched song, and so Sometimes w as I'm reading a book, I would

come across a passage that I think would be great for that and maybe a song comes to mind. And so I would put L J next to it. But I wanna go back to what you said about the external quotes. I guess the author quoting another work. I think those are actually really important and that goes back to your

Question about how I Find What to read and I mark those types of things. So for the for the annotations that are specific to that particular book.

All of my sticky tab notes. or on the side of the of the pages. But when it there's an external quote, something referencing another work. I put a tab at the very top with the letter F, which stands for find, if I am not familiar with the word. the work or just no letter if I just want to flag a quote from something else that I know of.

And I think that's actually very important because W the the the phenomenon itself, not my annotations of it, because literature is really and I say this all the time, it is the original internet. So all of those references and citations and allusions even they're essentially hyperlinks that that author placed

To another work. Um And that way, if you follow those, you go into this magnificent rabbit hole where you start out with something that you're already enjoying and liking

But follow these tangential references to other works that Perhaps you would not have come across that way. Um I mean directly. And and in a way It's a way to push oneself out of the filter bubble. in a very incremental way. And I've often found amazing older books that were, you know

Five or six hyperlink references removed from something I was reading, which led me to something else, which led me to something else, which led me to this great other thing. Um so I think that's that's kind of a a beautiful practice. Yeah, it's uh the the serendipity of it. Is uh

So beautiful when it works out and I'll I'll I'll uh give a confession. This is really embarrassing, but uh you know, since no one's listening. Uh I came across Seneca. So Seneca the Younger. who's had uh probably more impact on my life than any other writer.

Uh originally because There I I I was perusing a a a number of anthologies on minimalism and simplicity, and Seneca kept on popping up, quote Seneca, quote Seneca. And because it was always one word like Madonna. Or and this is gonna be really embarrassing, or like sitting bowl. I assumed that Seneca was a Native American elder of some type for probably a good lovely actually. I I assumed he was a Native American elder for a probably a good year or two before I realized he was a Roman I was like, Man, first, you gotta do your homework, pal. You gotta dig in. And then at that point is when I really

sort of jumped off the cliff into all uh a lot of his writings. Which I've I still to this day revisit on an almost month monthly visit. Uh revisited um His um the shortness of life. So good. Manifesto and I had hate this modern word, um, sort of buzzword, but I use it intentionally. So the best Manifesto for art.

current struggle with this very notion of, you know, productivity versus presence and how much are we really mistaking the doing for the being, you know, and and and It's amazing that somebody wrote this millennia ago before there was internet, before there was the things we call distractions today and and yet he writes about the exact same things, just in a different form.

Yeah. The exact same things. And w the way that uh if I'm trying to use Seneca as a gateway drug into philosophy, I I I won't use the P word first of all with most people'cause philosophy smacks of I think it calls to mind for a lot of people the sort of haughty pompous uh college student in um

Uh Goodwill hunting in the bar scene, who's like r reciting, you know, Shakespeare without giving uh any type of. I actually I I agree with the notion that th those are its connotations today and people have a resistance, but I think that's all the more reason to use it heavily and to use it intelligently and to reclaim it and to get people to understand that philosophy Whatever form it takes.

is the only way to figure out how to live. Everything else that we take away from anything Is a set of Philosophies, essentially. I agree. No, I totally agree. So but I usually if I'm gonna lead people there, I try to

to to uh lure them in with with Seneca because I think he's he's very easy to read compared to a lot of, say, at least the Stoics, uh or or or that's actually not even fair, compared to a lot of philosophers who who have been translated from Greek. uh uh most of his writing I believe is translated from Latin, which tends to be just an easier jump from English. So Um it's very easy to read. And I what I tell people is you know, start off with some of his letters and you'll find that you could just as easily replace these Roman names like Lucilius and and s and uh so on with like Bob and Jane, or you know, pick your contemporary name if uh of choice and it they're all as relevant now as they were then.

I'm Cal Newport. I'm a professor of computer science at Georgetown University. where my research focuses on the theory of distributed algorithms. I'm also, however, a New York Times best selling author.

Who writes about the intersection of technology Productivity. And the quest to live and work deeply. in an increasingly distracted world. Yeah, you might know me from

Some of my recent books. Such as deep work. digital minimalism and a world without email. You might also know me from my writing for The New Yorker. where I am on the contributor staff.

The clip you're about to hear comes from my podcast. Deep questions with Cal Newport. Now on this show, I take written questions and voice calls. from my readers. They ask questions about the various theory I write about and I help them put it into practice. in the messy reality of their actual lives.

If you like what you hear, you can Subscribe to the podcast Deep Questions with Cal Newport on all of the standard podcast platforms. If you prefer video You can go to YouTube.com slash Cal Newport Media.

There you will find Full episodes as well as clips of popular questions and segments. Alright, so anyways, here comes the clip. I hope You enjoy it.

Today I want to do my first Core idea. video uh deep dive I should say my first core idea deep dive and the topic I want to do it on Is Time.

Management. So my goal here is to give a brief summary of my thinking about time management. consist of is let me define for you what I mean by time management.

Let me give you The three principles. In my writing and on this podcast we always talk about that any good time management system should probably satisfy. And then I will briefly talk through my particular system. Which we can think of as

one example of a time management system that satisfies these principles. So you can do something else, but so you see what a real fully fledged time management system that satisfies these principles look like. And then I'm gonna have a Bonus fourth principle I want to talk about. that debatably is not really about time management. It lives right outside time management, but it's related. So I'm gonna talk about that briefly at the end. So that is my agenda for this core idea discussion on Time.

Management. So let's start. What do I mean by time management? For me. At least in the context of this discussion, I'm thinking about work. So time management and work. The way you deal with your time outside of work is a little bit different, and so I'm gonna put that aside.

And in the context of work. I'm gonna define time management to be Whatever philosophy, process, systems, or rules. that you deploy to make decisions about what you're gonna do right now with your time. How do you figure out

It's twelve twenty six. On a Friday. What do I do next? In the end, that's what a time management system is, a way to help you answer that question. In as useful a manner

as possible. Now everyone who works has some sort of time management system they're using. If you don't know what it's called, if you can't tell me the details of it, if you've never thought about that, it's just a really bad one probably. But you still have one. One way or the other, you're making these decisions. So the question is just how do we want to make these decisions? What is going to work better?

So I'm gonna give you The three properties I think any good time management system should have. I love alliteration. long time listeners to the podcast know this. I love Cs.

In my alliteration. as longtime listeners of this podcast know. Uh so I name the three key properties here with three C's. Capture. Configure. Control.

Let's talk about these each briefly in the abstract, and I'll tell you about my system that satisfies these. Number one capture. I believe a good professional time management system. Needs to have Some place

in which you store All the information that's important to making decisions about what you need to be doing and what you should be doing. Uh that is trusted. It's a place that you are going to look at Things that go in there will not be forgotten.

These ideas get out of your head and into a system so you're not wasting brain cycles on trying to remember stuff that you need to do. Now in the context of tasks We can give credit to this idea to David Allen. So David Allen and his

Seminal. post computer time management book. And I mean that very specifically because as I've written about before Time management goes through big evolution. So post computers, computer networks, and email time management went through a big revolution and David Allen was there at the beginning. Uh he had this idea of full capture.

Where he said all of your tasks should be in a trusted system that you review regularly. Not in your head. Uh he actually adapted that idea from a Previous business thinker named Dean Atchison. Unrelated to President Truman, Secretary of State, same name, different person.

uh who had first developed, I believe, in the 1970s this notion of full capture and David Allen expanded it. So that's really the core of this. David Allen's articulation of full capture said Don't waste mental energy remembering things. Have it in a system so your brain can be clear to actually focus on working. This also reduces a lot of stress because your brain gets stressed when it's worried about forgetting things you need to do.

I generalize capture though beyond what Alan talks about. In addition to each of your commitments Being somewhere you trust. I want your plans to also be somewhere you're trust. So any thinking you've done

about what you're working on on all sorts of different timescales. That should be written down somewhere you trust and review regularly as well. I think that's often overlooked, but the planning process of what's going on, how do I want to get my work done, what needs to be done this semester, what do I have to get done this week to hit this goal. That's a really important part of time management. I don't want that all in your head. That also gets captured.

All right, second property. Configure. This is a a a twist that I've become increasingly a loud advocate for, which is care more about how you actually organize this information that you're capturing.

I think you really need to think through Once I have this information written down somewhere. Where do I put it? How do I organize it? Is it in categories? Is it broken up by role?

Uh Equally important. getting the relevant information consolidated. I'm really big on this. So not only do you have a A really smart organization for all the stuff on your plate. You're also gathering in one place all the relevant information.

You're not searching through your email inbox to try to remember what does this mean and where are we and and what do I owe this person? I'm supposed to get back to Derek about the program codes. What does that mean? Let me go through my inbox. Now all that should be in one place. So these are our two goals with with organized. Uh A that the information is organized well where what you want to happen here What you want to have happen here is that you can very quickly get the gestalt of what's on your plate, what's due, what's not, who you're waiting to hear back from. The information is put aside in such a way that it's not just a list with a hundred things, and two. All the relevant information is there.

I'm not scrambling around to figure out what I need to know to do this thing. All the information is there. All right. Control. The third property of a good prime man time management system.

Control says instead of being Reactive in your decisions about what you want to do with your time. And by reactive I mean just saying, Okay, it's twelve twenty three on Friday Um What do I want to do next? I don't know. Let me see what seems relevant. Let me look at my uh let me look at my inbox.

We look at Slack. Maybe I'll look at a to do list and try to choose something off of it. Control says don't be reactive. Don't wait till you get to the moment to say what should I do next. Instead be proactive. make a plan for your time in advance that makes the most of the time that you actually have available. So you think ahead, you look at the time you have available, and you say,

What do I want to do with this? I'm planning the whole picture at once. I'm not waiting till the moment to say what happens next. Now on the podcast I talk often about doing this control. At multiple timescales. You'll hear me talk about multi-scale planning. This is where that actually applies. And what I recommend is that you should be doing this type of planning on three timescales.

Quarterly, weekly, daily. So quarterly You have a plan. for what you want to try to get done that quarter, what's important, what are the big projects you're working on. Uh

There could even be daily work that you want to really emphasize, like look, I gotta get my cold calls up. So every Monday, Wednesday, Friday I spend the first hour doing cold calls, whatever it is, but you're making this plan for the quarter. Looking ahead at the quarter, is this a busy quarter, not a big quarter, what are the big deadlines this quarter? Is there a huge trade fair halfway through it? That means the first half of the quarter has to be really focused on preparing for that trade f trade fair. You're looking at the whole picture of the quarter. And at this pretty big granularity.

Coming up with a plan. Every week You then look at that quarterly plan and produce a plan for the week ahead of you. Now you're doing weekly planning. And when you're doing weekly planning.

Uh what you really want to do. is get a sense of what's gonna happen which day. And then finally you get down to the daily scale. Where you say, What am I actually doing during the hours of the day? So we're in weekly planning, you were looking at what am I going to do the different days of this week. At daily planning, you're saying

Here's my day. I have a meeting here, I have a call here, I have two meetings here, here's the time that's free, what do I want to do during that time? So multi scale planning, I think is the right way to think about control. You're giving your time a job as opposed to

Asking in the moment, what should I do next? So I think any good time management system should do. Capture configure control. Let me talk briefly about my per specific instantiation of these

properties, what my time management system looks like at the moment. So for capture There is where I actually store the things I need to do. And I use Trello.

Which is a task board software system. So it it it gives you a visual metaphor for cards on a board arranged vertically in columns. I use Trello. to keep track of tasks and commitments and I use Google Docs. They keep track of plans. the plans I have about various things. So Trello's where all my tasks are.

Google Docs are where my uh my plans live. So that's where And multi scale planning my quarterly plan lives. Uh That's where other plans live. Jesse and I, for example, have a Google Doc where we we have our

plans for the podcast, et cetera. Trello. Or tasks. Google Docs. For plans.

In addition to the storage systems, you have to have the capture tools. So the tools you use to capture things during the day on the fly that will then get later moved into those storage systems. Now for me I use two main ones. I have my time block planner. I am in a lucky situation where I was able to design and publish my own planner. So you can obviously find out more about that at timeblockplanner.com, but that planner has Uh for every day a page in which you can capture stuff.

So I capture stuff right in that planner. On my computer, I also have a text file on my desktop. I call it working memory dot txt. Because I think of it as like an expansion of my actual Working memory.

And I use that when I'm on my computer to capture things, especially when I'm cleaning out my email. I can just type much faster than I can write and I capture all sorts of notes in this document. Uh, I work through ideas on the document. It really is like an extension of my working memory. So a lot gets captured in there. If I'm in a meeting on Zoom. Things are popping up I have to do. I'm writing it probably right there in that working memory.txt.

At the end of every day I do a shutdown. My planner even has a box I checked, it says shutdown complete that indicates I've done my shutdown. As part of that shutdown process. I look through everything in that planner. Everything in working memory.txt.

and I get it into one of those more stable systems. goes on the trailer or I update my Google Doc. Push back down to zero. They're temporary tools to capture and then they get moved into the more stable

Systems. The one addendum I should add there is the calendar. Obviously, some of these things are appointments, so that goes right to the calendar. All right. Configure. I mentioned I use Trello.

Uh for my task, the way I actually use Trello is I have a separate board for each of my different professional roles. I keep a separate board as a writer. uh a separate board, for example, as a Teacher which I keep as a separate board as a researcher.

Um, et cetera. Those are then split up into columns. There's a few standard columns that every one of these boards have. I typically have a column. Where I put task on there that's called to be processed. Where it's a pretty complicated thing I need to do and I don't quite understand all the details of it, but I don't want to keep track of it in my head. But also, you know, it's five o'clock and I'm shutting down. I don't have time to spend twenty minutes figuring out

What does this mean? Like what are the actual actions here? So I'll just throw that in the to be process column. I usually have a column on each of these boards for waiting to hear back from So if I've sent someone a note.

And I need information from them and that information is critical for me to keep making progress. I like to put a card On my trelloboard under waiting to hear back. It says here's what I'm waiting to hear back from And here's what I'm going to do once I get that information. I don't want to remember that in my head. So I put it on there. I typically have a column for things I'm working on this week.

And I'll typically have a column for If there's specifically persistent initiatives within that role, I'll give it its own column so I can really quickly see for this thing I'm working on. What are all the different things that need to be done?

So as a researcher, there might be a column for a paper we're preparing for publication. In my administrative role at Georgetown, there might be a column for a search committee that I'm on. Here's the relevant tasks. The time that I really get into and clean this up and look at it and move things around and check in on it is when I do my weekly plan. So once a week as part of my commitment to configure

I really go through these systems and I update it. Once a week when I'm building my weekly plan. is also when I'm reviewing the Google Docs that capture these other types of plans that are going on and update them and remind myself what's on them. So the weekly scale is when I'm really getting my hands dirty. Throughout the week I'm just throwing stuff into here at the end of each day, but each week I really go in and clean things up.

All right, finally is control. Uh I already talked about multi scale planning, I think is the best way to do control. You could do it other ways, but I do uh for me it's semester instead of quarterly, but semester weekly Daily planning. semester plans in a Google Doc.

Weekly plan. I actually type it up in a Text document and print it out. And I keep it with me in the back of my time block planner. So that's how and then I'll update it and reprint it as I need to throughout the week. Uh, and then for my daily plan, I'm time blocking like I talked about.

Here's my day. Let me block off everything on my calendar. Here's the time that remains. What do I want to do during that time? Well let me look at my weekly plan to remind myself of what my big picture plan is for this day. And then I'm blocking off actual hours of time and saying, here's what I'm doing here, here's what I'm doing there.

And I fill in all that information. I do that right on my time block planner, but you can do this in any type of notebook. There's a whole video at my site, Timeblockplanter.com. that walks through the details of how time blocking works. So that is how I do uh The daily piece. You put those all together. There's my commitment to

Control. All right, so stepping back, capture, configure, control. You do those three things. You're gonna be making smart decisions. about what you want to be doing with your time professionally.

Now I know people get concerned, they say well I might be injecting too much structure into my life and this is gonna make it my work life more rigid and I'll be less creative. I call nonsense and all of that. Just because you're in control of everything doesn't mean you need to

schedule every seven minutes of your time like a crazy person. I mean you can when when you're in control of your time, you can now start to make decisions like Thursday afternoon starting at twelve, I wanna do no work. I'm gonna go to the woods and just think about This problem I'm working on. when you're doing capture configure control, you could do that with confidence because you know what's on your plate. You've cleared out that time.

You know things aren't being forgotten. You made sure that you had time on Wednesday to catch up on things people need to hear about on Thursday because you're in control. You can aim that control at More breaks, more free time, more creativity, less stress. You can

significantly like a lot of my listeners do, reduce the amount of time it takes for you to get your normal workload done. And because you're in complete control of things, move it into certain days and keep whole days free to basically do phantom part time jobs. There's a lot you can do that makes your life more interesting and creative. And less stressful. once you have an intentional way of making these decisions about what do I want to do next with my time. All right, now I promised you a bonus property that

Arguably has to do with time management. Arguably it's something different. So I'll just mention it briefly. And that is Constrained. So circling this whole idea. Is how you figure out

What gets on your plate to be managed in the first place? and how you actually manage that work. I'm just gonna plant the seed here because this is a bigger conversation. But We need to be very careful about how we decide what we say yes to and what we say no to.

We would really like to avoid the situation where we have so much work on our plate that, yeah, we can control it and be organized about it, but we still don't have enough time to get it done. We want to avoid that situation. So having clear rules in place about How do I decide what I let on my plate? That's really important. Processes is the second thing that I think is really important when it comes to constraining

You know, figuring out How do I want to do this work? The stuff I let on my plate, can I put a process in place that will reduce the footprint this has on My schedule. There's a lot of different things this can mean and again because we're just seed planting here, I'm just gonna

very briefly skim the surface, but there may be automation you're doing here. You know what? We have to produce the same Client report every week. I don't want to just send emails back and forth and kind of figure it out at the last minute. Here is our process for doing it. And you figure out a whole process that's the same thing, the same things happen at the same time every week. You can rely on it. You've taken that burden off of your planning system to have to figure out from scratch.

For small questions and back and forth. You might push that all towards office hours. Three days a week for one hour. Well publicized. I'm in my office. Zoom is on. Come to that office hours if you have a small question for me. Come to that office hours if there's a little bit of information you need. Come to that office hours if there's something we can figure out in two minutes of back and forth.

And when people bother you with a email or Slack like Hey, what are we doing again about this? Or can explain to me again what this thing means? Just say, Yeah, come to my office hours. These type of processes are all about reducing what it is that you actually do have to manage with your capture con configure control system. You want to simplify that, simplify what's on your plate, simplify how the things are on your plate are executed, the easier you can make the planning version of yourself's job.

the better you're gonna do at your actual job. All right, so let me summarize it there. That is My Thinking.

On this core idea. of time management. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered, it could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read. and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite.

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