#MundaneLife
Let's be honest, most days I'd consider feeling 50% human a win.
What Has My Attention
It’s a tough time to care about individual attention. The swirling forces of racial injustice, the crushing hopelessness of an unchecked pandemic, the exhausting overwhelm of a campaign season devoid of rationality and decency, and a post-election interregnum teetering on a Constitutional crisis. The systems surrounding us often feel like they’re failing and that there’s little one person can do to shift this trajectory. It’s times like these where writing that the deliberate use of individual attention, often at the extreme micro-level, feels crass or woefully out of touch. And yet, it’s when I’m paying attention to how I do seemingly mundane or trivial things that I actually feel most capable of interacting meaningfully with these overwhelming systems.
Focusing on individual attention isn’t an abdication of responsibility or a sign that I’m ignoring what actually matters. If showing the boring behind-the-scenes work that keeps the lights on in my own battered psyche is helpful to others dealing with the same overwhelming forces then I’m happy to do it. The world can be a serious and overwhelming place -- my writing doesn’t necessarily need to mirror it in its seriousness.
Ultimately, I’m afraid of being called frivolous. Of being called out for being out of touch or oblivious to what’s going on around me. Of being accused of being some kind of stooge who is all too ready to place an undue burden on individuals instead of railing against the larger societal and organizational forces at play. I get it. It has been easier to hang out on the sidelines the past few months than to throw my hat back into the ring. While there is a certain comfort to not participating in the potentially bruising game of sharing ideas publicly, it comes at a cost of feeling like I’m forgoing one of the things I’m best at -- and for the wrong reasons.
Also, for what it’s worth, my new personal goal is to write a newsletter introduction that isn’t a veiled apology for going months without releasing a new issue. There’s always next time, right?
For Your Attentional Consideration
The Rise of Sleep in Mental Health
When I feel myself not being as productive as I want to be the first thing I think to do is either stay up late or get up early to get something done. Or, in other words, sacrifice sleep. I like to keep a small arsenal of articles like this on hand to remind myself not to be a flippin’ idiot and that the sleepy version of me is the worst version of me.
The Observer Effect - Daniel Ek
Loving this new series of in-depth interviews with interesting people focused on their processes and approaches to doing whatever it is that they do. The first one with Marc Andreesen was great and this one with Spotify CEO Daniel Ek is a worthy follow up.
Oliver Burkeman’s last column: the eight secrets to a (fairly) fulfilled life
There will always be too much to do, when stumped by a life choice choose “enlargement” over happiness, the capacity to tolerate minor discomfort is a superpower, the advice you don’t want to hear is usually the advice you need, the future will never provide the reassurance you seek from it, the solution to impostor syndrome is to see that you are one, selflessness is overrated, know when to move on. Can’t argue with that.
How to design the perfect day
A helpful kick in the pants for when you’re feeling like your days are just happening to you rather than being a thing that you can actually direct or mold into something you actually like.
The rise and fall of Getting Things Done
Considering the topic and the admiration for the people mentioned in this article (Merlin Mann, Peter Drucker, David Allen) and who wrote it (Cal Newport), I feel like I need to do a deeper dive than just a couple sentences here. A couple thoughts to get me started, though — the headline is terrible (which Cal admits), he's putting his finger near something important and I think he’s potentially missing the mark with what to do about it. I’m a little worried about academics pining for the days of Taylorism and the Industrial Revolution when making recommendations about how to create more structure in knowledge work. Cal’s new book should be interesting…
Closing Round
Eating: I’ve locked in a pretty great Default Breakfast/Default Lunch routine. Oatmeal with brown sugar and blueberries for breakfast and a Sweetgreen buffalo chicken salad for lunch. Can’t be beat.
Watching: Schitt’s Creek started really slow for us but we’re about to wrap up season 3 and are pretty much obsessed with it at this point. Taking this one nice and slow because the end is gonna be a real bummer.
Playing: I finally beat Dead Cells. Similar story in that it started slow but once I started to get that taste of progression and learning that roguelike games are so good at the hooks were set deep in my brain.
Reading: I’m more than halfway into War and Peace and I’m legitimately into it by now. Took me awhile to figure out who was who but now that I more or less have a mental model of the characters and their relationships I can just enjoy the writing.
Feel free to respond to this email if you have something you think I should read or just want to say hello. Or pop on over to Twitter. God knows you can find me over there more easily than you probably should...
Until next time,
Sam