Hey uguba ndubuisi, I hope your summer is off to an awesome start.
🎯 Are You Doing the Right Things?
The big failure of most productivity advice is the focus on efficiency –getting things done more quickly. We should be focused on effectiveness –making sure we're doing the right things.
That's because moving slower in the right direction is far better than moving faster in the wrong one. If you work on the wrong problem, it doesn't matter how good your solutions are. You will just have a bunch of good solutions for the wrong problem. And your life will feel like this.
Now...you might be thinking..."No sh*t Calvin. Obviously I need to work on the right problems."
If you're working on the right problems and feeling good, great! Find a few techniques to move faster or to make progress with less effort.
But if you're like me, you've probably gone through periods of life where you've been grinding away and making rapid progress, only to get to your bed every night feeling unsatisfied and clueless about what's wrong.
Nothing is wrong. You're likely just applying your finite time and attention in directions that don't move you toward where you actually want to go.
From the outside, your life may even look pretty damn good. But who cares what your life looks like? It's all about what you feel inside.
Countless people with beautiful external lives have hollow insides.
As many people realize far too late in life, it turns out that money, followers, and accolades don't soothe a restless soul or provide any enduring satisfaction.
All these things do is provide short-lasting dopamine hits that make you chase the next level of wealth, status, or achievement. Now...there's nothing wrong with accumulating these things.
It's just that when you're on your deathbed or watching someone close to you on theirs, you start to see these pursuits for what they area.
You start to see that chasing external markers of success for all of those years may not have been worth the cost. You may realize at the end that the little things that you failed to appreciate – the feeling of morning sun on your skin, the smile of your grandmother, or the genuine curiosity of a toddler, were what life is all about.
Or, maybe money and status really are the purpose of life for you. If that's the case, I'm cool with it. If you want to get rich and famous, go for it. See what it's like. You kind of have to try it if the desire is strong enough.
But what I'm encouraging you to do is to pay attention as you continue to chip away at the pursuits you hold dear. And if you're making good progress in the areas that you decided are important and still feel deeply unsatisfied, step back and figure out what the hell is going on.
It's likely that you're working hard on the wrong things.
But Calvin, how do I know if I'm doing the right things?
You never really know, and I certainly don't have a clue about what the right path looks like for you. This is the big challenge of adulthood.
Before graduating from college, the life equation is easy – Study hard, stay out of trouble, excel at sports or music, go to a good university, and so on.
But once you're out in the "real world," you're lost as hell. You have to figure out how to spend your time, and there's no playbook for doing that. This feeling of uncertainty never goes away.
Some people get really good at pretending they've found the answers.
Be skeptical of these people.
Whatever they're selling you or themselves is often snake oil.
Navigating life is a lot like driving in the dark with half-functioning headlights. You can cultivate a rough sense of where you're going. And over time, you can get there. But on the journey, you can never see more than a few meters ahead of you. Get comfortable with this uncertainty.
If you start to feel uneasy during your drive, pull over. Take a few minutes to think about what you're doing and where you're going. Pull out the map you drew, and try to figure out where you are.
If you keep going without taking a step back, a deer might pop out and ruin your journey. Or you might fall asleep at the wheel, only to wake up in a ditch or thousands of miles from where you wanted to go.
It's much harder to change your direction when you've gone too far on an unpalatable path. But if you catch yourself early on the trip, you have time to turn back or to change the direction.
So today, take a few minutes to yourself. No Netflix. No podcasts. No music. Sit down in silence. Reflect on where you are. Write it down.
What's going well. What's not going well? What should you consider changing?
For the upcoming week, try changing one of those things. See how it goes.
⏳ Doing Time Right
Steph Smith and I have been working hard on Doing Time Right, a course designed to help you get the most out of your most valuable asset – time.
The course is really coming together – we have dozens of actionable tutorials, reflective exercises, and tens of thousands of words designed to help you get clear about where you want to go and to help you get there with less time and effort.
So far, over 400 people have pre-ordered the course, which launches this Thursday, July 22nd. We're stoked to release it to the world.
If you want to pre-order the course, you can do so at the link below. We've included a detailed table of contents to give you a preview of what to expect.
As a thank you for being a reader, you can use the code: lifereimagined at checkout to get the course for 40% off until Thursday
Check it out here ➡️ Doing Time Right
On Thursday, the price will increase to $100
🔐 Digital Security – Are You Safe?
We're all familiar with how to increase physical security – locking our doors, paying attention to our surroundings, putting valuables in a safe, etc. – but what about our digital security?
With an increasingly digital world comes a less perceptible risk – the risk of having your information hacked and exploited by someone with whom you will never see or interact.
In our the latest episode of the Sh*t You Don't Learn in School, Steph and I explore the basics of digital security, the risks involved, where many people go wrong, and what you should consider doing at a minimum to move from "at-risk" to "safer" with your digital information.
Thanks for tuning in, and see you in two weeks.
Cheers,
Cal
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