1. Organization/task management – This part of the book felt very GTDish, with a couple ideas I hadn’t heard/thought of before
2. Communal forces – Focused a lot on things having to do with the community, both in terms of friends/family to support you, people in your field to give you feedback/collaborate with you, etc
3. Leadership ability – Focused on how to lead others and yourself

I thought the entire book had a lot of good insight and useful anecdotes throughout, but one idea that has made an immediate impact on my personal productivity is the notion of religiously following up.  Scott talks about this and gives some stories related to it, but I’ve begun using Things to keep track of every time I send an email and am waiting to hear back, or am expecting a call back, or anything of that nature.  When I send the email or whatever it is, I simply create a new todo with the tag “followup”, describe who and what it is I’m following up about, and select a date that I want to be reminded about the followup.  At this point I simply hide it and its out of sight/out of mind.  Its brilliant!  For the last two weeks I’ve not had to worry a single time about “who was it that I needed to email?” or think while shopping for groceries (or some other activity where I can’t do anything about it) “oh yeah I need to call so and so back!”.  Things just takes care of it for me.  So simple and yet so powerful.

There were many other ideas in Scott’s book that I’m still simmering over and will probably influence me at some point, but I just wanted to share this particular one which has been so simple and so powerful for me personally.

“When people who have a high need for achievement—and that includes all Harvard Business School graduates—have an extra half hour of time or an extra ounce of energy, they’ll unconsciously allocate it to activities that yield the most tangible accomplishments. And our careers provide the most concrete evidence that we’re moving forward. You ship a product, finish a design, complete a presentation, close a sale, teach a class, publish a paper, get paid, get promoted. In contrast, investing time and energy in your relationship with your spouse and children typically doesn’t offer that same immediate sense of achievement. Kids misbehave every day. It’s really not until 20 years down the road that you can put your hands on your hips and say, “I raised a good son or a good daughter.” You can neglect your relationship with your spouse, and on a day-to-day basis, it doesn’t seem as if things are deteriorating. People who are driven to excel have this unconscious propensity to underinvest in their families and overinvest in their careers—even though intimate and loving relationships with their families are the most powerful and enduring source of happiness.”

I am guilty as charged of unconsciously allocating every last ounce of energy and every last half hour of time to activities that yield tangible accomplishments.. At the very least I have the tendency to do so, but I have found that curbing this tendency leads to greater overall happiness and fulfillment.

I will leave you with a quote from Steve Jobs, giving a commencement address at Stanford University:

“‘If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.’ It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something…. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose…. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

Damn you consciousness, for giving us humans such an exquisite ability to fool ourselves.

I love my car
I love my computer
I love my phone

I think our language is a symptom (or a cause?) of our consumerist attitude towards relationships. People and objects aren’t really that different to us in terms of our attachment. “I love my car, but I need the new one that just came out this year.” or  “I love my wife, but I need the younger secretary.” And so on.

And then you have everyone else, who is struggling severely to make a living.. They perform manual labor, they sweat and bust their backs all day.. They have work that is actually hard, in that its hard on them.

If you were fortunate enough to be born with intelligence, and were fortunate enough to have an upbringing that allowed/encouraged you to pursue knowledge-based work that allows you to live comfortably, do you feel entitled to it? Do you think you deserve it more than anyone else? Or do you realize how stupid lucky you are.

Every day make sure that you’re thinking for yourself. Otherwise what the hell is the point of having a “consciousness”?

• Finishing my undergrad in Computer Science
• Contracting part time as a software developer
• Building my locost
• Running every weekday morning at 5am
• Spending real time with my family and close friends
• Reading books
• Cooking more

What I’m not doing (which is just as important)

• I’m not watching TV (literally I have no cable)
• I’m not playing video games
• I’m not working on a startup company in earnest until after I am done with school (this was a difficult decision for me, but ultimately a necessary one in order to be focused and successful)
• I’m not eating crappy/greasy food
• I’m not spreading myself too thin socially.. i.e. I try to spend as much time as possible with people who really matter to me, and give myself to them as much as possible

What about you?  Where is your energy going, what are you focusing on?  Look where you’re heading, is it a place you’d like to be?

Think about two things. One, imagine what it would have been like to live before electricity was invented. Imagine having to read, or spend time outside, or have conversations, to enjoy life. Imagine not having people constantly texting, instant messaging, calling you.

Two (a much less simple/quick exercise), ask yourself what do you really need in order to be happy. You may think you want more money, or more things, or more tv shows, but think about it long and hard and I bet you’ll conclude its none of those things.. Remove as many non-important things from your life; simplicity will set you free.

If you can be truly focused for even a subset of your time on this earth, you’ll still be way ahead of most people.

Is Too Much Ambition a Bad Thing?

Well of course it is, right?  Surely too much of anything can be bad, and it certainly seems obvious that too much ambition can lead to being a workaholic, having no social life, not making time for one’s family, and other such unpleasant things.  However, if you look at successful entrepreneurs, it would seem that many of them have had their ambition and their work negatively affect aspects of their lives such as the ones I’ve mentioned.

Its not that simple, unfortunately.  You can’t simply say “oh, well clearly I just need to have less ambition.”  Insane amounts of drive and ambition is half of what makes a lot of successful entrepreneurs able to accomplish the things they do, besides having to have a number of other qualities.  The trick is, of course, to find a balance.  This may seem obvious but it is far easier said than done.. I know from personal experience.  I have never had any lack of ambition.  I blame (or thank, depending on the day) my dad for this fact.  Indeed, my bursting desire to ‘do great things always’ has been quite the double edged sword at times.  I want to do everything, and I want to be expert at everything I do.  This isn’t really a conscious decision, its just the way I’ve always been.. I manage to do a pretty decent job at this goal, but it also causes me to bite off more than I can chew all too often.  I’ve become aware of this tendency in myself all the more as I’ve gotten the chance to interact with other high-achieving individuals, and I notice in them a set of common traits which I believe are symptomatic of letting your ambition get the best of you:

• Take on large projects and then after a short time (weeks or a couple months, tops) move on to the next thing and the original project is left to the wayside
• Being extremely difficult to get a hold of
• Being too busy for friends and family
• Regularly falling behind on deadlines and having to pull all-nighters to play catch up

I don’t know about you, but I find people who exhibit one or more of these traits to be extremely frustrating!  The interesting thing is though, that a lot of high-achieving people can do a pretty good job of hiding these things when they work at it.  I say this because I know that for myself, at times when I’ve felt like I’m falling behind and things are getting a bit out of control, most people around me have no clue — they still think I’m producing outstanding work.  I’ve also noticed this in other high-achievers.. one of those “takes one to know one” things.

Regardless of how others perceive me, I still care a lot about my own sanity and stress level!  So how can I still do great things while maintaining a satisfying and low-stress lifestyle?  I don’t need to necessarily cut back on being so ambitious, but its more of a deliberate efficiency thing.  First, I accept that there are a limited number of hours in the day, and try to constantly be on the lookout for my tendency to take on more than I can chew.  Second of all, I prioritize which commitments are truly important, and what level of “success” in each endeavor is acceptable.  This one is especially hard for me, since I feel that I have to do an unbelievably awesome job on everything I do, but frankly, some things just aren’t that important, even if they’re still necessary obligations on some level.  Thirdly, I try to take advantage of certain life-hacking techniques, like GTD and ideas related to it, to be as efficient as possible in my personal task management.  And finally, I make sure that I spend time each week on non-work things that really matter too, like family and playing.  Building a car certainly is a good stress relief.

I feel like this is one of those “well, duh” sort of things.  Its so obvious, and yet it seems that relatively few people manage to be both extremely successful and extremely happy.  Of course, there is plenty of research to show that money has little bearing on happiness, with the exception of extreme poverty perhaps.  Take someone who’s just won the lottery, and someone who just had their arm amputated for medical reasons, and see who is happier six months down the road.  Statistics show that the amputee is far more likely to be “happy” than the lottery winner.. The prevalent theory on why this happens?  Ownership.  A sense of ownership over your current situation is very key to happiness, so I guarantee you that no matter how successful you are, if you feel out of control all the time you probably won’t be leading a very fulfilling life.