3 MINUTE MONDAY

Hi friend,

During my end of year review I asked myself two new questions:

1. What do I do that I think is productive but isn’t?

2. What do I do that I don’t think is productive but actually is?

These were surprisingly easy to work out.

1. Sitting at my desk when I’m not working, being on calls with no actual objective, keeping Slack notifications at zero, sitting on email trying to get the Unread number down.

2. Saying yes to a random dinner when someone is coming through town, organising meet-ups with friends from different social groups, walking without anything in my ears, reading, visiting new places.

After 6 months of reflecting on my answers, I realised I’d had a fundamental oversight - I hadn’t been properly linking inputs to outcomes.

I had basically created a Productivity Rain Dance.

This odd, sacred, mystical series of hoops I made myself jump through in the hopes that something useful would come out on the other side, with no real assessment of what fruits it actually bore.

I’m doing *the thing that looks like work* so that’s good right?

Sitting at my desk LOOKS a lot like work, even if I’m tapped out for the day and it’s 6.30pm so I’m guilt-watching UFC knockout compilations. But look - here I am at my desk grinding *it* out!

How can I go for a walk or lie on the couch when there’s still tons of stuff to do? Tasks Christopher! Think of the tasks!

The problem is that no one’s productivity goal is to maximise inputs, it’s to maximise outcomes.

A focus on inputs over outcomes can cause you to be blind to higher leverage, more effective approaches to solve the problems you’re facing.

Being process driven is great, thank you James Clear for your service.

But obsessing over process while being detached from outcomes gives you all the pain of hard work with none of the actual results.

Being effective > looking busy.

We are applying an industrial revolution mindset to a space-age work environment.

So...

What do you do that you think is productive but isn’t?

What do you do that you don’t think is productive but actually is?

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MODERN WISDOM

I do a podcast which has had 550 million+ downloads. You should subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
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This week’s upcoming episodes:

Monday.
Ryan Holiday - my best episode with Ryan so far. For fans of the Hormozi stuff, this is a banger. Some amazing insights on discipline, resilience, goals and anxiety.

Thursday.
Rob Kurzban - the evolutionary psychology of human morality. What is the function of morality? Where did it come from? Is it universal or contingent? This episode fully blew my mind.

Saturday.
Mike Solana - one of the my favourite writers on the death of the culture war, the decline of anti-woke creators, predictions for the Trump vs Biden debate and more.

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THINGS I'VE LEARNED

1.
​How to tell if your partner is committed to you.

The top four behaviours that signal commitment within relationships on social media:

1. Deleting dating apps.
2. Ignoring flirtatious messages.
3. Indicating relationship status online.
4. Unfollowing potential alternative mates.

Researchers found that individuals with high attachment anxiety reported significantly higher levels of discomfort, worry, and jealousy when imagining their partner interacting with an attractive alternative on social media.

This confirmed that such scenarios are particularly distressing for anxious individuals.

Interestingly, the partner’s high-commitment behaviours on social media successfully increased perceived partner commitment and the perceived devaluation of alternatives, regardless of the participant’s attachment style.

However, these behaviours did not significantly enhance feelings of security or relationship satisfaction for anxious individuals as hypothesised.

This suggests that while explicit commitment signals are important, they might not be sufficient to fully alleviate the deep-seated insecurities and fears associated with attachment anxiety. — PsyPost

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2.
​The patriarchy strikes again.

“In Scrabble, women account for 85% of all recreational players, suggesting that women should be dominating the elite Scrabble ranks.

But interestingly, men in fact dominate Scrabble’s upper tiers.

No woman has ever won a national or World Scrabble Championship.” — Rob Henderson

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3.
​Put down your ruminating brain.

“Overthinking invents more problems than it solves.” — Gurwinder Bhogal

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LIFE HACK

A summer banger for your Spotify.

Telander x Mason Lively with one of my favourite songs I’ve had on repeat for the last few weeks.

Some good old fashioned party country.

​Listen here.​
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Big love,
Chris x

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PS
Neutonic US restock in 2 weeks baby!