Compulsion, Micro-journaling and the Right Question

Content I found interesting:

This Jordan B Peterson podcast with the authors of ‘Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth…’. It’s a book about the way population growth is not a threat to humanity, it is not even close to being linked to scarcity. On the contrary, we have way more resources than we had 100 years ago. The book is based on a study that calculates the hours a person needs to work to buy a certain commodity and compares it with the data from the few last centuries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iC_hY4qhyk

Thoughts and realizations:

I don’t permit myself to feel bored, my phone is always besides me. When boredom starts to emerge, I just grab it and instantly distract myself.

I consider myself a phone addict even thought I am not, compared to today’s normal standard. So, I am always searching for ways to use it less compulsively and more meaningfully. This week I found a good way to stop this kind of compulsive behaviors, it is called micro-journaling.

It consists of moving the notes app to the main home screen of your phone, and every time you unlock it without thinking about it, you have to open the notes app and write something first, whatever you feel like writing. And after that, the compulsive behavior will be weaker and easier to overcome.

Most of the time you will write about how you are feeling, or you will describe a current situation or problem. This way, every time you feel something unpleasant and compulsively open your phone, you will write about it, and consequently be more conscious about it. This is a way of checking in with your feelings and with what your body is telling you.

You will start to become more aware of the feeling you get before the compulsion appears. You will be able to stop the compulsive behavior before it happens. And with time you will start to unlock the phone because you want to check in with yourself and because you want to write about that awful or beautiful feeling you are currently experiencing.

With time, you will become more organized. You will start to write about more important stuff, about the things you have to do, about your goals for the day, week or year, and this way you will make your first step in taking responsibility of your future.

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You don’t need to work hard, you need to work efficiently and consistently.

You should spend more time thinking about the most efficient way of doing something so you can spend less time doing the actual thing.

Albert Einstein was once asked: “If you have one hour to save the world, how would you spend that hour?” He replied, “I would spend 55 minutes defining the problem and then five minutes solving it.”

This shows how you don´t need to work hard, you just have to find the right approach to the problem and ask the right question. Then you just need to focus on that one question, that one thing.

This reminded me of this book based on this exact premise, I haven´t read it but I heard it’s great.

-The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results - Jay Papasan

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Creativity comes from doing, not from waiting for inspiration.

Good ideas only come after you’ve had enough bad ones.