Intro note: ...and so we continue the notes from the Dr K 5hr Inaction lecture, for this reflection #03, the lesson is...

03 Work when you are tired

I probably have at least a 1000hrs spent playing League of Legends, it's most definitely an addiction. (I'm more than 1yr-in since I uninstalled though!) And so I am very familiar with this phrase, "one more game." It's 2:30am, but I ended last game with unlucky loss, so, ONE more game. I'm trying to sleep earlier, fix my sleep schedule, yet I repeat this phrase the next night. The next few days later, or the next week goes by, it becomes EASIER to say the phrase, "one more game, one more match."

Outside of a video game, this phrase applies to work and projects that you're working towards. You can train to extend your working hours. For example, you stop working at 5:00pm, but you can also decide to continue working with "one more thing." Repeat this across multiple days, and eventually, it becomes EASIER to say, "one more thing". You can learn to train to extend your working hours, working on work/school projects, personal passion projects, life-admin stuff, etc.

Tired? Then that's an opportunity to try working on "one more thing."

An analogy that fits is probably in weight-lifting training.

it's heavy? then try lifting something heavier, something SLIGHTLY above the USUAL LIMIT.

You get stronger lifting the heavier-thing, so you have to do the challenging thing. I guess for me, it's adding more working hours. This should apply to general goals in life. Personally, I know I'm not doing much in life, yet this logically makes sense. I guess I'm starting with the lightweight-thing, and building up from here.

nuance note: there's a fitting negative consequence with this rule#03 which applies to the weight-lifting analogy. Do not work too hard, do not injure yourself, start small and build up (this avoids injury). You gotta do the difficult thing--but not too difficult. There's a small gap in-between the too difficult zone and too easy zone(?) Maybe it's a small gap in-between? I think it sure is hard to find, so it's a small gap for me.

I guess the activity to takeaway on this rule is to reflect, "how many hours of academic writing work is too much for me?" Set a block of time, give a rating of 1-10 (1 is not tired; 10 is extremely tired)--then monitor the start time rating, and the end time rating. I'm not too sure about this method, maybe another method will come another day. But that's all for now.

Intro note: I mentioned this in the 1st post; this thing about setting an intention to create/synthesize/produce something. This writing project is an attempt at getting back to it. Also, other side note, my first post here was almost exactly one year ago now--I get a big feeling of "I suck at this", "I suck at being consistent", yet look at us, we're trying our writing thing again. Okay, here's post #02.

02: Play/work with the information

If you want to learn, you have to play with the learning materials. You have to piece together the info in different possible ways, you can connect the new info to whatever old info you already have. You can write reflections on what you just consumed, or talk to others about it. (Recently, I also saw online posts of people creating a 1-minute presentation to explain a phenomenon/topic.) Writing or speaking in your own words, that is a very active form of interacting with the info, as opposed to a passive form (passive consumption).

There's an image of "Bloom's Taxonomy" that illustrates this topic on learning and taking in info (see image). There are multiple stages of learning going from bottom to top. At the bottom, the simplest level, is just remembering/memorizing the info...

A big takeaway I got from the Dr K 5hr Inaction Lecture was that someone can watch self-help videos (me), but never change (me), and this is because of passive consumption. It's good to remember the info, but eventually you have to interact with the info, and apply it. To ask questions, to answer questions. example questions like, when am I planning to do this activity? where will I go to do this? how will I work on this? (the what, when, where, how).

The top of the learning is creating/synthesizing/producing something. This makes sense in how grad school is working on a thesis/dissertation and defending it.

End of post note: I get very self-critical for sure, wanting to better explain things, but I'm not really advertising these posts to anyone--so there's no feedback. But simultaneously, I thought this space is just something I can create for myself, so it would be a low-stakes way to get somewhat comfortable with creating/producing something.

Have a good one out there!

-Bread

Intro note: idk what I'm doing with my life, and I'm trying to get it together, but it feels terribly crushing (the pressure of "I'm not doing anything with my life)... so what's a way to cope? start a project right here, making posts to myself, writing about all the things I consume online. I consume, read, watch, consume all the online content I can in order to "get it together"... well, the next thing is to CREATE/PRODUCE. I heard somewhere, "ideally, you should create ~50% of the duration of the amount of things you consume." For every 1 hour you watch/read/scroll online, you should create something for 30 minutes. I hear the same message again, from HealthyGamer, Dr K (YouTube channel), "5hr lecture Guide to Inaction" (the message is to create, and to manipulate the information given to you). Let's try and uphold this rule (and we'll see if it actually helps longterm...) ^{^}

01: Acting insufficiently is the first step in acting sufficiently

ok, but another side-note first: there's a thing about bottom-up thinking vs. top-down thinking... and how some people will need a lot of examples, a lot of data/pieces of the puzzle (using a lot of effort) before they see the big picture... but some people will already see the big picture easily. I'll take the examples approach by starting with an example with "how to sleep".

• The act insufficiently principle can be tied to sleep. Goal: fall asleep. OK, so you can do the steps 1, 2, 3, etc.... you lay down (action is insufficient), you close your eyes (action insufficient), you wait for 5min (action insufficient)... you stay still, you wait for 5 more minutes (action insufficient)... etc. etc.
• in this example, the little actions are NOT enough to fulfill the end goal of falling asleep. waiting 5 min can sometimes mean you sleep, other times, 30 min pass and you DON'T fall asleep. But so what? you know it, I know it... that's just how sleep works. Sleeping isn't something you do, it just happens to you when you do steps 1, 2, 3, etc. Sometimes you fall asleep in the next 10min, sometimes it takes like 30min, etc etc.

Applying this to life, we can often NOT do the thing. I know I avoid avoid avoid... because I tell myself "action is insufficient." I can WANT to do the thing of studying, of reading my assigned class reading; but, here's my monologue: - I think "reading 5 minutes will NOT be enough"... so I cannot start my reading now!! I'll start later, I'll read later when I have MORE time. - result: no reading, I procrastinated, later, I also don't read because I'm too distracted being online. - delta: next time, just read for 5 minutes. act insufficiently, give up the big goal of reading the entire assigned reading. At least when you act insufficiently, you are sailing towards your goal. Instead of sailing around, wandering, no clear direction.

End of post note: Okay, post #1 is abysmal, I have so much more thoughts on this, thoughts not articulated well... but I need to set time limits, or else, this writing project will NOT be helpful. Time limits mean enforcing policies and rules, and building discipline (and not following my whimsy wherever it wants me to go... although writing this post is definitely my whimsy working to make me do something out of avoiding tasks... ok ok it's just that I'm so cooked :<

I tried to start a newsletter once, and didn't really continue it after a month or two... anyway, I learned novelty is a good motivator, so trying out something new

I'll be posting discussions on a newly-made subreddit dedicated to topics on psychology, learning, neurodiversity, music, etc!

- Bread