Hi Niall, I'm not sure I understand precisely what you mean by weaving values into my planning, but for my important projects, I prioritize endeavors that I think will satisfy my wide-ranging curiosity, and help good ideas spread (or impede bad ones). I place those far above, say, being prolific or maximizing financial gain, which is why I'm on track to publish a book just once every six years. I take time to find projects that fit. In terms of daily work, every year I get a little more ruthless at enforcing my own priorities, so I say "no" to many more things (including many i would like to do) than I did in the past.
Hey David, thanks for the thorough response. "Do you consider if your resolutions/goals are aligned with your core values?" is how I could have worded my question more specifically. Based on your response, it shows that you do. That's awesome. I think many resolutions fail quickly because the behaviour change is not aligned to the person's values i.e. it's not important enough to them. What's your thoughts?
I love how you're sharing the way you apply your research to your own life. Reflect early and often is a good approach, as is considering life an experiment. All too often, the rhetoric these days is about finding The Solution. Which has a lot of frightening connotations now that I've typed it. But let's remember that the real hero will always be MacGyver, working with the resources he has to fix the problem he's facing. Creativity and a good dose of "someone's got to do this and today it's me" is ultimately what we're going to need to get through today (and tomorrow).
I'm not well versed in MacGyver, but I do recall once seeing him make defibrillators out of candlesticks, a rubber mat, and a microphone. So, ya know, that was impressive. ...The Solution-ism is pretty profitable these days, though, I think. Whether it's rules for life, health, work, etc. etc. As an aside, I read one of your posts recently, and it led me down a bit of an internet rabbit hole, which is my version of a hearty compliment;)
When they gamify Substack, I'm certain "sent David Epstein down an internet rabbit hole" will be a badge.
Also - the whole pre-packaged buy this book/course/consulting and your life will be better is the bane of our society. How did we go from a 10K hour rule to learn something to 10 modules on my on-line course will make you a [insert successful descriptor here]?
Another great post and great timing for the start of the semester.
Totally agree that the solution is to do less. One of the best ways to understand this is time blocking as recommended by Cal Newport. I'm sure he's recommended this to you :).
Time blocking has helped me to concretely understand how bad I am at this planning process and given me the opportunity to understand how long the things on my to-do list actually take so that I can adapt my approach. Reflection! Feedback! Prototyping Mindset!
Over the past year I’ve used Cal’s Time Block Planner and have found it very helpful to this end. Highly recommend it! The latest version which has a spiral binding is particularly good. https://www.timeblockplanner.com
Josh, sometimes I think we may share at least part of the same brain. Cal lives near me, and I recently took a time block planner off the shelf of his podcast office. I really like how even if you don't get it right initially, time blocking prompts reflection so you can get righter over time. And, to your point, every time I keep track of anything that I frequently predict, my lesson is that, when I don't keep track, I forget the worst predictions;) ....Anyway, I should get Cal back for another Q&A some time. If I did, are there any particular questions around time blocking you're interested in? Not sure it's a topic for a full Q&A, but maybe...
Sounds like I’m living on the wrong coast! Next time I’m in your neck of the woods, I propose coffee with you, me, and Cal. Boy would that be great fun for me!
Totally agree that the opportunity for three tries per day on the schedule is critical. Prototyping mindset at play which helps to encourage you to just move toward action and write something down, even if it blows up 10 minutes later. Try, try again. And he has great structures for regular review with the weekly plan.
I know Cal gets a ton of questions on his show about time blocking and imagine that it might be hard to cover new ground there, but I’m curious the psychology of why time blocking works so well. I think the prototyping and forward-looking planning aspects is a big part of it, but would be curious to hear more about what Cal thinks.
His main point is that we’re short-sighted to try and hijack the same dopamine systems as the rest of our apps do. It’s just not a strong enough system to help us to do hard things that matter. I think this is a super important point for students and is something I’d love to have you ask him more about! I’d be especially curious about how this intersects with the ideas you write about in Range.
Maybe I need a podcast office for an Epstein visit :)
This might be my favorite newsletter of yours, which is really saying something (I hope you won't actually force me to rank order them though...). It's comforting to know that even Nobel laureates don't just similarly fall prey to the planning fallacy, but do so spectacularly and even after pausing to reflect on what they know about other teams' performance on a similar task. As someone who has a long history of over-committing, I have made boundary setting and taking on less my primary goal. I think it's especially difficult for idea people who are easily excited about starting projects and experiments. But what are we besides a work in progress? Thanks for another great read, David!
Hey Jen, great compliment since I know you've read many of them, and have often enhanced a post with your comments. Regarding your point about Kahneman, you reminded me of Annie Duke's book, in which she describes how people who spent their careers studying the sunk cost fallacy nonetheless fell prey to it in disastrous fashion. One of the lessons, I think, is that it isn't enough to know about this stuff, rather we need to create systems and perhaps enlist outside help to do better. (And I think I'm going to write a post following up on this one, about a technique — taking the "outside view" — that can help with the planning fallacy.) ...All that said, I think the "work in progress" mindset is a really important one. I don't plan ever to nail this stuff, but I definitely plan to get better. Thanks, as always, for your thoughtful comment.
Very excited to have a follow-up post with one (or more??) ideas for systems to avoid the planning fallacy. What I'm doing now is helping, which is basically slowing down the planning and commitment process, but I could definitely use more ideas. I mean, if ever a newsletter were life-changing, that would be it for me!
This idea resonates every time I come across it. It reminds me of the Discipline is Destiny post where you and Ryan Holiday talked about keeping the main thing the main thing. From what I've read and heard about Cal Newport's next book (https://www.amazon.com/Slow-Productivity-Accomplishment-Without-Burnout/dp/0593544854), it sounds like this might be a similar theme. Any chance you've read an advanced copy?
Man, Cal's holding out on me! Ok I just sent him a message asking for an advance copy. I think he has definitely figured some important things out, and, from what I can tell, he also lives by those things. Not that that's a necessity. Like, it doesn't matter to me if the purveyor of good ideas about habits has good habits, or if a good exercise writer is a good exerciser. But I think it does add a layer of interest when Cal talks about work. I'll propose a Q&A for launch of his new book. If you have any questions you'd like answered in this prospective Q&A, lemme know!
Thanks so much, David! Your point about not caring about the source of good ideas reminded me of something Annie Duke wrote. I was just leafing back through Thinking in Bets and she talks about the importance of "not shooting the message" based on who said it and trying to ignore biases and give all ideas equal consideration.
I've spent a few days trying to come up with a good question for Cal Newport, and it's hard because I think I agree with so much of what he says. But what you said about him practicing what he preaches has me thinking, so here is my question: He gives a lot of great career advice, and he really seems to follow it. But what is one moment or decision in his career where he regrets not doing a better job following his own advice? I'm curious about a time when he made a mistake and learned from it. Thanks!
I decided to focus on one single goal this year. Goal Minimalism. I only put 3 things on my to-do list per day. If it is a particularly busy day, they might be 3 very easy things, but they get me a tiny bit closer to my ultimate goal.
Thanks for this great post! I'm currently looking for a job and have certainly fallen prey to the planning fallacy - I thought it would take a maximum of two months, but four months later and I am still chugging along. Similar to so many things we hope to accomplish in this world, my job search is also dependent on other people - no matter how efficiently I get through my to do lists and applications, if they are not reviewed for months, I won't get any closer. How does this dependence on other people's time frame affect the planning fallacy? Are we worse or better at predicting the productivity of others?
Hey Nellie! Nice to see you here, and that is a great question. (And they may be falling prey to the planning fallacy on their end too.) I expect that we probably are somewhat better at predicting the productivity of others, as cognitive biases generally seem to be most pronounced when self-focused. This is one of the reasons that there's a body of work showing that you should give yourself advice as if you were giving it to a friend. Beyond that, though, I wonder if we're more prone to take what's called the "outside view" when predicting the productivity of others. The "inside view" is when we consider all our own details; the "outside view" is when we consider many other examples and look at what usually happens. So, what Seymour did in considering those other curriculum teams was to switch from the inside to the outside view, and he became more accurate. (Of course, they ignored it...) Actually, maybe I'll do a short post on that as a sort of addendum to this one.
That definitely makes sense - somehow we think we are always the exception! I haven't heard of the inside and outside view terminology, that describes it well. I would love to read a follow up post on this. Thank you!
Hey Nellie, I hope that you are doing well, I was just reading through these comments and thought I'd throw out a reference to Kahneman's wonderful 'Thinking, Fast and Slow', it's a while since I've read it but it's amazing and he definitely touches on this inside/outside view concept and base rates (base rates are the predictions you would make about a case if you know nothing about the category to which it belongs, for example, the average amount of time this category of projects has taken to complete looking at all 'outside' cases from data that is available), they are often a more helpful starting point than our optimistic views. Anyway, just thought I'd throw that out in case it leads someone else to discover Kahneman's magic.
Thank you so much William! I have only read bits and pieces of Thinking Fast and Slow, so this is good motivation to give it a proper read. Appreciate it!
Guilty as charged on those "fungal-branching to-do lists". I remember folding A4 pieces of paper into a booklet, and filling all four sides with a weeks worth of tasks - in black and red ink. The tasks would inevitably take on new forms week after week as I struggled to keep up. I don't make those lists anymore. But instead I do lists of threes now, which are much more manageable.
I experienced that exactly last Friday,. Having used the Todoist app (which is good by the way), I went to add tasks with a bit too much enthusiam. They scarily piled up day after during the week to finally flood my already-tired brain with a tsunami of overwhelm.
Luckily, I realized what was happening and why during the afternoon and took the right radical measure: forget about any task but the 2-3 most impactful for the day.
And I finished them late and exhausted, but accomplished and relaxed after a few hours of deep work.
I restored my headspace instantly by reducing the number of tasks.
I'm back to this more productive habit you suggest: setting 1 main task and 1 or 2 bonus ones.
This letter should be titled " Why You Should Plan Less To Get More Done".
Damn, now I want to use if for writing one of mine. Can I steal?
This is unrelated, but I believe most people here might benefit:
Apply for over $3M Grant for Researchers, 54+ Funded MSc/Phd & Postdoc Opportunities in USA, France & Australia
Research Grant on Advancing Therapies Towards Curing Oncogenic-Driven Lung Cancer. ($2.5million| MMRF Scholars Research grant ($400,000| FARA's Research Grant ($275,000|
Love this and I’ve heard this story a few times actually. I’m guessing you’ve read “How Big Things Get Done”? Because this definitely feels like a failed forecasting exercise that can happen for people / groups who haven’t done something very similar before!
The planning presents a fake sense of control / process. The author of that book advocates instead for doing and prototyping and derisking aggressively!
You have x-ray vision for this post Srini! I loved that book, and actually cited some of the author's previous work in my own last book. I think I'll probably do a post about How Big Things Get Done at some point.
This really clicked with me, making me realize that my Priorities list had become a To Do list. So I started paring it down to what are the one or two things that would make me feel better if they got done today. Everything else is on a separate list. It's been working for me so far. I'm two for two!
"water in the basement" - my new go-to line for a reason to procrastinate
(a little while, or maybe till tomorrow when the plumber comes)
haha...works every time;)
Soooo... my 2nd cousins have recurrent water in their basement (contractor was already working on it before) from yesterday's storms! Not nice.
Ugh, it's the worst. We just had to dig all the way to the bottom of the house. I wish them a speedy solution!
Less is more as the saying goes!
Thanks for the engagement, David. I write about values and am curious how you weave yours into your planning?
Hi Niall, I'm not sure I understand precisely what you mean by weaving values into my planning, but for my important projects, I prioritize endeavors that I think will satisfy my wide-ranging curiosity, and help good ideas spread (or impede bad ones). I place those far above, say, being prolific or maximizing financial gain, which is why I'm on track to publish a book just once every six years. I take time to find projects that fit. In terms of daily work, every year I get a little more ruthless at enforcing my own priorities, so I say "no" to many more things (including many i would like to do) than I did in the past.
Hey David, thanks for the thorough response. "Do you consider if your resolutions/goals are aligned with your core values?" is how I could have worded my question more specifically. Based on your response, it shows that you do. That's awesome. I think many resolutions fail quickly because the behaviour change is not aligned to the person's values i.e. it's not important enough to them. What's your thoughts?
I love how you're sharing the way you apply your research to your own life. Reflect early and often is a good approach, as is considering life an experiment. All too often, the rhetoric these days is about finding The Solution. Which has a lot of frightening connotations now that I've typed it. But let's remember that the real hero will always be MacGyver, working with the resources he has to fix the problem he's facing. Creativity and a good dose of "someone's got to do this and today it's me" is ultimately what we're going to need to get through today (and tomorrow).
I'm not well versed in MacGyver, but I do recall once seeing him make defibrillators out of candlesticks, a rubber mat, and a microphone. So, ya know, that was impressive. ...The Solution-ism is pretty profitable these days, though, I think. Whether it's rules for life, health, work, etc. etc. As an aside, I read one of your posts recently, and it led me down a bit of an internet rabbit hole, which is my version of a hearty compliment;)
Dear David.
When they gamify Substack, I'm certain "sent David Epstein down an internet rabbit hole" will be a badge.
Also - the whole pre-packaged buy this book/course/consulting and your life will be better is the bane of our society. How did we go from a 10K hour rule to learn something to 10 modules on my on-line course will make you a [insert successful descriptor here]?
Sincerely,
Christine
Another great post and great timing for the start of the semester.
Totally agree that the solution is to do less. One of the best ways to understand this is time blocking as recommended by Cal Newport. I'm sure he's recommended this to you :).
Time blocking has helped me to concretely understand how bad I am at this planning process and given me the opportunity to understand how long the things on my to-do list actually take so that I can adapt my approach. Reflection! Feedback! Prototyping Mindset!
Over the past year I’ve used Cal’s Time Block Planner and have found it very helpful to this end. Highly recommend it! The latest version which has a spiral binding is particularly good. https://www.timeblockplanner.com
Josh, sometimes I think we may share at least part of the same brain. Cal lives near me, and I recently took a time block planner off the shelf of his podcast office. I really like how even if you don't get it right initially, time blocking prompts reflection so you can get righter over time. And, to your point, every time I keep track of anything that I frequently predict, my lesson is that, when I don't keep track, I forget the worst predictions;) ....Anyway, I should get Cal back for another Q&A some time. If I did, are there any particular questions around time blocking you're interested in? Not sure it's a topic for a full Q&A, but maybe...
Sounds like I’m living on the wrong coast! Next time I’m in your neck of the woods, I propose coffee with you, me, and Cal. Boy would that be great fun for me!
Totally agree that the opportunity for three tries per day on the schedule is critical. Prototyping mindset at play which helps to encourage you to just move toward action and write something down, even if it blows up 10 minutes later. Try, try again. And he has great structures for regular review with the weekly plan.
I know Cal gets a ton of questions on his show about time blocking and imagine that it might be hard to cover new ground there, but I’m curious the psychology of why time blocking works so well. I think the prototyping and forward-looking planning aspects is a big part of it, but would be curious to hear more about what Cal thinks.
Another thing I’m curious about is thinking about motivational structures more generally. Cal had a great bit on one of his shows a while back thinking about gamification of learning (“Can we make learning as addictive as social media?” https://open.spotify.com/episode/75exM5ztuxNzRnwFJNvwtb?si=JAsANEfNRf-VcqE3ltAj_Q).
His main point is that we’re short-sighted to try and hijack the same dopamine systems as the rest of our apps do. It’s just not a strong enough system to help us to do hard things that matter. I think this is a super important point for students and is something I’d love to have you ask him more about! I’d be especially curious about how this intersects with the ideas you write about in Range.
Maybe I need a podcast office for an Epstein visit :)
This might be my favorite newsletter of yours, which is really saying something (I hope you won't actually force me to rank order them though...). It's comforting to know that even Nobel laureates don't just similarly fall prey to the planning fallacy, but do so spectacularly and even after pausing to reflect on what they know about other teams' performance on a similar task. As someone who has a long history of over-committing, I have made boundary setting and taking on less my primary goal. I think it's especially difficult for idea people who are easily excited about starting projects and experiments. But what are we besides a work in progress? Thanks for another great read, David!
Hey Jen, great compliment since I know you've read many of them, and have often enhanced a post with your comments. Regarding your point about Kahneman, you reminded me of Annie Duke's book, in which she describes how people who spent their careers studying the sunk cost fallacy nonetheless fell prey to it in disastrous fashion. One of the lessons, I think, is that it isn't enough to know about this stuff, rather we need to create systems and perhaps enlist outside help to do better. (And I think I'm going to write a post following up on this one, about a technique — taking the "outside view" — that can help with the planning fallacy.) ...All that said, I think the "work in progress" mindset is a really important one. I don't plan ever to nail this stuff, but I definitely plan to get better. Thanks, as always, for your thoughtful comment.
Very excited to have a follow-up post with one (or more??) ideas for systems to avoid the planning fallacy. What I'm doing now is helping, which is basically slowing down the planning and commitment process, but I could definitely use more ideas. I mean, if ever a newsletter were life-changing, that would be it for me!
Lenin was evil, no questions, but he was a masterful marketer. Titles of some of his works were golden.And we know that he has not used editors 🙂
The title of one of his work was Better Less But Better.
Well, you have made me very curious to read this now!
I wish you decided this earlier, so I could charge him commissions 😁
This idea resonates every time I come across it. It reminds me of the Discipline is Destiny post where you and Ryan Holiday talked about keeping the main thing the main thing. From what I've read and heard about Cal Newport's next book (https://www.amazon.com/Slow-Productivity-Accomplishment-Without-Burnout/dp/0593544854), it sounds like this might be a similar theme. Any chance you've read an advanced copy?
Man, Cal's holding out on me! Ok I just sent him a message asking for an advance copy. I think he has definitely figured some important things out, and, from what I can tell, he also lives by those things. Not that that's a necessity. Like, it doesn't matter to me if the purveyor of good ideas about habits has good habits, or if a good exercise writer is a good exerciser. But I think it does add a layer of interest when Cal talks about work. I'll propose a Q&A for launch of his new book. If you have any questions you'd like answered in this prospective Q&A, lemme know!
Thanks so much, David! Your point about not caring about the source of good ideas reminded me of something Annie Duke wrote. I was just leafing back through Thinking in Bets and she talks about the importance of "not shooting the message" based on who said it and trying to ignore biases and give all ideas equal consideration.
I've spent a few days trying to come up with a good question for Cal Newport, and it's hard because I think I agree with so much of what he says. But what you said about him practicing what he preaches has me thinking, so here is my question: He gives a lot of great career advice, and he really seems to follow it. But what is one moment or decision in his career where he regrets not doing a better job following his own advice? I'm curious about a time when he made a mistake and learned from it. Thanks!
I decided to focus on one single goal this year. Goal Minimalism. I only put 3 things on my to-do list per day. If it is a particularly busy day, they might be 3 very easy things, but they get me a tiny bit closer to my ultimate goal.
"Goal Minimalism"...Great term. Wish I'd come up with that!
Thanks for this great post! I'm currently looking for a job and have certainly fallen prey to the planning fallacy - I thought it would take a maximum of two months, but four months later and I am still chugging along. Similar to so many things we hope to accomplish in this world, my job search is also dependent on other people - no matter how efficiently I get through my to do lists and applications, if they are not reviewed for months, I won't get any closer. How does this dependence on other people's time frame affect the planning fallacy? Are we worse or better at predicting the productivity of others?
Hey Nellie! Nice to see you here, and that is a great question. (And they may be falling prey to the planning fallacy on their end too.) I expect that we probably are somewhat better at predicting the productivity of others, as cognitive biases generally seem to be most pronounced when self-focused. This is one of the reasons that there's a body of work showing that you should give yourself advice as if you were giving it to a friend. Beyond that, though, I wonder if we're more prone to take what's called the "outside view" when predicting the productivity of others. The "inside view" is when we consider all our own details; the "outside view" is when we consider many other examples and look at what usually happens. So, what Seymour did in considering those other curriculum teams was to switch from the inside to the outside view, and he became more accurate. (Of course, they ignored it...) Actually, maybe I'll do a short post on that as a sort of addendum to this one.
That definitely makes sense - somehow we think we are always the exception! I haven't heard of the inside and outside view terminology, that describes it well. I would love to read a follow up post on this. Thank you!
Hey Nellie, I hope that you are doing well, I was just reading through these comments and thought I'd throw out a reference to Kahneman's wonderful 'Thinking, Fast and Slow', it's a while since I've read it but it's amazing and he definitely touches on this inside/outside view concept and base rates (base rates are the predictions you would make about a case if you know nothing about the category to which it belongs, for example, the average amount of time this category of projects has taken to complete looking at all 'outside' cases from data that is available), they are often a more helpful starting point than our optimistic views. Anyway, just thought I'd throw that out in case it leads someone else to discover Kahneman's magic.
Thank you so much William! I have only read bits and pieces of Thinking Fast and Slow, so this is good motivation to give it a proper read. Appreciate it!
Guilty as charged on those "fungal-branching to-do lists". I remember folding A4 pieces of paper into a booklet, and filling all four sides with a weeks worth of tasks - in black and red ink. The tasks would inevitably take on new forms week after week as I struggled to keep up. I don't make those lists anymore. But instead I do lists of threes now, which are much more manageable.
I was so delighted about this post that it's the first one of yours I shared :)
Not that I didn't enjoy others, but this one is as we say in Brazilian Portuguese:
'um tiro na mosca'. A literal translation for this expression would be 'a shot on the fly'.
Ha, I love this saying, Bruno! So glad you enjoyed the post, and I really appreciate you sharing this adage, which will lodge in my brain.
This comes at the perfect moment!
I experienced that exactly last Friday,. Having used the Todoist app (which is good by the way), I went to add tasks with a bit too much enthusiam. They scarily piled up day after during the week to finally flood my already-tired brain with a tsunami of overwhelm.
Luckily, I realized what was happening and why during the afternoon and took the right radical measure: forget about any task but the 2-3 most impactful for the day.
And I finished them late and exhausted, but accomplished and relaxed after a few hours of deep work.
I restored my headspace instantly by reducing the number of tasks.
I'm back to this more productive habit you suggest: setting 1 main task and 1 or 2 bonus ones.
This letter should be titled " Why You Should Plan Less To Get More Done".
Damn, now I want to use if for writing one of mine. Can I steal?
This is unrelated, but I believe most people here might benefit:
Apply for over $3M Grant for Researchers, 54+ Funded MSc/Phd & Postdoc Opportunities in USA, France & Australia
Research Grant on Advancing Therapies Towards Curing Oncogenic-Driven Lung Cancer. ($2.5million| MMRF Scholars Research grant ($400,000| FARA's Research Grant ($275,000|
https://gradinterface.substack.com/p/over-3m-grant-for-researchers-54
Love this and I’ve heard this story a few times actually. I’m guessing you’ve read “How Big Things Get Done”? Because this definitely feels like a failed forecasting exercise that can happen for people / groups who haven’t done something very similar before!
The planning presents a fake sense of control / process. The author of that book advocates instead for doing and prototyping and derisking aggressively!
You have x-ray vision for this post Srini! I loved that book, and actually cited some of the author's previous work in my own last book. I think I'll probably do a post about How Big Things Get Done at some point.
I absolutely relate to this!
I am keen to know your thoughts on the 2 main approaches to starting your workday (as you have mentioned it in the article)-
1. Eat the frog - Work on the most important tasks that will produce the most impactful results
2. Start with easier tasks - To gain some momentum and satisfaction
This really clicked with me, making me realize that my Priorities list had become a To Do list. So I started paring it down to what are the one or two things that would make me feel better if they got done today. Everything else is on a separate list. It's been working for me so far. I'm two for two!