Useful and Useless Time

There are two ways you can spend the precious minutes you have been allocated in this life: Useful and Useless.

Working and personal development are useful. But so is sleeping and doing the dishes. Useless time is doomscrolling and watching mediocre TV series.

To find out how much you are doing of each, start a timer on your phone every time you start doing something useful (including sleeping, personal hygiene, etc.). Stop it when you are done. At the end of the day, look at your numbers. Are you happy with the way you spent your time?

What Does Succes Look Like?

Was yesterday a success for you? Most people can’t answer that question because they have not thought about what a successful day looks like.

Setting a goal and achieving it has a major impact on your happiness. Interestingly, it does not have to be a big, audacious goal. Setting a simple goal like “today I will answer that email that I’ve been avoiding” is enough.

Take a moment to define success for tomorrow. You’ll find that it becomes very likely that you do the task you envision. And you’ll be happier afterwards.

The 996 Fallacy

996 working is back in fashion. That means working from 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week. The concept originated in China, but AI startups in The U.S. had taken it up with a vengeance.

It is a stupid idea, conflating effort with results. You need a certain amount of effort to produce a result, but more effort does not translate linearly into more results. The science shows that productivity tapers off after 40 hours a week, and workers doing 70 hours so not produce more than workers doing 50 hours.

If you are working on your own startup or have another good reason, by all means put in some extra effort. But don’t sacrifice your health for someone else’s agenda.

Keeping Up With AI

How are you keeping up with developments in AI? There are several major AI players releasing new versions with new capabilities every few months. They have different strengths and weaknesses, and we are all inundated with news about how AI will take away our jobs. So how can we keep up when we have a day job?

If your organization doesn’t have an AI knowledge-sharing program, establish one with colleagues or friends. Meet over beer and pizza, share your current knowledge, and assign responsibilities. Someone might have the task of keeping up with Claude Code. Someone else might be responsible for investigating Gemini CLI. Meet up regularly and informally share what you’ve found.

The AI field is too big and fast-moving for you to keep up with it on your own.

Detecting Bias in Yourself

Can you see your own biases? Most people can’t.

I recently posted here and on social media about product design trade-offs and being able to see the downside of a design decision. I used Tesla as an example. Bad choice.

The comment track was immediately swamped with Elon-haters and Tesla fanboys (in about equal measure). Not many people wanted to participate in the discussion about product design decisions and blind spots.

Interestingly, this proved my point exactly: We all have blind spots. Once we have made a point publicly, it becomes part of our identity. And society appreciates people who stand their ground, while people changing their minds are written off as flip-floppers. But if we want to make good decisions, we have to overcome our biases.

Ideally, you have a group of trusted friends you can discuss important issues with before you make a decision. Failing that, you can borrow someone else’s viewpoint: Ask yourself what that other person would say.

Morning Routine

You don’t need an elaborate morning routine. Online coaches and influencers describe theirs ad nauseam. If you have the time, by all means spend your morning with strength training, affirmations, a home-cooked breakfast in accordance with your chosen macros, a walk outside, meditation, tai chi, and a success visualization. But most of us have a job to do. We get up, shower, brush our teeth, have coffee, and head to the office.

But as so often, there is a grain of truth behind the hype. It is true that your brain is reset when you wake up. But as soon as you open your email, messages, or social media, other people’s concerns and agendas take over your life.

The one thing that matters most in your mornings is to set your intention for the day. Before you reach for your phone, identify one thing you want to achieve this day. Just one. Your brain is not good at holding dozens of tasks simultaneously. It gets confused, and you start task swapping and spinning your wheels. Set your sights on one task in the morning. You’ll find your brain will keep reminding you, and that one task does get completed.

Could, not Should

There is nothing you should do. There are any number of things you could do.

Our language affects our mental state, and there are some insidious words you must be on the lookout for. One of them is “should.” Whenever you use that word, it indicates that you are allowing an ill-defined social norm to push something onto your plate. It stays there, taking up valuable mental space, but you never get around to it. Because it is not really your goal.

That is why “I should lose weight” invariably fails. If you made New Year’s resolutions, how are you doing with them? If you accidentally formulated any of them as “should” goals, you’ll find you haven’t made much progress.

The alternative word is “could.” I could go running each week. It is totally possible. I might decide that other things in my life are more important, and not go running. But “could” empowers you. You could start writing a book today. You could decide to only eat one donut today. But there is nothing you “should.”

Hike Your Own Hike

You can learn a lot from long-distance hiking. One of the life lessons I took from my 1,800 km on the Pacific Crest Trail is HYOH – Hike Your Own Hike.

We’re always comparing ourselves to others. Today, presented with an endless stream of carefully curated social media feeds, it can more than ever seem like everybody else is living a better life.

That’s why it is important to live your life the way you want. On the trail, some travel ultralight, using their trekking poles to stretch a small tarp over their lightweight sleeping bag atop a thin foam sleeping pad. I travel with a real tent, a good air pad, and a warm sleeping bag. They move faster than I do, but I am more comfortable. Long-distance hikers all accept the HYOH mindset – the ultralighters are not judging me for my heavy pack, and I am not envious of their higher mileage.

Live your own life.

Meet People in Real Life

Your happiness, health, and longevity are strongly influenced by the strength of your relationships. You need to meet people in real life – online connections have only a small fraction of the effect of meeting someone face to face.

If you live alone, it is even more important to take your social connections seriously. Over time, unless you continually work to renew your relationships, they will weaken. If you don’t have any close relationships, cultivate some. Join a sports club or volunteer in an organization. Doing something physical together with someone is an easy first step to building a relationship.

Did you meet with friends or family this week? If not, make plans to meet someone this weekend.

The Power of the Mind

You can think yourself healthier. Scientists have just published another placebo effect study, this time showing increased vaccine effectiveness. The people who did positive thinking exercises showed increased antibody production after 14 and 28 days.

The inverse is that you can probably also think yourself sicker, though for ethical reasons this has not been studied.

Make sure you have a technique for getting yourself in a better mood. For some, it can be uplifting music. For others, it might be a walk in nature. Spend a few moments identifying something that energizes you. And then do it today.