“The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.”

<ol><li>Pick the right task: to achieve a flow state, you need to find the right balance between the challenge of the activity and your own skills levels.</li><li>Define your goal: you need a clearly defined end goal to get in the flow.</li><li>Cut out distractions: this means no phone, no <a href="https://nesslabs.com/mindful-context-switching">multitasking</a>, only the necessary tools.</li><li>Take a deep breath: focus on the present moment, accept that you may fail, and <a href="https://nesslabs.com/noterday">let go</a> of your ego.</li><li>Work mindfully: keep your mind fully attentive to what you are working on in that moment.</li></ol>

5 steps to enter the flow state

Flow is important both because it makes the present instant more enjoyable, and because it builds the self-confidence that allows us to develop skills and make significant contributions to humankind.

The term “flow” was coined by Dr Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the 1960s. In his book <a href="https://amzn.to/2MvaVTc">Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience</a>, he describes it as a highly focused mental state which facilitates productivity. In his research, Dr Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi found that there was no correlation between money and happiness. Instead, the human brain is at its happiest when engaged in the meaningful pursuit of a goal.

What is flow?

Have you ever felt like you were in a zen-like meditative state while working, mentally free to execute and apply your skills with no distracting thought whatsoever inside your mind? Feeling entirely absorbed in an activity? This is called being in the zone or getting in the flow.Those expressions are often used about athletes performing at their peak, with all their attention focused on the task at hand. No concern, no conscience of time—just pure, invigorating work driven by heightened awareness.

You don’t need to be an athlete to benefit from the flow state. These 5 steps can help you stay relaxed and focused so you can do your best work.

productivity

Productivity

How to get in the flow

Being busy is a defense mechanism. It’s a way to avoid just being. Having responsibilities, deadlines, a long task list… Overloading our senses can make us believe we are moving in the right direction, or at least in a direction. But the constant cycle of tasks we tackle without ever thinking often leaves us stagnant. Who proudly looks back at their old to-do lists at the end of the year and thinks: “Wow, I tackled so many tasks this year”?

Busy as a defense mechanism

Instead of measuring progress by the quantity of work we produce, we should consider the quality of our work. Not just the quality of the output, as usually measured by externally-designed metrics, but the quality of the impact it has on our mental and physical well-being. “

Measuring progress

Next time you think of <a href="https://nesslabs.com/learning-how-to-learn">learning</a> something new, or a friend asks you if you want to do something together or have a chat, and your automatic answer is: “I’m just too busy”, take a few minutes to actually consider whether you are actually too busy, and, if that’s the case, whether this busyness is more valuable to you in the long-term than learning something new or spending time with your friend.

Are you too busy?

“How are things?” asked a friend. “It’s busy, but I’ll take some time to relax when things ease up,” I replied. I recently caught myself giving a variation of this answer every time I was asked how I was doing. “So much work, but hopefully it will be better next week.” Being busy all the time can give us an illusion of productivity which may feel reassuring, but isn’t there a risk we are too busy to enjoy life?

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

mentalhealth

Mental Health

loveandrelationships

Love & Relationships

Are we too busy to enjoy life?

“Persuasion is clearly a sort of demonstration, since [people] are most fully persuaded when we consider a thing to have been demonstrated.”

Aristotle called these the three artistic proofs. Combined together, they allow any orator to make their message more powerful, and increases their likelihood to convince their audience. While they are extremely advantageous skills to master in order to persuade people, they’re also useful in order to understand how you’re being persuaded yourself. While ethos is focused on you, logos is focused on the message, and pathos on the audience.

Ethos is all about building trust. It can be defined as how well you convince your audience that you are qualified to speak on the subject. It may seem obvious that if someone is listening to a talk about design, they’re more likely to believe a professional designer than a professional cook, but there are many ways to create credibility.The most obvious one is to use credentials, either yours or by being introduced by a prominent authority in the field who can vouch for your expertise.

Ethos: appeal to authority

The terms empathy, sympathy and pathetic are all derived from the word pathos, which means “suffering” or “experience” in Greek. It consists in appealing to your audience’s emotions—to make them feel what you want them to feel by triggering specific emotional reactions. Great storytellers are usually skilled masters of this mode of persuasion.

Pathos: appeal to emotions

Finally, you obviously need for your message to make sense—or at least to seem logical. Unfortunately, it is possible to use the three modes of persuasion to convince an audience of something wrong. Logos is the way you present your arguments in a logical order, which must feel so straightforward and rational that no other alternative can be conceived by your audience.

Logos: appeal to reason


<ul><li>Establish ethos. You need to build your reputation by developing deep expertise in the topics you want to address.</li><li>Develop pathos. Pathos is all about your ability to tell stories.</li><li>Convey logos. With logos, your goal should be to make your message logical and understandable.</li></ul>

How to use ethos, pathos, and logos


Scholars have discussed the mechanics of persuasion since ancient times. Persuasion encompasses every aspect of culture, with rhetoric as a crucial tool to influence every sphere of society, from mundane negotiations to big national debates. One could argue any form of communication is a form of persuasion. Whether through writing or talking, at home or at work, with friends or customers, chances are you spend a good amount of your time trying to persuade someone of something. In Rhetoric, Aristotle defines three main ways to persuade people: ethos, pathos, and logos.

The three modes of persuasion — ethos, pathos, logos — are useful skills to master to persuade people and to understand how you’re being persuaded yourself.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

philosophy

Philosophy

problemsolving

Problem Solving

communication

Communication

Ethos, Pathos, Logos: how to persuade people

First, let’s define what SMART means.<ul><li>Specific. Your goal should be well defined, clear, and unambiguous.</li><li>Measurable. You can easily measure your progress towards the accomplishment of the goal.</li><li>Achievable. The goal should seem attainable and not impossible to achieve.</li><li>Relevant. The goal should be aligned with your current priorities.</li><li>Timely. Your goal should have a clearly defined timeline, including a starting date and a target end date.</li></ul>

The classic approach to goal setting

So what’s wrong with SMART goals? Let’s pick an example. Let’s say you want to learn how to code. It wouldn’t fit with the SMART framework of goal setting. How can you know how long this is going to take? What if you feel like it’s not achievable? What if it’s not relevant to what you’re doing right now, but instead you want to do this because you’re planning on changing careers or want to be able to work on a side project? Does this mean that learning to code is not a good goal to have in life?

What's wrong with SMART goals?

PACT stands for Purposeful, Actionable, Continuous, and Trackable—the four factors that make for great goals:<ul><li>Purposeful. Your goal should be meaningful to your long-term purpose in life, not just relevant to you right now.</li><li>Actionable. A good goal is based on outputs you can control.</li><li>Continuous. It’s important that the actions you take towards your goal are simple and repeatable.</li><li>Trackable. Not measurable. Stats can be overrated and don’t apply to lots of different types of goals.</li></ul>

Replace your SMART goal with a PACT

Your goal should be meaningful to your long-term purpose in life, not just relevant to you right now. It will be much harder to stick to your goal if you don’t actually care. When a goal is aligned with your passions and your objectives in life, you are feeling <a href="https://nesslabs.com/intrinsic-motivation">much more motivated</a>. (many tasks don’t feel purposeful but need to be done in order to achieve a meaningful long-term goal, and that’s fine—they are tasks, not goals)

Purposeful goals

A good goal is based on outputs you can control. Your goal should be <a href="https://nesslabs.com/actionable-goals">actionable</a> and controllable. It’s all about shifting your mindset from distant outcomes in the future to present outputs you can control and that are within your reach, taking action today rather than overplanning for tomorrow.

Actionable goals

It’s important that the actions you take towards your goal are simple and repeatable. So many goals are not achieved because of what’s called <a href="https://nesslabs.com/fobo">choice paralysis</a>. That’s when there are <a href="https://nesslabs.com/optionality-fallacy">so many options</a> that you end up spending more time doing research than actually doing stuff that will make you progress towards your goal. The good thing about continuous goals is their flexibility. What you need to do is get started, and as you learn more, you can adapt your approach.

Continuous goals

Not measurable. Stats can be overrated and don’t apply to lots of different types of goals. I’m a big fan of the “yes” or “no” approach to goal tracking, similar to the GitHub tracker. Have you done the thing or not? Have you coded today? Have you called three potential customers? Have you published your weekly blog post? Yes or no? This makes your progress very easy to track.

Trackable goals

A system without a goal is like a marathon without a finish line. But a system with a bad goal will result in a bad outcome. Traditional goal-setting methods use the SMART framework. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely. Sounds great for small, short-term goals, but not so much for ambitious, long-term ones. If you have one or several ambitious goals—such as learning how to code, studying a new language, writing a book, growing a newsletter, becoming a designer—you may want to consider making a PACT as an alternative to SMART goals.

SMART goals sound great for small objectives, but they don’t work for more ambitious dreams. Let's talk about a better alternative to SMART goals.

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

SMART goals are not so smart: make a PACT instead

Interstitial journaling is a productivity technique created by Tony Stubblebine. To my knowledge, it’s the simplest way to combine note-taking, tasks, and time tracking in one unique workflow. Interstitial journaling has had an amazing impact on my productivity and creativity, and I think many people would enjoy it. The basic idea of interstitial journaling is to write a few lines every time you take a break, and to track the exact time you are taking these notes.

What is interstitial journaling?

I love interstitial journaling because it’s a great way to make your breaks more mindful.<ul><li>Proactive breaks: reflect on your previous task, plan for the next one, take your own mental pulse, jot down anything else that comes to mind so as to reduce your cognitive load.</li><li>Procrastination breaks: become aware of these breaks and how long they actually take. When you create the habit of writing down all your breaks, it becomes easier to not open a new tab to “quickly” check Twitter.</li></ul>

Making your breaks more mindful

<ul><li>Track time. Type /time to insert the current time, then type whatever you are thinking about.</li><li>Track tasks. Type /todo to create to-do items.</li><li>Track content. </li><li>Track ideas. Similarly, if you think of something else you’d like to do today, just add it as a to-do.</li><li>Track well-being. I like to start my work day with a quick note checking in on how I feel, anything that’s been sometimes literally keeping me up at night, any major roadblock I’m anticipating for the day.</li></ul>

Keeping an interstitial journal in Roam Research

I genuinely feel silly writing out these instructions. It’s an incredibly simple system to make your journal more actionable—or to actually start a journaling practice. As always, it may not be for everyone, but it’s done wonders for me. I still use Plus Minus Next journaling for my weekly review, and interstitial journaling makes it even easier to go back to see what went well and what didn’t during your week.

mindfulness

Mindfulness

writing

Reading & Writing

creativity

Creativity

Interstitial journaling: combining notes, to-do and time tracking

The main difference between habits and routines is how much aware and intentional you are. A habit usually manifests itself as an automatic urge to do something, often triggered by a particular cue. The stronger the connection between the trigger and the habit, the more ingrained the habit. Both habits and routines are regular and repeated actions, but habits happen with little or no conscious thought, whereas routines require a higher degree of intention and effort.

What is the difference between habits and routines?

The difference between a routine and a ritual is the attitude behind the action. While routines can be actions that just need to be done—such as making your bed or taking a shower—rituals are viewed as more meaningful practices which have a real sense of purpose.

From routine to ritual

Applying mindfulness to daily routines is a great way to create rituals for yourself. <ul><li>Showering can become an opportunity to become mindful of your body and its connection to your mind. F</li><li><a href="http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2013/02/25/ajcn.112.045245.abstract">Research</a> shows that mindful eating can indeed improve the flavour of your food, making you feel more satisfied.</li><li>Even cleaning the house can be used as a way to become more aware of your body movements and sensations in your muscles and joints.</li></ul>

How to create rituals

In the end, it boils down to the classic habit loop. <ol><li>Cue: choose a trigger to tell your brain to start the routine you want to turn into a habit.</li><li>Routine: execute the routine, ideally starting with a small, actionable chunk. Don’t go for an overly ambitious new routine from the get go.</li><li>Reward: do something enjoyable, which will tell your brain that this particular habit loop is worth remembering for the future.</li></ol>

Turning habits into routines

As much as we wish for each day to be different, the cycle of repeating the same actions day after day is pretty common. Habits and routines are an important part of our lives. Making your bed in the morning, that first cup of coffee, grabbing a croissant on your way to work, listening to your favourite podcast on the train.And while we tend to use the words “habit” and “routine” interchangeably, they both mean two distinct things. Understanding their definitions can help you design good routines and build good habits.

Both habits and routines are repeated actions, but habits happen with little or no conscious thought, whereas routines require a higher degree of effort.

habits

Habits

The difference between habits, routines and rituals

While <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563213000800?via%3Dihub">research</a> has found that FOMO is, at its core, caused by a low life satisfaction, with low moods and the feeling that your needs aren’t met, there are some specific factors that have a direct impact on your likelihood to experience it. <ul><li>Social media. Many <a href="https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Envy-on-Facebook%3A-A-Hidden-Threat-to-Users'-Life-Krasnova-Wenninger/b775840d43f9f93b7a9031449f809c388f342291">studies</a> have shown that there is a high correlation between a person’s usage of social media and FOMO.</li><li>Loneliness. </li><li>Anxiety. This state of inner turmoil, which often comes with nervous behaviour, is also an underlying cause of FOMO.</li></ul>

What causes your fear of missing out


FOMO was added to the <a href="https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/fomo">Oxford Dictionary</a> in 2013 and defined as the “anxiety that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening elsewhere, often aroused by posts seen on social media.”

What is FOMO?

“Opting out and saying no”, he writes, are skills we lack “both as individuals and as a society.”

“Oh the joy of missing out. When the world begins to shoutAnd rush towards that shining thing;The latest bit of mental bling–Trying to have it, see it, do it,You simply know you won't go through it;The anxious clamoring and needThis restless hungry thing to feed.Instead, you feel the loveliness;The pleasure of your emptiness.You spurn the treasure on the shelfIn favor of your peaceful self;Without regret, without a doubt.Oh the joy of missing out”

Instead of yielding to the social pressure to be at the right place with the right people, and comparing our lives to others, we should practice tuning out the background noise and becoming intentional with our time. While other people spend their time running around to watch the latest movie, try the latest workout, or attend the latest exhibition, embracing JOMO—the joy of missing out—means relishing to stay in, enjoying your own company, and getting to work on your own projects.

Embrace JOMO

<ol><li>Reflect. Review how you currently spend your time. Which activities are driven by others, as opposed to being intentional?</li><li>Disconnect. Take the time to turn off your phone and spend time alone with your thoughts. Read a book, go for a walk, work out, whatever makes you feel good.</li><li>Reconnect. Both with yourself and with the people you care about. Spending time in a meaningful way will help you stop worrying about how others spend their time.</li></ol>

How to embrace the joy of missing out

FOMO, or fear of missing out. It’s especially prevalent among people who spend quite a bit of time online. With the ability to easily see what everyone is doing all the time comes the curse of knowing exactly what we may be missing out on. Associated with a fear of regret, FOMO is the apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which you are absent.

JOMO—the joy of missing out—is a way to live an intentional life. It’s realising that FOMO is distracting you from your life’s purpose.

The joy of missing out

“We all have mental models: the lens through which we see the world that drive our responses to everything we experience. Being aware of your mental models is key to being objective.”

To put it simply, mental models are a set of beliefs and ideas that we consciously or unconsciously form based on our experiences. They guide our thoughts and behaviours and help us understand life. They’re basically thinking tools—shortcuts for reasoning.

What are mental models?

Here are a few tips you can apply to master mental models, rather than being enslaved by them.<ul><li>Be aware of your thinking by <a href="https://nesslabs.com/good-questions">asking yourself provoking questions</a></li><li>Gather information to challenge your thinking with actual facts</li><li>Inquire into other people’s thinking and challenge their views</li><li>Resist jumping to conclusions and suspend your assumptions</li><li>Look for recurring thought patterns and <a href="https://nesslabs.com/learning-how-to-learn">unlearn them</a></li></ul>

How to use mental models

<ul><li>Observe people. One great way to develop your own mental models is to find inspiration in people.</li><li>Take note of nature. <a href="https://nesslabs.com/taking-note-of-nature">Nature</a> follows many rules that can apply to human decision making.</li><li>Ask for feedback. Ask a friend or a colleague to observe how you act and to help you identify behaviours that may not be obvious to you.</li></ul> Don’t limit yourself to constructive mental models. You will observe mental models which you’d rather not reproduce.

How to build your own mental models

If you want to read more about mental models, here are some books to further explore the topic. Not only I found these books useful, but I’ve seen them recommended over and over again on Hacker News and other places.<ul><li><a href="https://amzn.to/2MdADug">Thinking, Fast and Slow</a> (Daniel Kahneman)</li><li><a href="https://amzn.to/2JZHIvU">Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion</a> (Robert Cialdini)</li><li><a href="https://amzn.to/2SBXyAG">Metaphors We Live By</a> (George Lakoff)</li><li><a href="https://amzn.to/2GuBSBF">Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions</a> (Dan Ariely)</li><li><a href="https://amzn.to/2OxOs9Z">The Art of Thinking Clearly</a> (Rolf Dobelli)</li></ul>

5 great books about mental models

I have always been fascinated by mental models. The same way scientists are looking for a theory of everything, I sometimes wonder if there is a universal theory of the mind. An all-encompassing, coherent framework that would fully explain and link together all aspects of our biology and psychology.

Mental models affect how we see problems and people. Depending on how you use them, mental models can be incredibly constructive or destructive.

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

30 mental models to add to your thinking toolbox

Pay attention to the following red flags to spot fake scientists:<ul><li>All the material about their work was produced by themselves or their teams. </li><li>No peer-reviewed research. It’s not a good sign if you do a quick search in Google Scholar and nothing comes up.</li><li>A vague biography that leaves out important information such as their alma mater. </li><li>Made-up scientific terms not used by anyone else in the scientific community. </li></ul>

How to spot fake scientists

There is of course no sure-fire way to know for certain whether you are looking at the work of an honest scientist, especially if you are not an expert in their particular field, but these signs taken in combination can be a good indication to proceed with caution. Especially when the research topic is around health and wellness, teaching yourself and your loved ones to be skeptical can sometimes mean the difference between life and death.

scienceandnature

Science & Nature

The rise of fake scientists

“Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.”

While death anxiety is the fear of running out of time, time anxiety is the fear of wasting your time. It’s an obsession about spending your time in the most meaningful way possible. And when society tells us—or when we interpret signs from society as saying—that it’s too late to achieve a particular goal, we don’t perceive it as meaningful enough. We need—we demand—that what we do with our lives actually matters.

What is time anxiety?

Time anxiety can take several forms:<ul><li>Current time anxiety: the daily feeling of being rushed that makes us feel overwhelmed and panicky.</li><li>Future time anxiety: thoughts about what may or may not happen in the future, which are the cause of worry and “what if” types of internal questions.</li><li>Existential time anxiety: the sense of lost time slipping away and never to return, which many people experience in a more acute way when thinking about death.</li></ul>

Time anxiety can take several forms

Am I creating the greatest amount of value with my life that I can? Will I feel, when it comes my time to die, that I spent too much of my time frivolously?

“And if we continue asking why, like the child we once were, trying to excavate down to our most rudimentary ambition—a time-worn exercise—we’ll eventually find all reasons lead to the same place, to the one core reason for living we’d sought all along, the core reason against which we measure the value of everything we do: to be happy.”

<ol><li>Define what “time well spent” means to you: sit down, and think about what really makes you happy and <a href="https://nesslabs.com/flow">gets you in the flow</a>, without overthinking about how feasible the final outcome would be.</li><li>Make space for these moments: Think of where you will incorporate these moments into your life.</li><li>Cut out time-consuming distractions: Do a quick audit of your content consumption patterns and try to cut out the amount of time you spend in an <a href="https://nesslabs.com/creative-input-output">input rather than output</a> mode.</li></ol>

three steps you can take to reduce time anxiety

Time anxiety is something I’m still struggling with, and may keep on struggling with for the rest of my life. If that’s something you’re also struggling with, I hope you find these strategies useful.

I have always struggled with a thought: it’s too late. Too late to publish a book, to start a company, to learn a new language. This is called time anxiety.

How to get in the flow

Are we too busy to enjoy life?

Ethos, Pathos, Logos: how to persuade people

SMART goals are not so smart: make a PACT instead

Interstitial journaling: combining notes, to-do and time tracking

Ness Labs