5 Day Reading Challenge in April 2023 📚✨
Day 1️⃣
- Avoiding Bad Behavior by FS Blog (6 mins)
Experienced decision makers have repertoires of possible actions and checklists to avoid bad behavior. Writing can teach and surprise us, and work can provide meaning if we put effort into it. Healthy boundaries are important, but we shouldn't hold work at arm's length if we want to be our best selves.
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Share: Tweet Your Progress - The Four Idols: Money, Power, Pleasure, & Fame by Sahil Bloom (5 mins)
The Four Idols, drawn from St. Thomas Aquinas, are Money, Power, Pleasure, and Fame. These idols drive people to an endless chase for more, assuming it will lead to happiness. However, most people are unaware of the idol they worship. The goal is to develop a conscious awareness of your idol and understand the separation between this chase and your pursuit of fulfillment and happiness. Separating fulfillment and happiness from the motivation and chase of these idols is crucial for a healthy mindset.
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Share: Tweet Your Progress - How to Wage Philosophical Warfare by Mark Mason (5 mins)
Modernism believes in evidence and progress, while postmodernism believes in subjective truth and power dynamics. Postmodernism has infiltrated our daily lives and made knowledge appear arbitrary and political. Irony and cynicism are destructive and unhelpful for building anything new. Postmodernism fosters loneliness and oppression, while sincerity gives our lives meaning and fulfillment.
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Day 2️⃣
- How to figure out what you want out of life by Allie Volpe (7 mins)
Society has different expectations of us. We are influenced by these cultures. Nonetheless, these extrinsic motivations cannot give us a sense of authenticity. Instead, we have to search for intrinsic motivations.
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Share: Tweet Your Progress - Emotions Aren’t the Enemy of Good Decision-Making by Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (10 mins)
In the last newsletter, we knew that creating some buffers between our emotions and reactions can help us make better decisions. Try to practice “emotional bookending” to identify what your genuine concern is when you make a decision.
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Share: Tweet Your Progress - The Key to Sustainable Productivity by Scott H. Young (2 mins)
The key to sustainable productivity is to decouple the short-term feeling of being busy from the long-term investments that allow you to get more work done. This means focusing on creating systems that allow you to be productive without exerting herculean effort. It's important to accumulate knowledge and skills to become more productive, and to recognize that feeling productive in the short-term doesn't necessarily mean you're being objectively productive in the long-term.
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Day 3️⃣
- How Do You Live in the Present? by Arlin Cuncic (8 mins)
To live in the present, notice your surroundings, focus on one thing at a time, practice gratitude, accept things as they are, practice mindfulness meditation, spend time with positive people, be mindful of everything you do, practice deep breathing exercises, take a break from social media and technology, and get regular exercise or do yoga. By being present in the moment, you can increase your concentration, positivity, and happiness levels.
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Share: Tweet Your Progress - The 5-hour rule: How to turn a wasted day into a successful one by Jonny Thomson (5 mins)
The "5-hour rule" suggests spending one hour a day learning, reflecting, and thinking, five times a week. Successful people like Elon Musk, Oprah Winfrey, and Bill Gates all employ some version of this rule. To better yourself, try learning through podcasts, audiobooks, and spoken radio. Experiment and don't be afraid to fail, but seek feedback and learn from your mistakes. Reflect on your failures and use them to improve your future.
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Share: Tweet Your Progress - How reading fiction can make you a better person by Jeannie Kidera (5 mins)
Reading fiction can improve empathy and emotional intelligence by allowing readers to experience someone else's perspective. Studies show that reading fiction activates the language processing center of the brain and increases global blood flow, mimicking the neural activities of the experience being read about. This can lead to increased affective empathy and immediate helping behavior. Reading fiction also allows readers to practice taking on someone else's perspective, improving social awareness.
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Day 4️⃣
- Intellectual Sparring Partners by Sahil Bloom (5 mins)
Intellectual sparring partners are people who challenge your thinking and help you grow. They enjoy being wrong and seek out those who can push their thinking in new directions. To find an intellectual sparring partner, look for someone with a different background, exhibited clarity and depth of thinking, and a kind but direct personality. Pre-plan topics for discussion and be a great sparring partner for others. One intellectual sparring partner can change your life, so cherish them.
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Share: Tweet Your Progress - The threat to knowledge workers is not AI or automation. It’s their horrifying lack of productivity by Michael Simmons (17 mins)
The threat to knowledge workers is not AI or automation, but their lack of productivity. The Fundamental Productivity Blindspot explains why we overlook improvement opportunities every day, leading to underestimation of potential improvement and overestimation of productivity. Continuous improvement through specialization, experimentation, and standardization have worked for centuries, but knowledge workers are not utilizing these principles enough.
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Share: Tweet Your Progress - Novelty Fallacy: Why New Isn’t Always Better by Dr. Hannah Rose (6 mins)
Our society is very fast-paced. We are bombarded by new diet ideas, new software, and new policies. However, is new always better?
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Day 5️⃣
- The default effect: why we renounce our ability to choose by Anne-Laure Le Cunff (5 mins)
Why is it that we like having choices, but we don’t like choosing? Being able to decide between several options makes us feel in control. Yet, we tend to exhibit a preference for the default option when presented with a selection of choices. This is called the default effect, and it rules many aspects of our lives from the products we buy to the career we build.
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Share: Tweet Your Progress - Illusion of Transparency: Your Poker Face is Better Than You Think by FS Blog (7 mins)
We tend to think that people can easily tell what we’re thinking and feeling. But they can’t. Most of the time, other people can’t correctly guess what we’re thinking or feeling. The gap between our subjective experience and what other people pick up on is known as the illusion of transparency. If you want someone to know your mental state, you need to tell them in the clearest terms possible. You can’t make assumptions.
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Share: Tweet Your Progress - One Question to Ask Yourself to Know Your Future by Nir Eyal (3 mins)
German writer and philosopher Goethe believed that he could predict someone's future based on how they spend their time. To know your future, you need to focus on the characteristics you want to embody, also known as your values. Listing your values and the activities that push you to meet them reveals any gaps between how you spend your time and who you want to become.
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