Procrastination: No, Don't Read This Later

"Tear yourself from delay." Horace.

Haste makes waste, right? Yeah, often. So care, deliberation, and preparation are the proper precursors of effective action. But procrastination is their unhelpful first cousin. And it’s procrastination that may just be the most common source of deferred dreams in the world.

Eastern philosophers tell us that it’s important in life to know when to act and when to refrain from acting. In some situations, patient non-action is exactly what’s called for. But where non-action is most needed, it's also most difficult. And where it’s easiest, it’s most often not advisable.

And that's the sure sign of procrastination. It's easy. It's effortless. And that's funny, because when you're procrastinating from what you know you should be doing, you often put monumental effort into doing things that don't need to be done.

I used to be like that. If I had a writing deadline, that would be the only time I would thoroughly clean my office, at a ridiculous level of clean that laboratory scientists could admire. And then I'd start washing cars. And walking dogs. Everything but writing.

It's easy not to do what you need to do because the world is full of other things you can do instead. Like reading blogs. But of course, I'd never want to discourage you from reading the right blogs! Just don't let your online life keep you from having an offline one and getting the right things, the real things, the necessary things done!

Are you putting off something that you really know you need to do? Don’t take any comfort from the philosophy of non-action. Take action instead. Overcome the inertia that's holding you back. Defeat the powers of procrastination. Tear yourself from delay. And do something, however small, toward your postponed goal.

Today. Yeah. Today

In Praise of Hard Work. No. Really.

Ok. First of all, I have absolutely nothing against having a new idea go viral overnight and waking up to discover I have a new reality TV show, 5 million Twitter followers, a private jet, and a seven figure endorsement deal from the Library Association. That would be my definition of sweet (as defined also in dictionaries available nationwide in your local public library - I'd get 10K just for adding that little factoid. But I digress). Instant success has its charms. But, there is a nubby weave behind the smooth tapestry of most outsized success. And that, right now, is my concern.

Let me read to you from the actual paper version of today's New York Times Book Review. Turning through it, I came across a page entitled "Devilish Audacity" where John Simon reviews a new biography of Sir Lawrence Olivier (Olivier, by Philip Ziegler), who was said by many to be the greatest actor of his time (in addition to "the most dashing of actors" and "the most seductive of human beings" - among many other superlatives). Simon helpfully summarizes an important point in the new book about Olivier:

He was a tireless worker: It took him two years to learn how to move onstage, and another two, how to laugh.

That got my attention, and I would have laughed aloud, aside from the realization that I may not have worked hard enough as of yet on that particular vocal and facial expression of astonished surprise. Then, this:

On stage and on screen, he could give an impression of openness, brilliance, lightness, and speed. In fact, he was the opposite. His great strength was that of the ox. He always reminded me of a countryman, of a ... peasant taking his time .... Once a conception had taken root in him, no power could change the direction in which the ox would pull the cart.

Impressive. And suggestive. Behind many forms of flashy, flamboyant success, there is a lot of dogged, ox-like, hard work. Two years to learn to move on stage? Two years to learn to laugh? Yes. And as we go out onto our own dramatic stages, at work, or at home, or in the community, we should not allow ourselves to forget the hard work that alone will lift any performance to a distinctive level of power. In an age that celebrates the fruits of work without equally honoring or encouraging the work itself that typically makes those delights possible, we need to remind ourselves that the greatest never get that way without a lot of hard, hard work.

But if you love what you're doing, you can enjoy even the greatest efforts. The hard work itself can be a suitable and satisfying outlet for your energy. And - who knows? You can't really rule out that reality TV show.

Novel Insights: Part One - The Life of Pi

Yesterday, I posted a quote from the novel The Life of Pi. I was about ready to donate my copy to the local library when I noticed some annotations I had made throughout. Today and tomorrow, perhaps, I'll pass on a few more quotes from it, as I did yesterday, and add the brief morning reflections they've spurred.

Repetition is important in the training not only of animals but also of humans.

Are you trying to get a new idea across to someone, or to encourage some new behavior? Repetition is key. Creative repetition is best. We most often need to be exposed to something repeatedly in order for it to really set in and take root. Even if you're trying to make a change in your own life, just in your own actions, repetitive reminders can work wonders. Then, the new action, or reaction, repeated enough times, becomes a habit or new dispositional tendency, a new part of your repertoire.

It was my luck to have a few good teachers in my youth, men and women who came into my dark head and lit a match.

What a great image that is. I had a professor like that in college. I had always been a good student, in the sense of knowing how to take a test or write an essay. But I never really awoke to the life of the mind and the excitement of great ideas until an amazing lecture class in college. That professor lit a match that became an eternal flame. I now try to do that for others, at least, now and then. We all should be arsonists of the mind!

Doubt is useful for a while. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a way of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

Well said. Doubt is an often useful intellectual tool, but a terrible mindset to drag through life. When you have set a course in your work or life that honors who you are and what you believe, and you find yourself struggling a bit along the way, a good strategy is to: Doubt Your Doubts.

All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways. This madness can be saving; it is part and parcel of the ability to adapt. Without it, no species would survive.

In the realm of appearances, routine can seem most sane and reasonable. Departures from routine can seem inexplicable to others. But sometimes, doing something very different, even so different as to cause others worry, can be the adaptive path to flourishing.

Never be afraid to be thought strange.

I would be in the direst of dire straights, facing a bleak future, when some small thing, some detail, would transform itself and appear in my mind in a new light. It would no longer be the small thing it was before, but the most important thing in the world, the thing that would save my life. This happened time and again. How true it is that necessity is the mother of invention, how very true.

We notice so little that is around us and available to us. It's a side effect of our need to screen the mass of information crowding in on our senses at every moment. And, in the screening, we miss a lot. But when we get into a corner, into "dire straights," we often wake up with a new filter that lets through just what we need to notice, and something that has been close to hand all along will take on a new luster and appear as just what we need. The more we learn to wake up and pay attention at times of need far less than dire, the more often this will happen without requiring such serious difficulty to spur us on. And there's nothing like a clear and passionately held new goal to readjust the filter and help with just the inventions we need.

Some more thoughts tomorrow!

The Power of Old Books

If you read what everyone else is reading, you'll tend to think what everyone else is thinking, which can lead you to do what everyone else is doing. And that certainly won't set you apart.

We've all noticed the way best selling-books on business or life can change what's on people's minds and their to-do lists. Fads develop and sweep the world of business, until the next one comes along. And at each stage, at some point, you come to realize that what you thought would give you an advantage and make you stand out has been adopted by all your competition, and your new trick has become the standard used by all, leveling the playing field just when you thought you'd be summiting the mountain.

As C. S. Lewis once said, the only way to break out of the thought patterns of the present and get some truly novel ideas would be either to read the books of the future, or the books of the past. The books of the future are, inconveniently enough, not yet available to us. Therefore, we should read books of the past.

In an era where everyone is trying to make the leap from good to great, there are a few who attain the status of legendary. And that never happens by just doing a little better what everyone else is doing. It requires some revolutionary twist. And how does that get sparked? I've found that it's often people who feed their minds on something different, whose own thinking then becomes interestingly different, and, on occasion, even revolutionary.

So, my advice, on this Sunday morning, is to go find a book of the past to read. Some that have meant a lot to me recently are Gilgamesh, the story of a rich, powerful, handsome king in 2700 BCE who went from being an exploitative tyrant to becoming a good leader, building things to last. How? The old epic tale tells the story. Then, there's Beowulf, a great classic cautionary tale about a powerful achiever and slayer of monsters who made one crucial and all too common mistake that cost him everything. You want to avoid it? Read the book. Or try Frankenstein, Mary Shelley's amazing tale of goal setting gone bad. Who knew that Dr Frankenstein, through a turbulent mix of classic hubris, outsized ambition, self-centeredness and fear, could create a nightmare which he tried to solve, not by doing the right things, but by becoming a motivational speaker!

If you have more time, Don Quixote may be the greatest novel of all time. Is he the ultimate paradigm of the ideal visionary now beloved by the tech world and VCs everywhere, or a stark raving madman to be avoided at all costs? Or look at Moby Dick. If you can stomach all the whale blubber, you get a tale of a captain who is supposed to steer the ship to profits for its owners, but takes it over for his own purposes and ruins everything. Short of time to read?  The great Roman stoic Seneca has some of the greatest advice ever in his letters and essays.

Then, there's the Manual of Epictetus, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, and Xenophon's captivating and amazing book on leadership, The Education of Cyrus. 

I could go on. But I have to go read something old. Meanwhile, have a great day.