📚 Four Thousand Weeks, 26 Reading Tips, and more.

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👋 Hey everyone,

Here are a few popular posts you may have missed:

• Some not-so-good reading stats.

• 26 Reading tips from Ryan Holiday.

• 4 Books that will help you overcome doomscrolling, distractions, and cheap dopamine.

This week’s newsletter was made possible by:

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📚 Books Summary:

This week’s book is “Four Thousand Hours” by Oliver Burkeman.

This book dives into the psychology and philosophy of productivity. It explores why we always feel like we need to do more and how to accept that we will never do everything we want.

Here are 3 lessons from the book:

📖

1) Decide In Advance What You’ll Suck At

People become obsessed with productivity because they want to accomplish as much as possible and excel at multiple things.

But the truth is that we all have finite time and energy, and by simple math, the more time and energy we invest in one area, the less we’ll have to invest in another area.

For example, there are no professional basketball players who are also professional football players.

If you want to be amazing at one thing (like shooting a basketball), you need to spend hours every day practicing shooting and not waste hours throwing around a football.

Or a more realistic example, if you choose to be amazing at your job and spend more hours at the office, you might find yourself gaining a bit of weight because you’re spending less time at the gym.

Bestselling author Jon Acuff shares that when people realize they can’t do it all, they feel defeated, but instead of giving up, it’s important to decide in advance what you’re going to suck at because it removes the sting of defeat.

By choosing in advance what domains you’ll suck at, you won’t be disappointed or surprised when they’re underperforming because you know you’re investing your time and energy to be great at something else.

I’m content with sucking at football and soccer because I find basketball more enjoyable and would rather spend my time being great at it, instead of being just okay at all three sports.

So decide in advance what things you’ll suck at, and life will become much easier and enjoyable.

📖

2) Give In To Your Impulses (The Generous Ones)

Giving into your impulses is a terrible strategy–except of course if those impulses are generous ones.

Meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein says that “whenever a generous impulse arises in your mind–to give money, check in on a friend, send an email praising someone’s work–act on the impulse right away, rather than putting it off until later.”

Too often, we fail to act on these generous urges not because we’re bad people, but because we say we’ll do them when we have some spare time (but then forget) or because we try to overoptimize our generosity (spending hours researching which charity to give a few hundred bucks to and then not doing anything).

Even if we have good intentions, the truth is that the only donations and compliments that count are the ones you actually get around to making.

There’s also an added benefit to following your generous impulses, studies show that generous actions reliably make you feel much happier.

So the next time you’re thinking something positive about a friend or see a noble cause, take action right away.

📖

3) Enjoy The (Last Time) Moment

There’s a great piece of advice in the book from philosopher Sam Harris, who says:

“Our lives, thanks to their finitude, are inevitably full of activities that we’re doing for the very last time. Just as there will be a final occasion on which I pick up my son...there will be a last time that you visit your childhood home, or swim in the ocean, or make love, or have a deep connection with a certain friend. Yet usually there’ll be no way to know, in the moment itself, that you’re doing it for the last time.”

Harris’s point is that since we don’t know when we’ll do something for the last time, we should try to treat every experience as the final instance and enjoy it fully.

Although this can seem depressing, it actually makes the present's smaller moments much sweeter:

• There will be a last time I play basketball with my closest friends, so I should enjoy that while I can.

• There will be a last time I play with my dog, so I should enjoy playing with them while they’re still alive.

• There will be a last time I hang out with a friend before they move halfway across the world, so I should enjoy their company while they’re still here.

Think of every moment you’re going through as the possible last time you’ll do it and it will make every second sweeter.

✅ Actionable Advice

1) Decide in advance what areas of life you’ll suck at:

• Decide what sports you’ll suck at so you can be great at another.

• Decide what skills you’ll suck at so you can be great at another.

2) Give in to your generous impulses:

• Donate to an organization you care about.

• Send a text to your friend or family member that you’re thinking of them.

• Email a past coworker or mentor whom you’re grateful to have worked with.

3) Enjoy the moment, it’s possible it could be the last time you do it.

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Your opinion matters!

Thank you for your support,

Alex W.