Timeless Tuesday #1
Behaviour Change, Tragedy, and Focusing on the Wildly Important
Happy Tuesday, to all of you around the world!
WHAT’S GOING ON?
The newsletter has changed. It’s still short, punchy and full of content aimed at making you think. So, what’s it all about?
Timeless Tuesday is a newsletter delivering ideas, resources and questions to sharpen your thinking and challenge the way you look at the world.
Sharp thinking helps you to develop new ideas and avoid costly mistakes. Often, improvement is not about doing more things right, but about doing fewer things wrong.
I see my mind as a muscle. If I want it to grow, I have to feed it with high-quality food. Information food for the mind.
The internet is full of information which can change your work, life and habits. It’s also full of some absolute rubbish. Timeless Tuesday sifts through the rubbish so that you don’t have to.
Each Tuesday, I’ll send you one idea, one resource, and one question which I’m using to sharpen my thinking. It’s the 1% of content which packs 90% of the value. The stuff worth reading and re-reading. The information which helps the mind grow.
My goal is to create a place that you can turn to in search of answers, information and inspiration. If I’m failing at that, please tell me, so that changes can be made. If I’m succeeding, please share it with somebody you think could learn from it.
Thank you for signing up - I’m excited to have you on board.
ONE IDEA: BEHAVIOUR CHANGE
If your daily habits dictate where you’ll be in 3-5 years from now, forming good habits and breaking bad ones is critical.
You’ve got two options to get the ‘Behaviour Change’ ball rolling:
Increase the driving force
Weaken the restraining force
Increasing the driving force will cause change, but it’s messy and difficult to maintain. It’s like the battle of trying not to eat the chocolate in the kitchen cupboard. So often, you resist all week only to give in on Sunday night.
Weakening the restraining force is not buying the chocolate at all. If it’s not there, it can’t be eaten. Weakening the restraining force makes it easy to stick to your habits, allowing you to break bad ones and form good ones.
For more on this idea, listen to ‘Daniel Kahneman: Putting Your Intuition on Ice – The Knowledge Project or read this article - ‘How to Improve Your Health and Productivity Without Thinking’ - by James Clear.
READING AND RE - READING
This past week, I’ve been reading and re-reading ‘The Three Sides of Risk’ by Morgan Housel.
It’s a masterclass on storytelling and thinking. Each time I’ve read it, I’ve learnt something new. It’s changed my perspective on:
Tragedy
Risk
Luck
If you enjoy this article, I’d love to hear about it. It carries different lessons for different people, and I’d be keen to chat about what you took from it.
QUESTION I’M ASKING MYSELF
“Am I going to be a conversational attachment?”
A conversational attachment is something which is spoken about for years after it happens - the moon landing, this pandemic, or the lessons you taught your children.
This question is helping me prioritise my time and attention, and focus on things which have the potential to change the world.
Focusing on things which could one day be conversational attachments is a good way to ensure you spend your time doing the things which matter the most.
Until next week,
KS