How do you win a Nobel prize? Know what to ignore.

Knowing what to ignore…

If this topic isn’t more relevant today than ever, I’ll eat my weight in edibles. Which for the record, would not be fun for anyone, namely me.

But here is the truth, the last 6-12 months may have been some of the most distracting in our lifetimes. First, we had a contentious democratic primary race (that felt like reality tv it was so delicious to watch), then a global pandemic replete with a daily death count (ain’t that fun), then a recession (arguably the worst ever in US history), then massive unemployment (definitely the worst in history), then protests (across almost every city), riots and social unrest… the list goes on. 2020 is a real piece of work. 

So it may come as no surprise that productivity in the US since COVID-19 has dropped by 7.2%. People’s first reaction is typically… oh that’s because we are working remote and people are not working as much. Oh contraire.

The length of the average workday has actually increased by almost 40%.

We Americans are working an extra three hours per day, aka 11-hour days.

So, we Americans are working more than ever, but we are achieving less and less. 

Question: Have you found yourself pulled down a rabbit hole of social media clickbait? News onslaught? Legitimate outrage on all sides of the equation? Way more caffeine addicted than usual (this graph below pretty much shows my daily cycle)?

I certainly have.

I find a horrid delight in lambasting the ridiculous hypocrisy I see in the news today. The absolute lack of a competition of ideas. The belief that if I do not share your opinion exactly with the exact same verbiage, I am a monster. That free speech is great, but we cannot let people tell lies. Small/little issue, who decides what are lies? The thought police.. oh Russia/Fascism; I’ve seen this movie before.

And just like that, there I go again, getting all worked up at the fact that America seems to be losing its damn mind. Which I pray leads to progress???

Case in point, my social media usage is up 25%. There has been many a dinner table conversations where we have had to actively say we will NOT talk about COVID, injustice, protests, the economy or politicians any longer because my heart rate and blood pressure simply can’t take it.

You see, the world is pulling at our attention like a giant game of tug of war, and let me tell you, our goals are not winning.

There is a saying, focus on what you can control… and ignore all the rest. 

That saying however, must have been written by some human pre near constant deluge of information in the social media age.

So fellow contrarians, lest we let others control our lives, our thoughts, our goals for this year; we need to make some internal changes. I’m sharing what I’m doing to push back on others being the master of my fate. 

I pulled together my top staying focused tools and tricks from Peter Thiel, Tim Ferris, Bezos, Musk and Gates (a bunch of slackers) into one list that I promise I’m going to use about 60% of the time, every time. 

You with me?

If you find others – give me a holler on LinkedIn or Instagram. Just please for the love of my heart health don’t send me news articles on this world today.

How to stay focused:

  • Quirky - Handstands in the morning - New fun routine for Codie… handstands against a wall each morning to get the blood flowing. Lest you think I am a moron, here are five reasons to do handstands that might surprise you. 

  • No early AM Email - No email for at least 1 hour before you have to be at a computer screen. E-mail is the creativity killer.

  • No calls before 10am - This has been a god send as research suggests mornings are the most creative peaks for our brain. 

  • Best Self Journal - I write down my top 3 to-do’s for the day daily, Tim Ferriss likes the 5 Minute Journal – I find it too fluffy but that’s me.

  • Read Zero to One by Peter Thiel - A masterful explanation on how to achieve big things by FOCUSING. 

  • Follow Discomfort - From Tim Ferriss, “When in doubt, the most important to-do is typically the one that makes you the most uncomfortable, often including a chance of rejection, pain or failure.”

  • Meeting Exit Plan - If a meeting isn’t valuable to you, exit it (Musk). Since I’m a wuss, I prepare a script in the advent that it isn’t worthwhile i.e. I may have to jump after 10-15minutes but so wanted to make sure we connected. That gets people right to the point. 

  • Turn on Social Media blockers - On your iPhone you can limit the amount of time you spend on apps, I just set mine to 15 minutes a day. Just enough time to get amped without my goals being eviscerated.

  • Get Smarter At Meetings – I wrote a whole piece on being more selective on meetings you take, cutting them shorter, delegating them. Then when I fall off the proverbial wagon I go back and re-look at them. 

Moral of the story, will you let the noise of the day control what you accomplish? Will you be as a paper bag buffeted this way and that by the wind? Or will you do the hard work to steer your own course. 

Our world today more than ever needs achievers who strive to make the world a better place, instead of steal eyeballs to screens talking endlessly about their opinions.

With that… off to do.

Question everything,

Codie