Recommended Consumption: January 2014 edition

Longform:

• America’s angriest white men: Up close with racism, rage and Southern supremacy, by Michael Kimmel. Hard to think of a good reaction to this piece, but it's certainly evocative and provocative. An easy reaction for me to give is "Why don't these guys teach themselves 21st century skills; my industry can't get enough programmers and designers." But clearly it's not that easy.
• Chilling Testimony Of Death Row Executioners Casts Dark Shadow Over Entire System, by Laura Dimon. I'm looking forward to the day that America gives up this shameful practice. It's also a little disquieting to remember that California, supposedly a progressive state, is a place where the death penalty is practiced. Kind of makes me want to move back to Illinois, or to Alaska, or maybe New York.

Shortform:

• Why Most of Your Assumptions About Phone Calls are Wrong, from Mark.
• Rap Genius Explains Why Worse is Better, from the always-excellent First Round Review.
• The Saddest SaaS Pricing Pages of the Year, from Price Intelligently.
• Four posts that I really enjoyed from James Clear:
• How to Stay Focused When You Get Bored Working Toward Your Goals. Killer quote: "[The] ability to do the work when it’s not easy that separates the top performers from everyone else."
• Identity-Based Habits: How to Actually Stick to Your Goals This Year. Killer quote: "The reason why it’s so hard to stick to new habits is that we often try to achieve a performance or appearance–based goal without changing our identity. Most of the time we try to achieve results before proving to ourselves that we have the identity of the type of person we want to become. It should be the other way around."
• The Difference Between Professionals and Amateurs. Killer quote: "It doesn’t matter what you are trying to become better at, if you only do the work when you’re motivated, then you’ll never be consistent enough to become a professional."
• Are You Living an Urgent Life or an Important Life?. Killer quote: "Too often the urge to find a way to lose twenty pounds in six weeks (urgent) wins out over becoming the type of person who doesn’t miss workouts (important).... Nothing worth working for will ever seem urgent. That’s the nature of important goals. They don’t demand attention right now. They require a sense of purpose, a clear direction, and consistency over the long haul."
• How to motivate a young musician. This jives with James' post about identity-based habits; you'll become more successful at your chosen craft if you view practice as a crucial part of your identity.

On Not Being a Total Disaster

I weighed myself on my way out of the gym yesterday evening (obviously I'll be spending a lot of time doing this over the next three months). The scale read 197.8 pounds. Not good.

Then I went into the locker room to change clothes. I turned to look at the mirror. Let's just say that I'm not exactly at the peak of physical perfection nowadays.

I briefly considered the situation. For a moment, the words "staying lean is harder than it used to be" popped into my head. Is that true? You hear about people experiencing dramatic weight gains once the college years pass. Some of my high school classmates certainly verify that. And while I may only be 25 years old, that's actually a relatively advanced age compared to Stone Age humans. Maybe my gut isn't built to handle the same amounts of foods that it used to digest with aplomb. Perhaps this is supposed to get more difficult with time?

And then I laughed, because blaming genetics or age for my double-digit body fat percentage is pretty damn comical. This blog post was written by the same guy who:

• Not only goes back for seconds, but usually gets a third plate of catered lunch each day at the office.
• Drank approximately fifty beers between December 28th and New Year's Day.
• Regularly makes omelettes that are larger than his computer monitor.
• Is psychologically and physically incapable of stopping at one dinner roll at a restaurant.
• Has a "running" hobby that is intermittent at best (hence the New Year's Resolutions).
• Has the sleeping habits of... somebody who has very poor sleeping habits. 

The reason I'm not a ripped, lean ball of muscle is because I'm an undisciplined moron who is lucky to not weigh over 300 pounds by now. If I modified literally any of the multitudes of unhealthy habits I possess, I would probably lose five pounds in a week. Obsessing over the minutiae of "optimizing fitness outcomes" is so comical in comparison to my overarching failings to take care of myself.

Ramit has an amazing and hilarious post about precisely this. You should read it.

Here's the thesis: look for big wins. Instead of prematurely optimizing for the long run (and therefore setting yourself up for dashed expectations and likely failure), try to identify the areas that are completely and unrelentingly sabotaging your success. Remove the obstacle, and see what happens. Most people don't do this.

Process-Oriented Goals, and Q1 New Year's Resolutions

Well, here we are, a whole new year. (source)

James's blog has a good discussion of the difference between results-oriented goals (e.g. I want to be a NYT best-selling author) and process-oriented goals, or systems as he calls them (such as, I want to write 1,000 words every day). There's too many money quotes in the article to quote them all here, but James's main thesis is this: "[Results-based] goals are good for planning your progress and systems are good for actually making progress."

Let me give an example of how focusing on results rather than process has given me sub-optimal outcomes over the last few months. Below is a chart of my performance on chinups (measured via a one-rep max formula) from the beginning of September until around Thanksgiving:

Now, you should ignore the fact that my September 1RM was greater than my November 1RM, because in my opinion this formula puts an overemphasis on reps rather than weight (the September 7th spike is 14 reps of bodyweight, whereas the highest point in November is 9 reps of bodyweight plus 30lbs). Rather, look at the horizontal distance between the data points. In September, I was averaging between 2 and 4 days between each workout. Then all of the sudden I had a 12-day gap, then a couple of 5-day gaps, then two more 12-day gaps between each of my workouts. While each of these are explainable (my half-marathon training being the reason for one of the 12-day gaps), it demonstrates a poor control of process. While my performance (and therefore strength) did continue to improve as time went on, this chart shows a real lack of discipline.

So why was I so undisciplined? One explanation is that my process was goal-oriented: my goal was to increase performance in each workout, and eventually get to a 1RM somewhere north of 300lbs by some future date. There was absolutely no thought or rigor given to controlling the rate of work performed so as to maximize these outcomes.

Contrast this with other notable productivity systems such as:

• Nick Saban's: “Well, the process is really what you have to do day in and day out to be successful... we don’t try to focus as much on the outcomes as we do on being all that you can be."
• Stephen King's: "King strongly believes in setting writing goals, and recommends a minimum of a thousand words a day, six days a week."
• Jerry Seinfeld's: "If you made progress on your scripts every single day for an entire year, how many could you finish? Two? Four? More? Now, imagine that you've finally gotten the ear of an agent, producer or director. If you don't break the chain for two or three years, chances are you'll end up with a script to please just about any buyer....  if we want to succeed as writers, we must acknowledge our craft and respect the process."

So, with that in mind, I've decided that my New Year's Resolution for 2014 is to transform my results-oriented goals into process-oriented goals, and deliver on them. Rather than set goals for the entire year, I'm going to begin with 3-month periods (similar to Martin's checkpoints) so that my motivation does not lag after several months have passed. Tracking my progress (both in terms of work performed, and performance at said work) is essential. Here's what I've currently set for Q1 (through the end of March):

1. Run 200 total miles. I looked back at my half-marathon training logs and saw that I ran exactly 100 miles over a six-week period. Given that my training was far from perfect over that timespan (lots of 5- and 6-day breaks), it seems reasonable that I could keep a 15 mile per week cadence for a full three months.
2. Have 40 weightlifting gym sessions. That's 3 days per week: one for push/chest/tri, one for pull/back/bi, and one for legs. While I've regularly made it into the gym two or three days a week, I've also regularly punctuated that progress with a lot of missed time due to travel, illness, etc. This time around, we're getting to forty, period. Note that I'll also be tracking my progress on specific lifts, but my approach will be that progress follows process, not the other way around. My expectation is that if I make it into the gym forty times and bust my ass while in there, then I will see significant and sustained strength improvements. Here were my best performances of the past 3 months:
• Bench Press: 185lb x 6
• Weighted Chin-Ups: Bodyweight+30lbs x 9
• Squat: 225lb x 8
• Deadlift: 255lb x 7
3. Read 8 books cover-to-cover. This is another part of my life that has a lot of inertia. When I start rolling, my progress is quick, but I can easily go weeks between cracking a page. Hopefully, setting a specific goal of 11 days per book will help me overcome this.
4. The Goal Backlog. Obviously, I want to be better at more than just running, lifting, and reading. I could easily set a dozen goals that include writing, playing the piano, making money, learning a skill, etc. But as most self-improvement gurus will tell you, it's folly to work on too many goals at once. I tend to like the Rule of Three: Try not to work on more than 3 things at once. When I think of other aspects of my life that I want to improve, I make a note to revisit them after the 3-month period has ended. That doesn't mean that I'm not working on them (for example, I'm trying to do a better job of calling my friends/family on a daily basis), but I'm just not actively tracking the process.

Well, there you have it, my resolutions for the start of 2014. This past year has been extremely productive, but I know that all of us (and myself included) can improving our ability to... improve. I'll be posting my progress over the next few months. Thanks for reading.

Happy New Year, everybody.