My friend Yuval recommended this book to me, after I recommended [[Four thousand weeks, Oliver Burkeman|Four Thousand Weeks]] to him some time ago, and he's taken a liking.
The book is very much in the same themes, but he has a "daily" concept, in which he invites the reader to read a chapter (7-10 minutes listening for me) every day.
Even though he advises to not meticulously write down to retain, and just read the book, I'm going to add a couple of sentences every day.
### Being Finite
Day 1: It's worse than you think
Day 2: Kayak vs Superyacht
Day 3: You **only** have to face the consequences, similar to Habit 1 of [[Book Summaries/The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey|The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey]]
Day 4: Power of done list: not starting with debt
Day 5: River vs bucket // Too much information: it's not just needles in haystack, it's a pile of needles. Efficiency trap -- you become better at it but it doesn't help. 2x and silences. Proposes to treat it as an [[A-telic activities]], also as river not as bucket. Also you don't have to "squirrel information" (yes I see the irony)
Day 6: Can't care about everything -> take the total worry-hours and split it more coarsely.
Day 7: Let the future be the future -> feel comfortable about crossing the bridge as you get it
### Taking Action
Day 8: Decision-hunting, feeling comfortable before decisions. Find the small decisions you can make to cat the put through the woods
Day 9: Finishing things: there's an energy that is released when you have it. Perfectionism starts. Starting belongs in limitlessness. Finish the first page, ship it. With its imperfection. At 30K feet it looks good, but when you dig into detail there's the blights, imperfections. See it as distance
Day 10: Look for the life task: Jung's being down on. What's a life task? It's different than a calling. It's what you have to actually do.
Day 11: Just go to the shed. Don't have to organize it, just "be there". Look at what's there, instead of the [[Regret paralysis]].
Day 12: Rules that serve life. Benedict and drinking. Doing things "daily-ish". 2x/week is not daily-ish. 5x/week is.
Day 13: Three hours. Seem to continue coming, it's enough. That's the [[Make Time, Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky(annotated)]] philosophy.
Day 14: Sam Harris' idea of problems are not going to run out
### Letting Go
Day 15: What if it was easy? On the allure of effort. It could be just easy
Day 16: Reverse golden rule, it's similar to what Jordan Peterson talks about. Take care of yourself like you would do for others
Day 17: Generosity on a whim (Joseph Goldstein). Do the small imperfect things, it's OK.
Day 18: Not responsible for other people's feelings, it's their problem. You can say nos and embrace your finitude. If you treat something as urgent bc you're afraid how they'll feel you're shortchanging yourself
Day 19: Good time vs good story, some unpredictability is good
Day 20: Quantity goals -- firing the self critic. If the quantity is good, if you did enough inputs you can feel not responsible for the outputs. [[You have the right to action, but not to the fruits of action]]. It's a little the opposite of [[Outcomes vs outputs - Get the right scoreboard for your team|outcome]] oriented thinking, but it's also a little bit like [[The scoreboard takes care of itself]]
Day 21: What's an interruption anyway. Be like Niv, you can look at someone in the eye and say I'm sorry, I can't help you right now. It does cost the five minutes, but it costs that anyway
### Showing Up
Day 22: Stop being kind to future you. Talks about [[Keynes' Cat]]. Of course we should be purposive but not to the extreme.
Day 23: [[Don't clear the decks]] -- he calls this "pay yourself first"
Day 24: Scruffy hospitality -- not everything has to be super tidy by the time everyone arrives.
Day 25: You can't hoard life: don't get pre-nostalgic about moments?
Day 26: Liberation with doubt: the story of the rebbe with "life is a river", "so it's not a river 🤷♂️". OODA loop is not 100%, sometimes you can't do OO before DA.
Day 27: C'est fait par du monde. A little bit weak of a chapter -- but he tries to reconcile between the "strive the best" to "you're not superhuman". I feel like this is slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
Day 28: Rabbi Simcha Bunim with two papers "For me the world was created" + "I am but dust and ashes" -> use whichever needed. Zooming out, it doesn't matter because we occupy a microscopic slice of time on a speck of dust; but also [[Mother Theresa effect]] means that each individual has its impact, and it doesn't have to be something grandiose.
### Summary
I liked the concept of daily readings. It helps create a routine, and quantifies the insights. A good [[Sermons get you closer to your ideal self|sermon]] for minimalism/essentialism.
#published 2025-05-25