💭 Annual Review / Why You Never Have Time / Choose Joy
💭 Annual Review / Why You Never Have Time / Choose Joy
Let's start the year right
“The older I get, the more I realize that most of life is a matter of what we pay attention to — of what we attend to, with focus.” - Luke Burgis
👋 Hi friends, and welcome to 2022.
Like many of you, I have been thinking about New Year’s resolutions in the past couple of weeks. Well, I don’t really set resolutions, but I do like to use this period to reflect on the past year and think about goals or intentions for the coming year.
To give this process some semblance of structure, I found the Annual Review Template from Anthony Gustin helpful. It is quite comprehensive, which meant I only answered about half the questions, but I think even doing half is better than doing nothing!
One theme that I kept coming back to was ‘focus’. I don’t think I am very good at focussing, as I tend to get easily distracted by new ideas.
I think this is quite a common problem, as there is so much happening in the world. I get excited about something for a short period of time, and then wander off to the next thing.
That’s not a great recipe for depth or mastery, so focus is something I hope to cultivate more of throughout this year.
I hope you had a great start to the year.
Jamie
📅 Annual Review Template
Thinking about goals, about New Year’s resolutions, it’s often hard to know where to start. We need a framework for reflection, to help us systematically consider where we are in our lives and where we want to go.
It doesn’t have to be that complicated, but just sitting with the right question at the right time could change the course of your life.
This set of questions from Anthony Gustin is one of the best frameworks I have found so far.
⏳ Why You Never Have Time
In the early 1900’s we didn’t have the dishwasher, the washing machine or even fridges and indoor plumbing. Since then hundreds of time saving devices have been invented that we now take for granted. The paradox of all these labour saving technologies is that we are somehow busier than ever.
In 1930, Keynes predicted that the working week would be drastically cut, to perhaps 15 hours a week, with people choosing to have far more leisure as their basic needs were satisfied. I am endlessly fascinated about why this prediction was so wrong.
This article dives into how our ever higher expectations have offset any potential gains from technology.
🤗 Choose Joy
The world can be quite depressing at the moment. Our primate brains were never meant to cope with 24/7 news beamed in from around the globe. Social media is doing things to our brians. It’s too much. Depression and anxiety are skyrocketing around the world.
How can anyone be ok in with all the suffering in the world? Maria Popova again comes to our rescue with a powerful message that we must cling to, much as a drowning man clings to a life-ring.
That message is simple: Despite everything, choose joy.
Was this edition valuable? Help me to improve it.
With your feedback, I can improve One Percent Wiser. Click on a link to vote: