It is important to preface this entire document by saying that I had very specific objectives for creating a tribe. In particular, I wanted a group that was emotionally vulnerable with each other, who are reacting in real time to each other’s responses, where we create a safe space to say and feel and process anything. If you’re looking for something else, only some of this will apply to you. If you share this vision with me, a list of concrete steps to get there from here is below the fold:
How to Deal with Email
March 28, 2014 by · Leave a Comment
One of the biggest problems that I commonly hear from my friends is that processing email is completely unmanageable. The most important thing to remember is that your attention is the most precious resource that you have, and you need to guard it jealously. All of the following principles flow from this fundamental insight. The following seven steps will get you most of the way towards inbox sanity.
Turn Off Email Notifications
The very first step you need to take to reclaim your valuable and limited attention is to turn off any form of email notification. If your phone vibrates, knock that off immediately. If your mail client gives you a popup or rings or displays a red badge, change the settings. If you are keeping your inbox open in another tab and see new emails coming in, close it. By having your devices constantly pushing email on you, you will be constantly tempted by email and switching between tasks repeatedly, which is a disaster for productivity.
The most common pushback I get on this point is that sometimes there are legitimately urgent messages that need to be answered. In some cases this may be true, but for the vast majority of people what is the worst case scenario? We have a different method of dealing with urgent concerns, and that is called a telephone—call or text will do. If you need to respond to emails for work, go to the people who need you urgently and explain the situation. You are very busy and constant emails are distracting you from important tasks, ask them to give you a quick call when they urgently need your attention.
Unsubscribe from Everything Immediately
By this point, it has probably become habitual to scan over your inbox and either ignore (or preferably archive) specific sources of messages — maybe this is a company that keeps emailing you about its latest deals or products, for instance, or maybe this is some noisy Facebook group that a distant acquaintance thought you would enjoy. Regardless of how quick and easy you think it is to get rid of these things, you are incurring a small penalty of time and attention again and again to even glance at the email. So from now on, you have a new habit: unsubscribe from everything the first time you no longer want to read it. This takes a little bit of upfront time — usually one or two clicks, maybe typing your email or unchecking boxes—but it saves you precious seconds every time you look at your inbox. You would be shocked how quickly you recoup that particular investment.
Some lists are worth staying on—maybe you’re on the mailing list of your favorite author because you actually want to be notified when he’s in town, or maybe you’ve signed up for an email course or some daily tips that you actually read. Maybe your favorite fanfic is constantly being updated, and being notified when the new chapter is up prevents you from obsessively refreshing your browser. Pay attention to your behavior. Once your eyes start preemptively glazing over when you see an address, you know it’s time to unsubscribe.
Create Filters
There is an intermediate step between emails you want to know about immediately and ones that you never want to read, and for this purpose some brilliant software engineers created filters. Any emails that you receive on a regular basis are extremely good candidates for filtering.
For some personal examples, I have a filter that sends all emails originating from Meetup to their own special folder. Any time I am wondering what is going on in town, or if I have a free evening to kill, I have a host of events available to me at the click of a button. I do something similar for mailing lists, which routinely contain interesting information that I do intend to read — at my leisure, that is.
Batch Process Email
Now that you’ve greatly reduced the number of incoming emails, you are in a much better position to deal with your inbox. You have also stopped your devices from constantly distracting you, so you’re not constantly processing emails — from here on out, processing email is a deliberate choice on your part. You will pick exactly when and where you want to deal with emails, and not a moment before. When you have an unbroken block of time — and this may even be worth explicitly scheduling — you should sit down and continue processing emails until you run out of time or are finished. (What does ”finishing” email even mean? Keep reading!)
By the way, in case this is not abundantly clear, you should always do batch processing of replies from a computer with a full keyboard. Mobile keyboards are simply not designed for rapid typing in the same way. The kind of batch processing that you can do on a mobile phone is that of reading and archiving emails — which allows you to focus immediately on responding when you get to a computer. Leave anything that requires a non-urgent response for later.
Minimize Replies
The first principle I introduced was about reducing the number of incoming emails, and now it is time to look at the other side of the equation. Writing emails takes even more time than reading them, so if anything this step is even more critical! You can follow one very simple heuristic here: shorter is better, and replies that never get written are the shortest ones of all. And that’s it!
Ironically, I didn’t learn this lesson for myself until I finally caved in and got myself a smartphone. I am the king of verbose emails, I love to write paragraph after paragraph in response to just about anything. Ask me a question and I will go on at great length. Well, I very quickly gave up on the idea of composing long emails using the smartphone’s keyboard. In fact, I learned to become as parsimonious with my words as possible, because it was so aggravating. And you know what? Nothing changed. If anything, I got faster responses from shorter emails! No one was upset I didn’t provide them with reams of information. This was so striking that I changed my email signature to say: ”Sent from my smartphone, enjoy the unusual brevity.” And I never looked back.
There is one situation where I believe that a quick reply is better than no reply, and those are the emails sitting at the bottom of your inbox the longest, the ones you have been putting off indefinitely because you really want to do them right This was one of my biggest personal challenges in dealing with my own inbox, especially given my propensity towards long emails. It still hurts me that I put off the most important emails for weeks, or months, or sometimes even forever, because I wanted to write a long reply and simply never had the time or motivation. I failed to congratulate people on major life events, or catch up with old friends, or follow up important leads, because I didn’t think I could get away with a quick response. But the truth is, a quick response to an important email is better than no response at all. Please don’t leave the most important parts of your life to ferment at the bottom of your inbox.
Be Realistic
Your colleague sees a funny video and emails it to your group, or an old friend of yours sees an article and thinks of you. While these are kind and even important gestures, there are simply only so many hours in the day. There is already more content out there than we could consume in our entire lives, so we need to prioritize where we direct our attention. One type of email that I tend to keep around is something that seems like it could be really interesting, but never quite get around to looking at. So what is my solution? I collect all of these links and I put them in a separate file or bookmark folder. When I have a spare moment and think about it, I go back and look at them. Some of them you will probably never get around to, and that’s okay. Be realistic about how you are going to spend your time, and don’t waste any of it agonizing over whether or not to consume content.
Inbox Zero
So what is the end result of all of this advice? Quite simply, to have zero emails left in your inbox at the end of processing. This should be the default resting state of your inbox: you are either ignoring email entirely, or your inbox is empty, end of story.
The archive button is your best friend. Every time you finish reading something, archive it. Every time you send a reply, archive it. (Note that Google Labs has a ”Send and Archive” button that seriously comes in handy here.) Every time you add another link to your ”eventually” list, archive it. When you get an email about coordination or scheduling, enter it into your calendar immediate and then archive it.
After your initial quick pass over the inbox to clear out most of the items, everything remaining should be something that is awaiting either immediate reply or action. After you do what is necessary, archive it. If something is sitting in your inbox that you don’t intend to do until later, then add it to your to-do list, flag the email or send it to a special folder, and then archive it.
…and there you have it: a pristine inbox. Doesn’t that feel relaxing? Your inbox induces no cognitive load whatsoever! You are never left feeling guilty, or wondering if something slipped through the cracks, or worrying about replying to important emails. Everything is exactly where you put it, and you know just where to look to find it.
Low Hanging Fruit for Health and Wellness
March 28, 2014 by · 8 Comments
Include in Diet
Fish or cod liver oil: excellent source of omega-3 fats which most people are severely deficient in, take 1-2 tsp/day. These fats are fragile molecules and can go rancid easily, so store them in the refrigerator. If you buy capsules, bite into one occasionally to test for bitterness. I buy the oil in translucent glass bottles online, sealed with vitamin E and nitrogen – I recommend Carlson’s or Nordic Naturals, check before you buy!
Liver: the most potent single food in terms of vitamin and mineral content, in a form that is easily absorbed by the body (much better than a multivitamin). Eat at least 4 oz/week for optimal health. You can find grass-fed liver at local farmer’s markets, or frozen liver in most grocery stores. If the taste of beef liver is too strong, switch to calf or chicken liver, or soak it in milk for at least 30 minutes before cooking.
Grass-fed butter: excellent source of healthy fats unique to dairy products, and fat-soluble vitamins. Kerrygold is the most commonly-available brand of grass-fed butter. Grass-fed ghee is often available in specialty ethnic stores.
Coconut oil: the medium-chain triglycerides are metabolized by the body in a unique way, and promotes cellular repair mechanisms. You can buy in bulk online, for instance at Tropical Traditions.
Remove from Diet
Sugar: probably the least controversial thing on this whole list! In general, cutting back on sweets means you will lose the taste over time. Liquid sugars like soda and fruit juice are the worst offenders, drink coffee or tea or flavor water with fruit instead (diet soda may not have calories but it maintains that sweet craving). Pure solid sugar like candy can be replaced with fruit, which has water and some vitamins in addition. For replacements, try using the natural non-caloric sweetener stevia, or buy dextrose powder (a fructose-free sweetener) online.
Vegetable oil: primary source of inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids, unfortunately it is very common in the food supply. First, avoid deep fried foods entirely, because heated omega-6s are highly unstable. Avoid margarine or vegetable shortening, which contain trans-fats. When eating out, ask for your food to be cooked in butter. When eating salad, stick to olive oil and vinegar, as most dressings have a vegetable oil base. Never use this in your own home!
Grains and legumes: your mileage may vary on these foods, if you want starch then try to mostly eat root vegetables like (sweet) potatoes. Many people have problems with gluten, found primarily in wheat, barley and rye – stores will often have a gluten-free section with alternatives. Most people tolerate rice and corn well, so substitute rice pasta and corn tortillas. Opt for sprouted or sourdough-fermented bread over white or whole wheat. With legumes, see how your GI tract responds. Soaking, sprouting, fermenting and cooking all improve digestibility. Soy is particularly bad since it has chemicals that mimic estrogen. Peanuts are also strongly immunogenic.
Non-Dietary Measures
Vitamin D: ideally produced from sunlight, but more practically supplemented. To get enough from sun you need a UV index above 3, which happens in the tropics and during spring and summer noonday sun in temperate regions. For someone with pale skin, 15 minutes front and back of full-body exposure between 10 AM – 2 PM gives you the maximum dose. When not exposed to this amount of sunlight, supplement at least 2,000 IUs/day (and no more than 10,000 IUs). Ideally, get your blood levels tested regularly and find out what dose keeps you in the optimal range.
Sprinting: anaerobic exercise gives you all the benefits of aerobic exercise and then some, releasing beneficial fat-burning hormones and encouraging mitochondrial proliferation. Sprinting requires no equipment, and only minutes of work! Alternate 20 seconds of max-effort sprinting and 10 seconds of rest for 8 intervals, twice/week. This will be very difficult at first, but it gets easier each time – if 10 seconds of rest is not enough, you can rest for longer periods between each interval and sprint harder. You don’t need any more exercise than that to see benefits, unless you want to build muscle or have fun!
Sleep: the second-least controversial thing on this list, chronic sleep deprivation has numerous health consequences and acute sleep deprivation just doesn’t feel good. Go to sleep early enough that you don’t need to wake up to an alarm clock. If you are not getting tired at night, try eliminating sources of blue light from your bedroom (or wear Uvex orange glasses before bed), and take 300 mcg melatonin an hour before sleep. If your mind is racing, try writing those thoughts down on a piece of paper, or go talk to a friend!
Intermittent fasting: useful to get your body into fat-burning mode, encourage cellular repair, and generally give your body a break from metabolism. This will be much easier once you have transitioned to a high-fat diet, since fasting through hypoglycemia is unpleasant. Due to the hormone ghrelin we get hungry around habitual meal times, but this effect fades within days. The easiest way to create a longer fast is to skip one of the meals around sleep, either breakfast or dinner, whichever is easier for you. Work your way up to a 16 hour window daily – and longer if you feel like it!
Hypothetical Apostasy on Nutrition
November 5, 2013 by · 5 Comments
As many of you know, I am a major proponent of paleo/primal/ancestral/etc type diets. At this point the term “paleo” has come to be applied to many very different diets, but for the record my own personal beliefs coincide most strongly with the Perfect Health Diet. Whatever you want to call it, it is certainly outside of conventional wisdom and mainstream scientific/medical opinion. This has been a point of contention between me and others who put more stock in mainstream opinion. I have spent many hundreds, or maybe thousands, of hours doing research into human metabolism, and as a result my ideas are starting to get sticky.
Periodically I like to subject my beliefs to one of my all-time favorite techniques, the hypothetical apostasy by philosopher Nick Bostrom. The basic idea is to produce a good faith effort at destroying your currently held position. This process has helped me improve my thinking on a number of topics, including the original mind-killer itself: politics. Given my particularly strong beliefs about diet, it is long past due for me to try this exercise. Below the fold is my best attempt to undermine the paleo position:
My Current Productivity Stack
November 2, 2013 by · 3 Comments
One of the main topics of conversation on this blog is productivity, as you can tell by its weighting in the tag cloud below. Much of the discussion thus far has been about productivity hacks, various techniques or environmental factors you can tweak to optimize your performance. What I haven’t talked much about is what my own personal setup looks like. While I expect everyone’s system to be a little different, this at least provides one specific example for people to work from.
Religious Fasting Traditions
October 21, 2013 by · 1 Comment
If you’ve ever talked to me about nutrition, you would know that I’m a huge proponent of fasting. I knew that cultural and religious traditions throughout the world had incorporated some form of fasting practice into their doctrines, though I had not systematically tried to document it myself at the time. There may be a decent review article on this somewhere, but I decided to sit down and do a little research myself last year, and these are my notes from that exercise.
tl;dr: there are lots of different kinds of fasting. Some commonalities include the use of sunrise/sunset, fasting as a spiritual practice (opposed to mere starvation) including prayer and charity, proscribed feasting days/periods, and not drinking water either. Longer-term fasts usually restrict eating during daylight hours and/or restricted types of food during the night, and these appear to be the most common. Fasts of 1-2 days can involve complete cessation of both food and water. The strictest fast is 2 meals over 5 days. Fasting is at most 250 days/year, and 1-2 times per week or month is very common. Exceptions for the young, the old, the sick, pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, laborers, and travelers are relatively common. Not every religion has a fasting tradition.
Parenting and the Non-Shared Environment
October 14, 2013 by · 9 Comments
There is a major thread in the parenting literature that claims, in short, that parenting (short of outright abuse) has little to no effect on adult outcomes that we care about. Two exemplars in this category include The Nurture Assumption and Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids. This claim is largely based on twin and adoption studies, which allow us to attribute the observed variance in traits to genetic, shared environment, and non-shared environment factors. The general pattern is that lots of traits are about half genetic and half non-shared environment, with little contribution from shared environment. There is a major embedded assumption in this line of reasoning: that parenting effects are mainly in the shared environment. It turns out that this assumption is not a particularly good one.
A review article on research into the non-shared environment was released about two years ago, and it provides some fascinating data on this subject. I will quote some sections at length, but the entire paper is worth reading. Here is the first excerpt of interest:
Summary of A Guide to the Good Life
May 30, 2013 by · 3 Comments
A Guide to the Good Life: the Ancient Art of Stoic Joy is a handbook of Stoic philosophy by professor William Irvine. He points out that Stoicism is very different than the stereotypes we have developed about unfeeling robots, and in fact it contains a lot of timeless advice for psychological well being. This is not an academic work of philosophy, it is written as a popular self-improvement book. Though he does discuss a bit of the philosophy and history behind Stoicism, the bulk of the book consists of practical and actionable advice to improve your life. My summary reorganizes the book chapters, with a brief intro in the beginning, followed by all the actionable advice and the author’s personal suggestions, and concluding with a discussion of Stoicism in the modern context and some brief notes on the history of Stoic philosophy.
Preventing Peanut Allergies
April 15, 2013 by · 4 Comments
My default position when I started looking into peanut allergies was that exposure to potential allergens (particularly the ones outside our evolutionary heritage) would sensitize children to that allergen in the future. Eliezer once described changing your mind as the penultimate technique of rationality, and I always enjoy the opportunity to stretch that particular muscle. But I’m getting ahead of myself here…
Peanut allergies are one of the most common, and yet also most severe, food allergies. It tends to begin very early (unlike seafood allergies), and persist throughout life (unlike milk and soy allergies). The incidence is hard to measure, but potentially up to a few percent of the population will suffer from them over time. This may not seem large in an absolute sense, but it is one of the more common diseases, and is potentially fatal, requiring extensive lifestyle modification to avoid exposure. Allergies themselves, in one form or another, are much more common and often annoying, so if any underlying mechanism can be revealed and averted, so much the better.
I am involved with a small rationality and parenting mailing list, and in one thread I casually mentioned that we planned to exclusively breastfeed through 6 months, in part because of allergies. The benefits of (in some cases exclusive) breastfeeding are well established, and the WHO recommends exclusive breastfeeding up through 6 months. Furthermore hunter-gatherers don’t seem to supplement food until at least 6 months of age. That part is not so controversial. But I offhandedly said I’d heard the advice to avoid allergenic foods until two years of age. That prompted a response. Particularly a link to this paper.
To summarize the methodology, the researchers sent out surveys to a few thousand Jewish families in Israel and the UK, asking them about their weaning behavior and incidence of various allergies and other atopic disease. They had some very stark findings.
[Update: the randomized controlled trials I mentioned were coming have finally started to arrive – and the LEAP study from the UK finds a dramatic 81% decrease in peanut allergies from early exposure.]
