Also does anyone else find it surprising that he doesn’t say anything about taking an occasional day off? Not from burpees, not from Work - no days off.
Also am I remembering correctly that when polled about which area we struggled the most to find time for, not a single one of us cited Work? LOL, we proposal nerds are sure a type.
Thank you so much for a thought-provoking and insightful discussion. Brace yourself for Wall of Words monologue, I just like to write about this stuff :
I mentioned in the Arete book club meeting the struggle around deciding what mountain to climb. In my case, my passion for my work is what's keeping me from realizing some equally important goals in my life (I may tell myself they're equally important…I don't always act like it). What do we do when we want competing things? We talked about balance, and I do appreciate the reminder that "balance" is a verb.
I wonder for myself - there was some talk in Arete, some of it kind of dismissive, about whether we go for the easy things because they are easy. Johnson mentions Cal Newport's Deep Work. This is a completely fabulous book that both defined what I was already doing and why it was working, and gave me strategies as well as tactics for making it work even better. His thesis, reasonably captured in Arete, is that you need large blocks of deeply immersive time to do meaningful work - to do the hard stuff, the stuff that is really work.
One important thread of Deep Work is how the demands of the immediate pull us away from that deep work, and shred our attention. We do it because we like to be responsive, sure, but in a lot of ways, we respond to the Slack or the email because it's easier than the full-brain real work. Johnson talks in Arete about the #1 thing people need to feel accomplished in their work is small wins. Feelings of accomplishment. Little moments where we actually did something. And to head back to Newport, email and Slack are small wins. They are flashy and really, really feel like work - but they're not. You answer the email - accomplishment. You did not write your team's strategic plan. That will take weeks, and that doesn't feel like a win until it's done, and that feels like a long time from now, replete with potential setbacks, unclear on the objectives, fraught with conflicting viewpoints…you get the point.
While I object to Johnson using "laziness" to describe what keeps us from our goals when I am surrounded by incredibly hardworking people, I do know that Newport is right. We don't have time to do the things we know are the most important to do if the less important things take up our time.
We talked in the book club about whether it's hard to prioritize Love. And now I can't stop picturing myself in a frequent contest for whether Work or Love gets my attention. Do I keep responding to emails until I've blown past when I said I'd come down for dinner? I'm in Deep Work - I need to do this dammit! - but the cat is giving me his "pick me up" meow and he's 16 and I want every cuddle I can get.
I wonder if there's a "Deep Love" model of operating in the world - Johnson certainly talks a lot about turning off our devices and being all-in on Love time. But more darkly, I wonder if by prioritizing Work over Love I'm doing the easy stuff instead of the hard stuff. It's easier for me to write a blockbuster proposal or respond to a million emails or manage a content updates project than to live in my messy human relationships. When I work, I get the small wins - and sometimes the big wins. How do you know if you got a "win" in Love? What fills your heart with joy one minute is a tense exchange and resentful parting of ways the next. Am I putting my time into Work to the exclusion of Love because Deep Love feels like hard work?
And work itself is also flashy, right? I mean, the work rewards are big and loud. Deals won. Praise from your boss - in front of his boss! Promotions and raises. Shout-outs in front of everyone. Cupcakes delivered to your house. Daily validation.
Sunshine and trees and purring cats are a lot more subtle, aren’t they? It takes a lot of yourself -time, practice, expansiveness - to find those rewarding. It takes time and quiet. When exactly do these start to feel like a win?
Plus there are alternative worldviews. I came across this quote from Victoria Erickson on Substack as I was in the middle of reading Arete, and it sure seemed relevant: “Some of us don’t want to be tough alpha leaders. Some of us just want to write and wander the garden and breathe in the sky and nourish and nurture and quietly create new pathways and live our lives as our art. To know the earth as poetry.” I'm good at climbing the Arete mountain…but as James Clear says, is it the right mountain? For those of us who said in book club today that Energy is the mountain they often don't find time to climb, how many of us will reach a point when we realize that our health and well-being really was the most important mountain to climb?
I also think about Supercommunicators and how focus and actual connection - "Me too" - helps people feel safe to share more. I would say this book club gives me lots of "me too!" Talking with proposal people always does. I do wonder how much better my communication would be if I were truly present. And this book prompted a lot of talk about vulnerability in the last book club - how willing are we to be vulnerable to people who are only half-paying attention? In Arete, he talks about presence being an important element of charisma, and how few people are truly present. Even at work, I am THE WORST (ALL CAPS) about being online doing work stuff instead of paying attention in meetings.
When it comes to being truly present and truly listening to the most important people in my life - Deep Love! - it goes downhill from there. Active listening? Sorry, I was thinking about something else. Could you repeat that? Having removed most work-related apps from my phone, it's not the pings…it's that I'm still chewing on Work problems that I can actually solve. My Love problems tend to not have solutions.
Some of us wondered in our first book club, about Co-Intelligence, if AI could liberate us from distractions to focus on what matters most. At this moment, I think about little else: What's a distraction, and what's essential? What will we find in ourselves about what's important? What will we find about where our attention should be? I don't know - fortunately, Johnson says, "You're confused? That's fantastic!"
We missed you Amy, hope to see you on the next one!
Also does anyone else find it surprising that he doesn’t say anything about taking an occasional day off? Not from burpees, not from Work - no days off.
Also am I remembering correctly that when polled about which area we struggled the most to find time for, not a single one of us cited Work? LOL, we proposal nerds are sure a type.
Thank you so much for a thought-provoking and insightful discussion. Brace yourself for Wall of Words monologue, I just like to write about this stuff :
I mentioned in the Arete book club meeting the struggle around deciding what mountain to climb. In my case, my passion for my work is what's keeping me from realizing some equally important goals in my life (I may tell myself they're equally important…I don't always act like it). What do we do when we want competing things? We talked about balance, and I do appreciate the reminder that "balance" is a verb.
I wonder for myself - there was some talk in Arete, some of it kind of dismissive, about whether we go for the easy things because they are easy. Johnson mentions Cal Newport's Deep Work. This is a completely fabulous book that both defined what I was already doing and why it was working, and gave me strategies as well as tactics for making it work even better. His thesis, reasonably captured in Arete, is that you need large blocks of deeply immersive time to do meaningful work - to do the hard stuff, the stuff that is really work.
One important thread of Deep Work is how the demands of the immediate pull us away from that deep work, and shred our attention. We do it because we like to be responsive, sure, but in a lot of ways, we respond to the Slack or the email because it's easier than the full-brain real work. Johnson talks in Arete about the #1 thing people need to feel accomplished in their work is small wins. Feelings of accomplishment. Little moments where we actually did something. And to head back to Newport, email and Slack are small wins. They are flashy and really, really feel like work - but they're not. You answer the email - accomplishment. You did not write your team's strategic plan. That will take weeks, and that doesn't feel like a win until it's done, and that feels like a long time from now, replete with potential setbacks, unclear on the objectives, fraught with conflicting viewpoints…you get the point.
While I object to Johnson using "laziness" to describe what keeps us from our goals when I am surrounded by incredibly hardworking people, I do know that Newport is right. We don't have time to do the things we know are the most important to do if the less important things take up our time.
We talked in the book club about whether it's hard to prioritize Love. And now I can't stop picturing myself in a frequent contest for whether Work or Love gets my attention. Do I keep responding to emails until I've blown past when I said I'd come down for dinner? I'm in Deep Work - I need to do this dammit! - but the cat is giving me his "pick me up" meow and he's 16 and I want every cuddle I can get.
I wonder if there's a "Deep Love" model of operating in the world - Johnson certainly talks a lot about turning off our devices and being all-in on Love time. But more darkly, I wonder if by prioritizing Work over Love I'm doing the easy stuff instead of the hard stuff. It's easier for me to write a blockbuster proposal or respond to a million emails or manage a content updates project than to live in my messy human relationships. When I work, I get the small wins - and sometimes the big wins. How do you know if you got a "win" in Love? What fills your heart with joy one minute is a tense exchange and resentful parting of ways the next. Am I putting my time into Work to the exclusion of Love because Deep Love feels like hard work?
And work itself is also flashy, right? I mean, the work rewards are big and loud. Deals won. Praise from your boss - in front of his boss! Promotions and raises. Shout-outs in front of everyone. Cupcakes delivered to your house. Daily validation.
Sunshine and trees and purring cats are a lot more subtle, aren’t they? It takes a lot of yourself -time, practice, expansiveness - to find those rewarding. It takes time and quiet. When exactly do these start to feel like a win?
Plus there are alternative worldviews. I came across this quote from Victoria Erickson on Substack as I was in the middle of reading Arete, and it sure seemed relevant: “Some of us don’t want to be tough alpha leaders. Some of us just want to write and wander the garden and breathe in the sky and nourish and nurture and quietly create new pathways and live our lives as our art. To know the earth as poetry.” I'm good at climbing the Arete mountain…but as James Clear says, is it the right mountain? For those of us who said in book club today that Energy is the mountain they often don't find time to climb, how many of us will reach a point when we realize that our health and well-being really was the most important mountain to climb?
I also think about Supercommunicators and how focus and actual connection - "Me too" - helps people feel safe to share more. I would say this book club gives me lots of "me too!" Talking with proposal people always does. I do wonder how much better my communication would be if I were truly present. And this book prompted a lot of talk about vulnerability in the last book club - how willing are we to be vulnerable to people who are only half-paying attention? In Arete, he talks about presence being an important element of charisma, and how few people are truly present. Even at work, I am THE WORST (ALL CAPS) about being online doing work stuff instead of paying attention in meetings.
When it comes to being truly present and truly listening to the most important people in my life - Deep Love! - it goes downhill from there. Active listening? Sorry, I was thinking about something else. Could you repeat that? Having removed most work-related apps from my phone, it's not the pings…it's that I'm still chewing on Work problems that I can actually solve. My Love problems tend to not have solutions.
Some of us wondered in our first book club, about Co-Intelligence, if AI could liberate us from distractions to focus on what matters most. At this moment, I think about little else: What's a distraction, and what's essential? What will we find in ourselves about what's important? What will we find about where our attention should be? I don't know - fortunately, Johnson says, "You're confused? That's fantastic!"
We missed you Amy, hope to see you on the next one!