Colin Wright's Blog, page 15

Meaning in the Missing

We don’t fully appreciate some things until they’re gone.

We might intellectually know that we’d miss them, and may even recall a previous absence that struck us like a bell, reverberating through seemingly disconnected aspects of our routines and priorities and lifestyles—but that’s not the same as viscerally, presently experiencing an omission.

I recently had to set aside coffee for a few weeks, for instance, and a morning cup or two of simple, black joe is a ritual I enjoy as part of a larger c...

Taking Notes

I’m not a consistent note-taker, in the sense that some people are very good about jotting down insights and quotes as they read or go about their day.

For the way I learn, personally, I find that unloading new knowledge onto a page as soon as I’m exposed to it keeps me from ruminating on and parsing it, so it doesn’t stick as well. I know other people operate differently, though, and at times with great success.

I do, however, tend to keep notes on internal learnings and lived experiences—especia...

Intention Filters

Before fully investing myself in a new undertaking, I attempt to whittle away flaws, identify weak points, and allow myself to consider setting the concept aside, completely, if warranted.

In practice, this might mean that I’ve dreamt up some new project or lifestyle experiment that seems like it could be interesting to pursue. Or it might mean I’ve thought up a book that seems worth writing, or an essay that may prove worthwhile.

Starting with the initial concept, I try to establish, first, if th...

Mere Persistence

Strength, fortitude, gutsiness, grit, dynamism, determination, purposefulness, brilliance, courage; these are all wonderful traits to have, whether you’re hoping to accomplish a personal goal or produce something of value.

Also vital, though, and often under-appreciated, is the importance of just showing up and continuing to do something over and over again for an extended period of time.

Mere presence and participation are seldom celebrated or sexy. Staunchness doesn’t tend to earn accolades, and...

Embraces & Barriers

If you find yourself in a dangerous environment, there are two primary paths you can take to reduce the potency of those dangers: you can build barriers between yourself and the threats, and you can acclimate yourself to them.

The barriers we might build range from weapons to clothing to artificial shelters. These are all things that other creatures also make for themselves, but we humans are particularly good at tool-making.

Acclimation generally takes quite a bit more time, but it also d...

Habit Pairs & Poka-Yokes

There’s a fair amount of effort required to instigate change in our lives, and maintaining change over time often requires additional mental effort.

Some behavioral changes stick because there are no alternatives, or because they’re latently enjoyable, but many adjustments of this kind require conscious, deliberative motivation, and that motivation is psychologically costly.

Research has demonstrated that what’s often called “pairing” or “stacking” can help us stick to new habits after the...

Modest Control

The degree to which we feel we’re in control of a situation can influence the way we feel about that situation.

This is often true superficially, in the sense that it can be comforting to have our hands on the wheel compared to careening through unfamiliar terrain while in the passenger seat. But research has also shown that our sense of control can influence everything from our self-reported levels of happiness, to our degrees of depression, to our lifespans.

More control over our lives i...

Updating Priors

In the world of statistical inference, a “prior” refers to the beliefs we have about a particular value before we have all the data.

In practice, this means that if we’ve done all the calculations required to ship a batch of a particular product from warehouses to grocery stores, but then discover that the product actually weights three ounces more than we were originally told, it’s important that we go back through all of our calculations and change them based on this updated information.

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Curated Inputs

I spend a significant amount of time each day parsing information. This informs my work, but it also informs my thinking. It requires a decent amount of time and energy, but I consider that time and energy to be an investment: it helps me grow, and it helps me do work I enjoy.

That said, filtering and focus are vital to this effort, allowing me to glean more of the valuable bits—the signal— from the global info-stream, and less of the noise that would otherwise overload my inputs.

My speci...

Returning to Why

Many of us, at some point in our lives, have reason to pause, take stock, and ask ourselves why we’re doing what we’re doing, and why we’re doing it the way we doing it.

This can lead to sudden pivots, educational missteps, valuable recalibrations, and fundamental changes in the way we perceive ourselves.

There are externally catalyzed milestones that can trigger such moments—quarter- and mid-life crises come to mind—but it’s possible to instigate such thinking intentionally, as well.

D...