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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
John Fitch
Read between
November 12, 2021 - January 22, 2022
Working only two two-hour slots per day, from 10am to noon, and again from 5 to 7pm, he deliberately used the time in between to allow his subconscious mind to work and for ideas to incubate and mature. His output speaks for itself, both in quantity and enduring importance.
Practice: Split your workday into several distinct parts: short bursts of high focus, with good types of rest in between When was the last time you actually gave your undivided attention to one question for an hour or two? Jot down a significant problem you are trying to solve and spend two hours thinking through only that. No distractions allowed. But don’t force it either. If you feel completely stuck with a problem, step away and let your subconscious work on it. We’re not talking procrastination, but good rest. You might be surprised by the ease with which you can solve the previously
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Rest is Active
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“The best rest for doing one thing is doing another thing,” writes Wilder Penfield
Our brains, and, as a consequence, our productivity and creativity, directly benefit from us being active – and though it may seem counterintuitive, such activity is precisely the sort of good rest our minds need to recover.
The Four Factors of Recovery
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Relaxation, or allowing our mind and body to wind down. Control, or deciding how to spend our time and attention. Mastery, or being challenged enough to get into a flow state. Detachment, or being so absorbed that we forget about work.
Søren Kierkegaard
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Every farmer worth his salt knows that you can’t just keep growing the same crop year after year in the same place and expect a consistently high yield.
Protect Your Rest
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Rest and time off are too important to be left to chance or the empty spaces in our calendar. We need to schedule and protect them.
Sleep
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And sleep debt is additive. One week of six hours of sleep per night is just as bad as a single night with no sleep at all!
Matthew Walker
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“The shorter your sleep, the shorter your life span.”
Walker himself strictly sticks to an eight-hour sleep window, with a consistent time every single day. His partner even takes nine hours to feel fully rested, going to bed half an hour before him and sleeping in half an hour longer.
Practice: Set yourself a non negotiable “sleep opportunity window” For most people, this should be at least eight hours. And it should be the same every day. Walker’s personal window is 10:30pm to 6:30am, but you should set yours based on your own chronotype, whether you are a morning person or a night owl. If you sleep with a partner, consider getting a “sleep divorce” and sleep in separate bedrooms. Despite the stigma around this, data shows that relationships (and yes, also sex life) actually improve through this practice. Just make sure you still find time to cuddle before and after a
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The Power of Dreams
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Additionally, REM sleep allows us to reinforce new memories and motor skills by replaying them in our dreams.
The Miracle Drug
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Getting plenty of sleep can boost our cognitive abilities, as well as our social skills, dramatically.
How to Get More Sleep
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By now, you have probably realized just how critical proper sleep is. It’s perhaps the single most essential and universal form of time off, and a good sleep routine should be a core part of everyone’s rest ethic.
If you want to be a pro, you have to sleep like one.
But unfortunately, more and more people build up so much sleep pressure and sleep so little that they still have residues the next day, leaving them feeling groggy, especially until they get the first cup of coffee, sweeping their adenosine buildup under an increasingly bulging rug.
A solid sleep routine is the best way to sync your circadian rhythm and sleep pressure, and to make sure you get that good snooze that allows you to show up in top form every single day.
LeBron James and Mike Mancias
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Mancias knows that the “always-recovering” mindset allows a player like James to be successful and provide longevity throughout his demanding, high-stakes career.
Practice: Sleep like a professional You likely won’t become a basketball star overnight, but you can still have the sleep routine of a champion. James’s bedtime routine includes setting the room temperature to an optimal range and making the room dark by shutting all the shutters and curtains, and turning off all the light sources. To relax and wind down, he ensures no electronics 30–45 minutes before going to sleep. By consciously controlling your sleep environment, you can get the same sleep quality as one of the greatest performers in the world.
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Exercise
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It’s easy to get lost in busyness and forget the importance of good nutrition and exercise on our health and ability to lead. To avoid this, we should build routines around them, making them integral parts of our rest ethic.
Keep Fit, Stay Sharp
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Exercise is one of the best tools we have to pull our mind out of the daily grind, boost our brain’s performance, and see things in a new light. Putting in time to work out is not wasted work time.
Exercise not only builds muscles, but it also builds character and grit, two things you need to survive in the marketplace.
Firas Zahabi
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“Consistency over intensity. Intensity can only be done every once in a while. There is a cost for going to your max. Nobody sprints every day.”
“Stress plus recovery equals adaptation. Stress plus stress equals detraining and injury. If you don’t go through the recovery phase, you will not reap the benefits of your training.”
A 401(K) For Your Brain
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“The most transformative thing that exercise will do is its protective effects on your brain,” argues Wendy Suzuki
Terry Rudolph
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Maybe we should all just take a bit more time to lie with our eyes closed on a beanbag and let our mind get absorbed in deep thought. And no better way to do this than in solitude.
Solitude
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Yes, we are social animals, but even our social nature needs the right environment, as well as the right balance, an ebb and flow between socializing and solitude.
Solitude has become a resource. And many of us are depleted of it.
Artists Work Best Alone
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We need the mental freedom that only solitude can provide, and we need it for more than just a few minutes at a time.
A study by Stanford scientists found that even just a 90-minute solitary walk in nature can significantly reduce levels of rumination and the risk for mental illness.
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Ed “Woody” Allen (a.k.a. Etherwood)
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The Cost of Connectivity
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Derek Sivers
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