Day Sixteen: Nose to the Grindstone

The pile of work is large, and time, as always is short. It is abundandtly clear what is necessary: Hard, continuous labor. But there is a distraction in that the pile is so varied and large that it is overwhelming to pick only aspect to work on.

This was the situation that I found myself in this morning. I decided to medicate myself with caffeine, and to dedicate myself to the grind. While I was moderately successful, and did meet some of my goals, I was not entirely focused.

I was distracted, as I always am, but my various news sites. Thus, tomorrow I will not visit them once. I was also distracted by the fact that there are many aspects of work that I need to complete. And while I was working on one, my mind was also drawn astray by others. Thus, I must plan for the day which aspects of my work I will focus on, and to what degree. Then, I will not be distracted by thinking of other aspects because I will know that they will be handled another day.

This plan of eliminating distractions seems like a good way to leverage my willpower. If I have no TV, I cannot fall prey to its call. If I commit to a plan for the day, it should remove thoughts of alternate tasks from my mind. If I block the news sites that distract me (the next step), then the time I would waste on them will be reallocated (hopefully to more productive pursuits).

So, I must continue making reachable concrete goals for each day, and alloting time to reach them. I must begin to mechanically eliminate distractions so that I will have no choice but to do work. At the same time, I am establishing a routine of un-fun chores such as working out, writing a blog entry, flossing, and tidying up my room that provide daily tests to my willpower such that it may slowly increase in power over time.

The power of compound interest has been a driving factor in my life ever since I mastered the guitar, and then tennis. What I mean by compound interest is really a long-term mindset. Most people don't save enough for their retirement because it is more fun to spend now rather than leverage compound interest by saving (in effect stretching their money exponentially further).

When I first starting playing guitar, it was difficult and progress was pitifully slow. The only thing that kept me playing was my unsatiated sex drive (I wanted to impress girls). The accumulation of effort over time to learn new skills is amazing. An hour each day, although tiring, eventually brought me to be a very good guitarist. It was a good investment, because it is a skill that will be with me for my entire life, and I likely will only get better.

It was a similar story for tennis. I wanted to be on the varsity team, and so I would play a match every day (working much harder than other players). Eventually I reached my goal, and will be a good tennis player for life. More importantly, tennis helped solidify my long-term goal attitude, and the value of making small incremental time investments in order to reach the long-term goal. Playing tennis each day or guitar each day, while each match or playing session was inconsequential, the accumulation of effort over time was important.

So while tennis and guitar were good investments of time for their own sake, investing in self-discipline will be the best investment I will ever make. If I can develop this skill by daily efforts, it can improve every aspect of my life, for the rest of my life. This can be illustrated by a simple mind experiment: Imagine I do follow through with getting rid of my TV (and never get another one for the rest of my life). If I were sitting on my deathbed, would I regret not watching more TV? No, I would regret the other things I had wasted time on and the opportunities I did not have the courage to take.

I have to keep this long-term mindset, and make painful sacrifices now in order to make the most of this fleeting life.