When you’re done with an application on your computer, you close it.
If you keep that program open as you open other ones, you’ll slowly start seeing a progressive lag in performance.
Especially if you leave a big program like Photoshop open.
The same is true for your mind.
Close applications before you move on to the next.
The people who work at Lexus aren’t more tired at the end of the day than those who work at Ford.
And neither are the people who work at Rolex versus the people who work at Fossil.
Creating a higher quality product isn’t about effort.
It’s the people who learn how to work smarter, not harder, that find ways to get ahead.
It’s the people who learn how to create the right systems, not try to do things with no system, that are able to facilitate faster growth.
Focusing merely on effort (of yourself and your team) is almost guaranteed to ensure that your quality problem will persist.
Focus on smarts and systems instead.
Generating ideas is not like emptying a reservoir.
You don’t tap into your idea source and then drain ideas until they’re all gone.
It works more like, well, a generator.
It requires mechanical energy in, but as a result, you get electrical energy out.
You expend energy getting into the right state, meeting up with the right people, organizing the tasks of your day, staring at enough blank screens, cataloguing through the other ideas of the world until—it happens.
Your mechanical energy is converted.
And you are no longer draining a reservoir, but rather are generating a type of electrical output that lights up your mind and charges your whole body.
The reality is, if you feel like you’re “out of ideas,” it isn’t because you’ve emptied what you had—what’s really happened is your generator needs to be looked at and fixed.
This might involve a change in how you optimize your state, changing who you spend your time with, organizing your tasks in more inspiring ways, being more patient with your process, forcing yourself to get more bored, or spending more time cataloguing other idea sources.
And if your generator isn’t broken, then, you simply need to put more mechanical energy in.
My dog plays with her toys until she gets bored.
And then she could care less about them.
It’s only when I take one of them away that she suddenly cares again.
And cares a whole lot.
We are so much the same.
We don’t really care about what we have until it’s gone.
If only we could enjoy what we have like it was already taken, maybe we wouldn’t have to get things taken before we could truly enjoy.
Starting a stopped body is hard.
Keeping a body in motion is easier.
Even if that motion is heading in the wrong direction.
Redirecting is easier than starting.
Which is why you should start even without knowing which direction is the perfect direction to head. You can always turn the steering wheel as you go. It’s really no big deal.
Just do what’s hard, start your damn engine, and get going already.
When you stop the intake of information you give your mind the space it needs to process the information it has already taken in.
Never stopping the influx of information is like continuing to open new tabs on new tabs on new tabs in your browser.
Soon, the clutter overwhelms the machine and everything gets throttled. And, resultantly, you get frustrated, angry, and/or upset.
Rather than getting emotional at your computer—try closing yourself off to all inputs.
Stop opening new tabs. Stop watching videos. Stop having conversations. Stop reading books and articles. Stop listening to podcasts. Just, stop it all.
At least for a period of time. And at least once a day.
Just, let it all—settle.
In more cases than not, what your mind needs isn’t more information; what it needs is more space to process the excessive information it has already consumed.
In short, what you need is to plan more nothing into your days.
Life isn’t only a byproduct of what you do—it’s a byproduct of how you do what you do.
Take writing as an example. A book isn’t only a byproduct of the words that are used.
It’s a byproduct of how those words are arranged; how they are grammatically formatted; and how well they work together to communicate ideas.
If you took all of the words within War And Peace, for example, and rearranged them, changed the grammar, and disregarded the context—one of the all-time greats will be completely lost.
Same exact words. Completely different byproduct.
And so it is with life, too. What you do matters—yes. Just like what words you pick when writing a book matters. But, you can’t ignore the how.
How are you doing what you’re doing? Are you present or elsewhere? Do you care or are you only pretending to care? Are you pacing yourself or sprinting? Are you being true to who you are or are you putting up a front? Are your priorities really straight or are they actually backwards? Are you acting selfishly or selflessly?
The bottom line? Actions matter. But, don’t forget that intent colors actions with signals that are easily perceived by those whom the actions affect.