Hello Reader,

One SSS student, Pascal, asked:

...and I wanted to share my answer with you:

Motivation is not the only way we get things done! We're not like cars that need fuel called "motivation" — we're more like supercomputers that work better when we have higher specs (mastery/perceived ability) and clear instructions. (i.e. clarity!)

Okay, I cannot insert where motivation comes in, so maybe I cannot really extend that analogy to a perfect one. (That's why it's an analogy...)

But from my experience here are things you can do:

• Find your minimum viable effort — divide the number of work units you need to do to the total number of days you have until a set deadline. This is the min. amount of work you can do each day
• Plan backwards — start from the goal, break down the into milestones, then break the milestones into actions, then think about how you can incorporate that into your SCHEDULE. You can only take consistent action if you plan beforehand how they integrate with your daily schedule. There's no way around it. Plans stay as plans if they don't eventually meet the daily todo list.
• Clean your room, or clean something, or cook — basically just do something that feels productive and requires a bit of physical effort. Just my hypothesis, but I think a normal human being becomes lazier the more he stays in a single place. We experience rewarding context switches through the phone without effort. But that's not what we're supposed to feel. Effort has to come first before a reward. That's how it's always been for most mammals.
• If your tasks aren't urgent, well, just goof off (play HARD) and then set a hard day to make up for it — I'm an experienced procrastinator myself, but I use a bit of rationality to care for my mental health: instead of being half-happy, half-sad today by forcing myself to do something, I can enjoy the rest of the day so I can dedicate my energy for a hard day tomorrow. The intention to implement the hard day matters. You'll need to prepare for this, too. And I'm sure you'll get a lot of work done once you set hard days. (This is a technique from Cal Newport which I've been using for around 5 years now)

I hope this helps!

Some behind the scenes on the upcoming Anki course

I'm almost done with the new course! It's super actionable, and it's way shorter — without my usual blabbering.

This was a new experience for me, because I was used to constantly explaining things. (...and explaining myself to my parents, yeah, I was used to that growing up, LOL.)

The alpha version will be released soon — I'm only left with the editing and the graphics. My two BELOVED tasks. (...not)

If you want to raise your hand for this course, you can tell me by clicking here.

Cheers!

To smarter studying,
Al Khan