Listen Up Issue No. 10
In this week's newsletter: Directing your energy wisely, plus 5 things you might dig.
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Every weekday for the past six months, I’ve eaten a bowl of soup for lunch.
I like soup, but I’m not obsessed, despite what the considerable streak might suggest. Really, it comes down to simple utility.
High-quality, premade soup is available at every store near me in a variety of flavours, it’s low in calories, it’s quick and easy to heat up, and by eating the same thing for lunch, I can eliminate a decision from my day.
The consistency of fare has introduced a sort of unintended ritual to my lunchtime routine.
My alarm goes off at noon and I wrap up my morning deep work time block, head to the kitchen, pull the plastic soup container out of the fridge, pour it into a bowl, and put the bowl into the microwave.
A minute and forty-five seconds. Take out and stir. Back in for another minute and thirty seconds.
During the first minute forty-five, I walk up two floors to the nice bathroom in my office building, the one with the 6th-floor window overlooking the grandeur of the Balmoral hotel in Edinburgh.
During the second minute thirty, I wash out the soup container for recycling. It takes me forty-five seconds to wash the container, leaving me forty-five seconds to start my lunchtime sudoku.
As you can tell, I have the process down to a science. Or at least I thought I did, until this past Wednesday.
A Surprising Discovery
I happened to be wearing my favourite shirt, a light grey, long-sleeved button-up from Finisterre which I was overly protective of in the way we are of clothes that still feel new.
As such, I was on guard, fully aware of my every move as I placed the brimming bowl of rich brown lentil dahl back in the microwave after it’s stir, set the timer for a minute thirty, and took the container to the sink to rinse out.
Had I been wearing any other shirt, I would have turned the hot water faucet on full, allowing the pressurized spray to blast the remaining soup from the inside of the container, splashing the sides of the sink in the process.
Once the container was clean, I would fill it up and use it to splash water across the sides and bottom of the sink until they were once again white and clean.
This had been a standard part of my lunch-time ritual to that point, and it seemed obvious to me that the full power of the stream of hot water was the fastest and most effective way to clean out the container.
As my hand hovered over the faucet handle, however, I envisioned dozens of brown droplets, the colour of… well, you know... leaping out of the sink and splattering across my shirt, leaving dozens of permanent stains. It didn’t even need to be dozens, it would only take one to ruin the shirt.
So I turned the tap slowly, drawing a thin, focused stream of water which I carefully directed around the sides of the container before equally-carefully pouring the contents directly into the drain, making sure to avoid even the slightest splash as I did so.
I tossed the container in the recycling, pleased with the potential disaster my careful planning had averted and looked over to the microwave timer.
Sixty seconds.
Huh.
Not only had I managed to keep my shirt clean, but I’d also taken less time to clean the container, hadn’t needed to clean the sink, and used less water to boot.
Was it a mistake? An outlier? Being of scientific inclination, I tested the process again on Thursday, and then on Friday.
The results were the same. Thirty seconds to wash the container under low pressure versus the forty-five under high.
How could this be? Surely less power, less energy, less input shouldn’t result in the same outcome in less time. Should it?
Direct Your Energy Intentionally
Since the “Lentil Enlightenment” as this moment shall henceforth be known, I’ve been thinking about how we use our energy and the power of being intentional about how we direct it.
So often, it seems like our instinct is to devote all the energy we have available toward the problem we’re trying to solve or the work we’re trying to create.
Sometimes, this is called for, and may in fact be the only way to achieve our desired result.
But I don’t think that’s always the case.
What if just the right amount of energy could achieve the same result as the full force of our energy?
What if by properly focusing that right amount of energy, we could achieve that result in less time?
What else could we achieve when we then find ourselves with both more time and more energy?
Where are you currently exerting more energy, time, effort, emotion, or money than you need to? And what could you achieve if you focused the excess elsewhere?
If this resonated, would you mind giving this issue a quick share on twitter?
5 Things You Might Dig
- I’ve been experimenting with some of the productivity tips in this article from Josh Spector. My favourite has been to set a hard stop time for the time you’ll finish work and then set aside the final hour before that hard stop time to finish everything that’s slipped through the cracks in the day. I’ve found it to be immensely helpful so far.
- “In the end, I think creativity is about the things that appear when you relax a little bit.” I really loved this interview with designer Eloisa Iturbe on creativity, a part of WeTransfer’s WePresent series. Another line that seems to me to sum up the entire process of creating something that engages people, “What I often think about is balance and imbalance, about contrast, tension or equilibrium.” Oh, and be sure to check out her Instagram.
- I found this Instagram post outlining various forms of microaggressions well-meaning white people often commit to be super helpful.
- Among the articles I published this week, I think you might enjoy the following: Two Ingredients For Podcasting Success, Why Should Anyone Listen to You?, and Everyone Starts From Zero. Yep, it was a busy week writing about podcasting.
- Like many, judging by the Apple Podcast charts, this past week I listened through the 5-part 1619, a podcast from the NY Times Magazine chronicling the history–and present–experience of black Americans. The production is fantastic, the episodes hook and pull you through them, and I learned a lot that I didn’t know about the past and present of systemic racism in America.
“Most geniuses—especially those who lead others—prosper not by deconstructing intricate complexities but by exploiting unrecognized simplicities.” — Andy Benoit
Lend a Hand?
My goal with this newsletter is to provide you something that can't be bought. A different perspective, some inspiration, hope, or maybe even some genuine wisdom from time to time.
If you've taken something away from this newsletter, please consider forwarding it to someone else who's looking to grow an audience or sharing the link to this issue on Twitter to help spread the word.
Seriously, it would mean a lot, and I'd be incredibly grateful.
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This week I'm grateful for: There's this great bakery called Twelve Triangles about a 20-minute walk away that has incredible bread and pastries. I'm convinced fresh bread with butter is one of the greatest pleasures in life.
Win(s) of the week: Helped our client Dr. Stephanie Gray launch her new show, Your Longevity Blueprint, getting it up to #19 in the Nutrition category and cracking the top-200 in the overall health category!
I'm currently excited about: After months of waiting for the time and energy, I'm developing a new show of my own which I'm aiming to launch mid-August! More on that to come.
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