Being Less Stupid #5 - Are we seeing our children as performers?
Measuring Productivity, Learn to Draw, Become a better reader
📰 From My Blog
Productivity, like many things in life, cannot be measured by a single number. As long as we make progress, we should consider the day productive.
📖 Interesting Reads
1. Are we seeing our children as performers? What challenges will they have in their adult life in terms of privacy?
When we digitally capture and post every event our children participate in from their babyhood on, do we unwittingly send a message that everything they do is a performance for an adoring audience? With cameras in every electronic device we pocket, how can they avoid living as if they were actors and performers?
2. Learn to Draw- 100 days of daily drawing course via email
I love the idea of visual notes and sketching. Putting our thoughts into words will make us think. Making it as a picture will improve our comprehension. When I reached out to Bruno asking for course recommendations to learn visual notes taking, he pointed me to the 100 days of daily drawing email course by Holger. I have never been good at drawing and this step by step instructions seems to perfect to learn drawing and sketching. It is free. Sign up here if you want to learn to draw. Here are a few samples.
3. Become a better reader- Juvoni shared a great thread about becoming a better reader. I have copied what resonated with me below.
↪️Writing ⇄ Thinking ⇄ Reading ⇄ Doing ⇄ Speaking ⇄ Listening ↩
Reading is a core part of your intellectual feedback loop that feeds all parts of your ability to learn & express yourself ↪️Writing ⇄ Thinking ⇄ Reading ⇄ Doing ⇄ Speaking ⇄ Listening ↩ Each activity directly helps the next & indirectly helps any along the chain
Read to understand yourself, others & the world around you.
Change your environment & surround yourself with books. Create a system that works for your personality to support reading. Start small, 1 pg, 5 pages, or start with audiobook & build-up to e-book or print. Join a book club for shared accountability & social motivation.
Read what you love so that you can love to read. Share what you love to read, so others can find what they love.
Read Non-fiction for mental models & perspectives on how the world has worked, currently works, and how you can create new works within it. Read Fiction for emotional models on how to feel deeper within yourself and in relation to others.
Problem Driven Reading makes the value of books more real, the forcing function to take action more sooner & the memorability greater through overcoming the emotional motivation needed to solve a problem
Books with Quake Potential rock your belief window & view of the world. The epicenter gets you closer to the source of some truth. Shakes let weak beliefs fall, strong ones remain & room for new supporting pillars to build a stronger foundation to house your thinking
Lindy Effect is a theory that longer a non-perishable thing has been in existence, the more likely it is to be in existence. Old Ideas & Books that are still relevant today, have a lower chance of becoming expired knowledge and are therefore more valuable in the present.
How useful is it to have a library of books you've already read taking up space that you no longer reference? What you want is the opposite of that, an Anti-Library. Stock up potential themes, lingering problems, curiosities & what you love to build an Anti-Library. Your Book Pantry of Potential Learning. In times of need, or times of wonder you'll be glad to have your anti-library.
Do the work to synthesize the author's words in your own words to show Proof of Understanding. Write Summaries to Think. Read Summaries to Refresh.
Meditation, Writing & Listening has helped train my focus to read faster, more clearly & with more comprehension than any speed-reading course could ever do.