Rox’s Picks 39

Hi friend,

I’m doing my monthly review for July after I send this newsletter. Here’s a couple of things on my mind:

• Instead of “wake up at 6:00”, I tell myself, “I start my day at 8:00.” I want to see if the wording will encourage me to get out of bed early, instead of hitting the snooze button.

• I want to bring others into as many aspects of my life as possible. Beyond helping with accountability, having the right people make life richer and more fun. This is especially true for things that I’m used to doing by myself, like writing and working out.

You also asked for a follow-up on Timeular from last week’s newsletter. Here’s my time breakdown last week:

A couple details:

• I wrote a total of 8.5 hours last week. I’m not a stickler about how much time I spend writing, as long as it doesn’t interfere with my work. 

• I spent 6.75 hours reading. I want to read at least 10 hours per week. I only track when I read long-form books, PDFs, and articles. Shorter articles that take less than 30 minutes to read don’t count (unless I batch them together).

While there’s a couple of minor annoyances in the app — if you don’t have the tracker, you need to be online to track time with the app — I can see myself using this for the long term. 

Last week’s newsletter had a 46% open rate. The top link you clicked on was Timeular.

Here’s what I worked on this week:

[New Article] How to Make Terror-Free Career-Defining Decisions. This is a reflection on the 5 key questions I asked myself when I decided to shutter my business and commit to a single company. Because, and I quote Mark Manson:

Finished reading C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity. My faith is the single most important lens through which I see, experience, and live in the world. Every other belief system I’ve ever held has failed me or been shot to pieces in some way. But my faith — something I’ve made my own and not just something my parents told me to believe in — remains rock solid.

You probably have your own experiences and opinions about Christianity.

But if you’re curious about what true Christianity is all about, apart from the media-generated B.S., then I recommend you read this book. In it, C.S. Lewis makes divine truths understandable with simple analogies, much like Jesus did with His parables. 

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Here’s what I learned, shared, and paid attention to this week:

1. How to start an essay without an idea —

Write of Passage’s CrossFit for Writing method

 This is the most important workflow I learned from Write of Passage. In 2 hours, I can go from no idea to a resource-rich, peer-vetted draft.

Here’s a visual outline of the entire process, courtesy of my fellow WoP student Andrew Yu:

I plan on doing this idea-generation exercise once a week on Saturdays. This way, my weekday writing time is about the typing words on the screen.

Here’s the full step-by-step process, along with my personal notes

1. Find one note that resonates with you (2 min). I pick out a highlight from my Readwise Daily Review, similar to these ones. I copy that to a fresh Evernote note.

2. Choose five notes that relate to your first note (3 min). I search up related terms and ideas in Evernote. I see what notes comes up, then copy related snippets to my initial note, along with the internal links to the notes I found. This gets me to a total of 6 notes now.

3. Bold/highlight your six notes (2 min). I go through each of the 6 notes and bold/highlight parts I can use for the essay. I copy over any additional related snippets I find.

4. Put the notes in a sequence that makes sense (2 min). I’ll condense the snippets into the main idea of the essay. I’ll come up with a summary, thesis, or abstract. At this point, if I’m doing this with other people, I’ll share it and get feedback on the article based on the strength of the main idea.

5. Supplement your idea with additional notes (4 min). I’ll look for another 1-2 notes to support each of the previous 6. Now I have 10-12 notes in total. 

6. Create a short outline of your piece (5 min). I organize the snippets into an outline. The outline is made up of 3 questions, sub-ideas, or arguments that support the main idea. I get feedback again, this time to vet how well I organize and deliver the idea to the reader. 

7. Write a three-paragraph abstract of your piece (15 min). I write 50 words for each of the 3 sections in the outline. That’s a total of 150 words for a 3-paragraph outline.

8. Get writing (25 min). At this point, I have a clear idea of what I’m writing about, an outline with all the notes, stories, and sub-ideas I want to cover, and feedback from peers that guide the angle of the essay. 

Took me a few writing sessions to understand the whole process. But after going through it by myself last Saturday, I’ve sufficiently made the workflow my own.

2. Article I enjoyed — 

Why the World Needs Deep Generalists, Not Specialists by Jotform’s Aytekin Tank

Michael Simmons defines a polymath as “someone who becomes competent in at least three diverse domains and integrates them into a top 1-percent skill set.” 

Today, combining fields to go deep in 1 is an achievable goal for anyone. Thanks to the Internet, we have…

• Wikipedia pages and YouTube videos as starting points for research

• Niche blogs to learn more about the topic 

• Forums to geek out with others

• Easy-to-use publishing platforms to share and better synthesize what we learn

Here are some of my personal thoughts on becoming a deep generalist:

The most creative combinations combine the softer arts and the harder sciences

As the founder of Gelt Venture Capital notes, “As an investor, if I were going to pick the perfect team, it would be a group of rock-star polymaths with a single subject matter expert as a resource.”

In my career, I’ve constantly applied this idea of using disparate domains to inform my main pursuit. For example, I’ve reached varying levels of competence in peak performance, marketing, and Christian theology. 

An odd combination — but that’s the point. 

The principles and lessons I learn from history, philosophy, and geography as a result of my study of the Bible inform my ethics, approach, and decision-making in marketing and business.

You don’t have to combine academic or professional fields

You can incorporate your ethnic background, too. As researcher Adam Grant found in his research for his book Originals, the most creative people tend to be those that experience or identify with at least 2 cultures. 

Having a different viewpoint, language, or mental model begets a unique — and equally valid — approach to a common problem. In other words, you can solve a problem that everyone else struggles with, because you have more tools to choose from.

I experienced this myself when I was getting feedback on my essay on true wealth. Any Filipino-Chinese Christian would read that essay and say, “D-uh. I already know that.” But for many North Americans, that essay presented a radically life-changing attitude towards money.

Ironically, the goal shouldn’t be to “become a polymath”

It takes 20 years to achieve mastery in a field, as this graphic from the article shows:

Likewise, polymathy is a lifelong pursuit. There’s no rush or competition to achieve it. 

Becoming a polymath isn’t about being higher status than a specialist, being known as an intellectual, or even being more interesting at parties. In fact, it’s presumptuous to put “polymath” in your Twitter profile. A social faux pas akin to people who put “entrepreneur” in their Instagram bio. 😏

The goal is to enjoy learning and then to go as deep as you can in whatever topic you to take interest in. That’s it.

3. Quote I’m Pondering — 

4. Another Quote I’m Pondering — 

That's it for this week!

Stay strong, stay kind, stay human.

Till next week,

Roxine

P.S. I’m looking for some engrossing podcasts to listen to after work. Specifically I’m looking for non-episodic, story-based ones whose episodes are less than 30 minutes long. Like Gimlet’s Reply All. Any reccs?

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Header photo courtesy of @viewfrommyinstax