Ren:
00:00:08
If you have so many things to do, but they all just feel too big.
Ren:
00:00:17
Then this is the show for you.
Ren:
00:00:22
This is Ex-Gifted.
Ren:
00:00:34
Hello welcome.
Ren:
00:00:36
I am Ren Eliza.
Ren:
00:00:42
This week is going to be a little bit different.
Ren:
00:00:51
I hope that it doesn't end up being too choppy.
Ren:
00:00:54
I don't have any specific notes cause I'm working on a thing and I might end up having
Ren:
00:01:09
So I'm hoping that when it goes out, it all still makes sense.
Ren:
00:01:17
I have been researching and reading a lot on ancient philosophies lately.
Ren:
00:01:28
And the one that has drawn me to it the most so far is Epicureanism founded by Epicurus in
Ren:
00:01:50
Epicureanism is a hedonist philosophy, which holds that pleasure is the greatest
Ren:
00:02:03
That the only way to tell if something is good or not, is if it brings you pleasure.
Ren:
00:02:11
That's the, that's what people usually focus on.
Ren:
00:02:15
But today what I want to talk about is not his ethics, but his understanding of physics.
Ren:
00:02:29
And I'm only going to talk about it briefly in order to tie it in to what I've
Ren:
00:02:41
Epicurus was, an atomist, which means that he believed that all matter was made up
Ren:
00:03:01
Between every atom, he believed existed void.
Ren:
00:03:07
And that that's all that there is, is just atoms and void.
Ren:
00:03:12
Void being nothingness.
Ren:
00:03:16
In his time it was the prevailing belief that anything could be further
Ren:
00:03:27
Sometimes this belief was even taken to the extreme, such that
Ren:
00:03:35
What I want to talk about today is a far more generalized version of this concept,
Ren:
00:04:10
I do recommend to chew gum while you're doing work.
Ren:
00:04:14
I don't recommend to chew gum while you're recording a podcast.
Ren:
00:04:20
That's a lesson learned.
Ren:
00:04:26
Anyway, small things and void, when it comes to time management.
Ren:
00:04:31
I invented a thing last week, almost accidentally.
Ren:
00:04:38
I was in my kitchen downstairs, reaching for a hand towel and the basket
Ren:
00:04:54
However, I knew that upstairs on my bedside table, I had a whole stack of clean, folded
Ren:
00:05:18
So naturally I just went upstairs and got the hand towels, right?
Ren:
00:05:25
No, of course not.
Ren:
00:05:32
I told myself, "Hmm.
Ren:
00:05:35
Yeah.
Ren:
00:05:36
The next time I need to go upstairs.
Ren:
00:05:38
I have to remember to bring those hand towels downstairs too."
Ren:
00:05:44
What do you think the chance is that that's going to happen?
Ren:
00:05:48
It's very slim.
Ren:
00:05:53
And so, yeah, maybe it's obvious.
Ren:
00:05:54
Maybe the answer is just go get the hand towels right now.
Ren:
00:05:58
Just whatever it is, do it now.
Ren:
00:06:00
Maybe that's obvious to some people, but I am an engineer.
Ren:
00:06:06
I have to do what's capital E efficient, and it's not Efficient to go make a special
Ren:
00:06:18
It's Efficient to wait until I have to go upstairs anyway and bring the hand towels
Ren:
00:06:32
It's not really that efficient because I forget to do it entirely, who knows what
Ren:
00:07:00
What that means practically is that I have noticed- living in an 800 square foot
Ren:
00:07:18
And then this fucking huge house, which is like 2000 square feet plus a whole basement.
Ren:
00:07:29
I've noticed that my step count tends to be about the same as the
Ren:
00:07:39
So on the days that I stay home, I get here at baseline at my, my default.
Ren:
00:07:52
I will get like 2,500 ish steps a day, which let's be clear is not enough.
Ren:
00:08:00
And yes, that means that when I was living in that 800 square foot apartment,
Ren:
00:08:08
On average, I was going a whole day without taking a thousand steps.
Ren:
00:08:15
This is not a good thing.
Ren:
00:08:17
This is not what efficiency is for.
Ren:
00:08:23
Anything that makes me walk upstairs more often.
Ren:
00:08:29
That's, that's some fucking efficiency that's getting me steps in and getting the
Ren:
00:08:38
I was delaying getting the hand towels, not because I was doing something more
Ren:
00:08:57
That's your, brain's a fucking liar.
Ren:
00:08:59
It's not more efficient to do it later.
Ren:
00:09:02
Brains just lie.
Ren:
00:09:03
That's what they do.
Ren:
00:09:04
They lie to get out of doing things or the very least that's what my brain does.
Ren:
00:09:09
I saw that I was not doing this tiny insignificant chore
Ren:
00:09:17
And I said to myself, "Okay, I know I've got a lot of things to do, but what if
Ren:
00:09:36
And then as soon as I had that thought, I was like, actually, I really liked this.
Ren:
00:09:40
I could do this like once a week or something like a lot of people in
Ren:
00:09:46
They have like a catch up day or a makeup day or something like that.
Ren:
00:09:51
And that's always stressful to me.
Ren:
00:09:54
It makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong if I don't happen to
Ren:
00:10:03
But this thing that I deemed small things day.
Ren:
00:10:10
I really liked as an idea for doing it once a week.
Ren:
00:10:15
And so I went and I got the hand towels right then.
Ren:
00:10:20
And then if I saw a piece of trash on the ground, I would just throw it away.
Ren:
00:10:25
If I saw a dish that was sitting out, I would just put it in the dishwasher.
Ren:
00:10:34
This basically allowed two things to happen.
Ren:
00:10:42
One, it meant that every single thing that I did took essentially no energy, like
Ren:
00:11:24
Cool.
Ren:
00:11:24
Small thing done.
Ren:
00:11:29
The other thing is that it forces me to start noticing these different, small things.
Ren:
00:11:41
The things that I usually try to ignore and just in the back of my brain, it's just
Ren:
00:11:48
Okay.
Ren:
00:11:48
Check that's one thing to do.
Ren:
00:11:49
Okay.
Ren:
00:11:49
Check that's one thing to do, but it's all getting basically piled up as like
Ren:
00:12:04
So all of those are getting put on a, basically a subconscious to-do list,
Ren:
00:12:23
So when I'm running around looking for small things to do, it's a lot easier for me to
Ren:
00:12:33
Plus it allows my chaos brain to just run free.
Ren:
00:12:40
I'm not trying to hold my focus on one particular thing, but I'm also not
Ren:
00:12:47
If I pick up one dish and then I pick up another dish and then I pick up another dish
Ren:
00:12:57
But also if I pick up one dish and then I go pull one weed and
Ren:
00:13:05
That's also fine.
Ren:
00:13:08
I'm going to talk next week about some of the things that you can lose your time and
Ren:
00:13:20
And you'll notice that it can seem like you're losing a lot
Ren:
00:13:27
Right?
Ren:
00:13:30
But actually you're not really because part of the small things method for me
Ren:
00:13:50
And transitions can be a really big time suck for me.
Ren:
00:13:54
But by not fighting what my chaos brain wants to do anyway, I'm actually losing less time
Ren:
00:14:16
That's part of the goal.
Ren:
00:14:21
So losing time to transitions is actually less because I am
Ren:
00:14:34
Since each thing is using basically no energy, that means that I'm not
Ren:
00:14:57
I'm not even trying to guide it.
Ren:
00:14:59
I'm just letting it guide me.
Ren:
00:15:02
Like letting it off the leash, letting it run around in my house and take
Ren:
00:15:09
Just doing literally The smallest thing that you could imagine that couldn't really
Ren:
00:15:19
I'm not trying to do any one of these tasks to completion.
Ren:
00:15:25
I'm just trying to get it better.
Ren:
00:15:27
Everything just has to be a little bit better than I started.
Ren:
00:15:31
I'm not talking about doing things where like, I pull everything out
Ren:
00:15:43
I'm not talking about big things like that, which even though you can
Ren:
00:15:49
I'm not talking about doing the starting parts of big projects that will actually
Ren:
00:16:02
I'm talking just about little things that you can do that are only moving you forward.
Ren:
00:16:12
And that's a big distinction here.
Ren:
00:16:15
Sometimes you also have to do those big things.
Ren:
00:16:19
Sometimes you have to pull up all the carpet first.
Ren:
00:16:23
But that's an entirely separate thing.
Ren:
00:16:25
That's not what I'm addressing today.
Ren:
00:16:29
I loved the small things day so much that I went ahead and decided
Ren:
00:16:37
And then instead, I decided to kind of do small things indefinitely.
Ren:
00:16:44
And I am certain that I am going to get to a point in the future where the small
Ren:
00:17:16
Something that is trying to direct my attention in a specific direction.
Ren:
00:17:25
Sometimes that is what I need, but sometimes I just need the
Ren:
00:17:33
Let it bounce around from one thing to one thing to one thing and just focus
Ren:
00:17:43
And sometimes I need the more structure, the more detailed plan, getting to a
Ren:
00:18:22
My house.
Ren:
00:18:23
I see.
Ren:
00:18:25
I'm trying to demonstrate how small things works in this episode by allowing my
Ren:
00:18:41
That's again, that's the point.
Ren:
00:18:42
You're not trying to finish the dishes.
Ren:
00:18:44
Eventually you need to finish the dishes, but at any one point during the day,
Ren:
00:18:53
I have been basically using the last hour or something before bed to wrap things up,
Ren:
00:19:06
What happened in practice is that actually.
Ren:
00:19:11
My house has been a whole lot easier to manage overall because just throughout
Ren:
00:19:29
It's never getting as much stuff in any one spot.
Ren:
00:19:32
So that even the jobs that I'm seeing don't feel as big as they used to.
Ren:
00:19:38
For one, there's actually a lot less stuff left for me to do because I've
Ren:
00:19:53
So there's not nearly as much left instead of doing what I used to do, which is
Ren:
00:20:04
And seeing each thing as an individual item is actually really helpful for me.
Ren:
00:20:11
If I see five pieces of trash on the floor, I'm seeing five individual
Ren:
00:20:18
And I know that each one of those little trash pieces of trash on the floor will
Ren:
00:20:30
Breaking down tasks is a known struggle for executive dysfunction.
Ren:
00:20:39
And so small things day is a really great way to practice getting, getting
Ren:
00:20:55
So when you start seeing the smaller tasks that becomes more of a default state for
Ren:
00:21:12
I will be honest.
Ren:
00:21:13
I can totally see how there could be different brain types, different mindsets.
Ren:
00:21:18
That will be more overwhelmed with the big number than with the unexamined pile.
Ren:
00:21:29
I think it's easy to think that you're definitely that way when you
Ren:
00:21:38
But if the big number seems even more overwhelming, then that's fine.
Ren:
00:21:45
Don't do it this way, do it your own way.
Ren:
00:21:47
What I am saying is absolutely not that this is the thing for
Ren:
00:21:56
I'm never going to say that.
Ren:
00:21:57
Because different things work for different people, but also different
Ren:
00:22:06
At different points in time.
Ren:
00:22:09
Like I said, small things is probably not going to be my new life
Ren:
00:22:20
It's just one tool that I have in my inventory.
Ren:
00:22:28
Inventory is a concept that I developed for the roleplanning journal.
Ren:
00:22:34
It is straight out of, you know, role-playing games that you've got your backpack or
Ren:
00:22:55
whatever it is that you need in order to accomplish your quests.
Ren:
00:23:02
And so the roleplanning journal includes a section in there for inventory where you
Ren:
00:23:30
If you don't already have a list of the tools that you use, like the finding
Ren:
00:23:51
Whatever kinds of things that you do in order to help you live your life in the
Ren:
00:24:02
Write all those things down, just so that you remember to actually use them,
Ren:
00:24:13
If you don't have a planner, make a planner, or you can buy the roleplanning
Ren:
00:24:28
And if you use the link in the show notes, you can also get 10% off.
Ren:
00:24:31
So next week we're going to talk about the things in life that suck our attention away.
Ren:
00:24:45
Until then.
00:00:08
If you have so many things to do, but they all just feel too big.
Ren:
00:00:17
Then this is the show for you.
Ren:
00:00:22
This is Ex-Gifted.
Ren:
00:00:34
Hello welcome.
Ren:
00:00:36
I am Ren Eliza.
Ren:
00:00:42
This week is going to be a little bit different.
Ren:
00:00:51
I hope that it doesn't end up being too choppy.
Ren:
00:00:54
I don't have any specific notes cause I'm working on a thing and I might end up having
Ren:
00:01:09
So I'm hoping that when it goes out, it all still makes sense.
Ren:
00:01:17
I have been researching and reading a lot on ancient philosophies lately.
Ren:
00:01:28
And the one that has drawn me to it the most so far is Epicureanism founded by Epicurus in
Ren:
00:01:50
Epicureanism is a hedonist philosophy, which holds that pleasure is the greatest
Ren:
00:02:03
That the only way to tell if something is good or not, is if it brings you pleasure.
Ren:
00:02:11
That's the, that's what people usually focus on.
Ren:
00:02:15
But today what I want to talk about is not his ethics, but his understanding of physics.
Ren:
00:02:29
And I'm only going to talk about it briefly in order to tie it in to what I've
Ren:
00:02:41
Epicurus was, an atomist, which means that he believed that all matter was made up
Ren:
00:03:01
Between every atom, he believed existed void.
Ren:
00:03:07
And that that's all that there is, is just atoms and void.
Ren:
00:03:12
Void being nothingness.
Ren:
00:03:16
In his time it was the prevailing belief that anything could be further
Ren:
00:03:27
Sometimes this belief was even taken to the extreme, such that
Ren:
00:03:35
What I want to talk about today is a far more generalized version of this concept,
Ren:
00:04:10
I do recommend to chew gum while you're doing work.
Ren:
00:04:14
I don't recommend to chew gum while you're recording a podcast.
Ren:
00:04:20
That's a lesson learned.
Ren:
00:04:26
Anyway, small things and void, when it comes to time management.
Ren:
00:04:31
I invented a thing last week, almost accidentally.
Ren:
00:04:38
I was in my kitchen downstairs, reaching for a hand towel and the basket
Ren:
00:04:54
However, I knew that upstairs on my bedside table, I had a whole stack of clean, folded
Ren:
00:05:18
So naturally I just went upstairs and got the hand towels, right?
Ren:
00:05:25
No, of course not.
Ren:
00:05:32
I told myself, "Hmm.
Ren:
00:05:35
Yeah.
Ren:
00:05:36
The next time I need to go upstairs.
Ren:
00:05:38
I have to remember to bring those hand towels downstairs too."
Ren:
00:05:44
What do you think the chance is that that's going to happen?
Ren:
00:05:48
It's very slim.
Ren:
00:05:53
And so, yeah, maybe it's obvious.
Ren:
00:05:54
Maybe the answer is just go get the hand towels right now.
Ren:
00:05:58
Just whatever it is, do it now.
Ren:
00:06:00
Maybe that's obvious to some people, but I am an engineer.
Ren:
00:06:06
I have to do what's capital E efficient, and it's not Efficient to go make a special
Ren:
00:06:18
It's Efficient to wait until I have to go upstairs anyway and bring the hand towels
Ren:
00:06:32
It's not really that efficient because I forget to do it entirely, who knows what
Ren:
00:07:00
What that means practically is that I have noticed- living in an 800 square foot
Ren:
00:07:18
And then this fucking huge house, which is like 2000 square feet plus a whole basement.
Ren:
00:07:29
I've noticed that my step count tends to be about the same as the
Ren:
00:07:39
So on the days that I stay home, I get here at baseline at my, my default.
Ren:
00:07:52
I will get like 2,500 ish steps a day, which let's be clear is not enough.
Ren:
00:08:00
And yes, that means that when I was living in that 800 square foot apartment,
Ren:
00:08:08
On average, I was going a whole day without taking a thousand steps.
Ren:
00:08:15
This is not a good thing.
Ren:
00:08:17
This is not what efficiency is for.
Ren:
00:08:23
Anything that makes me walk upstairs more often.
Ren:
00:08:29
That's, that's some fucking efficiency that's getting me steps in and getting the
Ren:
00:08:38
I was delaying getting the hand towels, not because I was doing something more
Ren:
00:08:57
That's your, brain's a fucking liar.
Ren:
00:08:59
It's not more efficient to do it later.
Ren:
00:09:02
Brains just lie.
Ren:
00:09:03
That's what they do.
Ren:
00:09:04
They lie to get out of doing things or the very least that's what my brain does.
Ren:
00:09:09
I saw that I was not doing this tiny insignificant chore
Ren:
00:09:17
And I said to myself, "Okay, I know I've got a lot of things to do, but what if
Ren:
00:09:36
And then as soon as I had that thought, I was like, actually, I really liked this.
Ren:
00:09:40
I could do this like once a week or something like a lot of people in
Ren:
00:09:46
They have like a catch up day or a makeup day or something like that.
Ren:
00:09:51
And that's always stressful to me.
Ren:
00:09:54
It makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong if I don't happen to
Ren:
00:10:03
But this thing that I deemed small things day.
Ren:
00:10:10
I really liked as an idea for doing it once a week.
Ren:
00:10:15
And so I went and I got the hand towels right then.
Ren:
00:10:20
And then if I saw a piece of trash on the ground, I would just throw it away.
Ren:
00:10:25
If I saw a dish that was sitting out, I would just put it in the dishwasher.
Ren:
00:10:34
This basically allowed two things to happen.
Ren:
00:10:42
One, it meant that every single thing that I did took essentially no energy, like
Ren:
00:11:24
Cool.
Ren:
00:11:24
Small thing done.
Ren:
00:11:29
The other thing is that it forces me to start noticing these different, small things.
Ren:
00:11:41
The things that I usually try to ignore and just in the back of my brain, it's just
Ren:
00:11:48
Okay.
Ren:
00:11:48
Check that's one thing to do.
Ren:
00:11:49
Okay.
Ren:
00:11:49
Check that's one thing to do, but it's all getting basically piled up as like
Ren:
00:12:04
So all of those are getting put on a, basically a subconscious to-do list,
Ren:
00:12:23
So when I'm running around looking for small things to do, it's a lot easier for me to
Ren:
00:12:33
Plus it allows my chaos brain to just run free.
Ren:
00:12:40
I'm not trying to hold my focus on one particular thing, but I'm also not
Ren:
00:12:47
If I pick up one dish and then I pick up another dish and then I pick up another dish
Ren:
00:12:57
But also if I pick up one dish and then I go pull one weed and
Ren:
00:13:05
That's also fine.
Ren:
00:13:08
I'm going to talk next week about some of the things that you can lose your time and
Ren:
00:13:20
And you'll notice that it can seem like you're losing a lot
Ren:
00:13:27
Right?
Ren:
00:13:30
But actually you're not really because part of the small things method for me
Ren:
00:13:50
And transitions can be a really big time suck for me.
Ren:
00:13:54
But by not fighting what my chaos brain wants to do anyway, I'm actually losing less time
Ren:
00:14:16
That's part of the goal.
Ren:
00:14:21
So losing time to transitions is actually less because I am
Ren:
00:14:34
Since each thing is using basically no energy, that means that I'm not
Ren:
00:14:57
I'm not even trying to guide it.
Ren:
00:14:59
I'm just letting it guide me.
Ren:
00:15:02
Like letting it off the leash, letting it run around in my house and take
Ren:
00:15:09
Just doing literally The smallest thing that you could imagine that couldn't really
Ren:
00:15:19
I'm not trying to do any one of these tasks to completion.
Ren:
00:15:25
I'm just trying to get it better.
Ren:
00:15:27
Everything just has to be a little bit better than I started.
Ren:
00:15:31
I'm not talking about doing things where like, I pull everything out
Ren:
00:15:43
I'm not talking about big things like that, which even though you can
Ren:
00:15:49
I'm not talking about doing the starting parts of big projects that will actually
Ren:
00:16:02
I'm talking just about little things that you can do that are only moving you forward.
Ren:
00:16:12
And that's a big distinction here.
Ren:
00:16:15
Sometimes you also have to do those big things.
Ren:
00:16:19
Sometimes you have to pull up all the carpet first.
Ren:
00:16:23
But that's an entirely separate thing.
Ren:
00:16:25
That's not what I'm addressing today.
Ren:
00:16:29
I loved the small things day so much that I went ahead and decided
Ren:
00:16:37
And then instead, I decided to kind of do small things indefinitely.
Ren:
00:16:44
And I am certain that I am going to get to a point in the future where the small
Ren:
00:17:16
Something that is trying to direct my attention in a specific direction.
Ren:
00:17:25
Sometimes that is what I need, but sometimes I just need the
Ren:
00:17:33
Let it bounce around from one thing to one thing to one thing and just focus
Ren:
00:17:43
And sometimes I need the more structure, the more detailed plan, getting to a
Ren:
00:18:22
My house.
Ren:
00:18:23
I see.
Ren:
00:18:25
I'm trying to demonstrate how small things works in this episode by allowing my
Ren:
00:18:41
That's again, that's the point.
Ren:
00:18:42
You're not trying to finish the dishes.
Ren:
00:18:44
Eventually you need to finish the dishes, but at any one point during the day,
Ren:
00:18:53
I have been basically using the last hour or something before bed to wrap things up,
Ren:
00:19:06
What happened in practice is that actually.
Ren:
00:19:11
My house has been a whole lot easier to manage overall because just throughout
Ren:
00:19:29
It's never getting as much stuff in any one spot.
Ren:
00:19:32
So that even the jobs that I'm seeing don't feel as big as they used to.
Ren:
00:19:38
For one, there's actually a lot less stuff left for me to do because I've
Ren:
00:19:53
So there's not nearly as much left instead of doing what I used to do, which is
Ren:
00:20:04
And seeing each thing as an individual item is actually really helpful for me.
Ren:
00:20:11
If I see five pieces of trash on the floor, I'm seeing five individual
Ren:
00:20:18
And I know that each one of those little trash pieces of trash on the floor will
Ren:
00:20:30
Breaking down tasks is a known struggle for executive dysfunction.
Ren:
00:20:39
And so small things day is a really great way to practice getting, getting
Ren:
00:20:55
So when you start seeing the smaller tasks that becomes more of a default state for
Ren:
00:21:12
I will be honest.
Ren:
00:21:13
I can totally see how there could be different brain types, different mindsets.
Ren:
00:21:18
That will be more overwhelmed with the big number than with the unexamined pile.
Ren:
00:21:29
I think it's easy to think that you're definitely that way when you
Ren:
00:21:38
But if the big number seems even more overwhelming, then that's fine.
Ren:
00:21:45
Don't do it this way, do it your own way.
Ren:
00:21:47
What I am saying is absolutely not that this is the thing for
Ren:
00:21:56
I'm never going to say that.
Ren:
00:21:57
Because different things work for different people, but also different
Ren:
00:22:06
At different points in time.
Ren:
00:22:09
Like I said, small things is probably not going to be my new life
Ren:
00:22:20
It's just one tool that I have in my inventory.
Ren:
00:22:28
Inventory is a concept that I developed for the roleplanning journal.
Ren:
00:22:34
It is straight out of, you know, role-playing games that you've got your backpack or
Ren:
00:22:55
whatever it is that you need in order to accomplish your quests.
Ren:
00:23:02
And so the roleplanning journal includes a section in there for inventory where you
Ren:
00:23:30
If you don't already have a list of the tools that you use, like the finding
Ren:
00:23:51
Whatever kinds of things that you do in order to help you live your life in the
Ren:
00:24:02
Write all those things down, just so that you remember to actually use them,
Ren:
00:24:13
If you don't have a planner, make a planner, or you can buy the roleplanning
Ren:
00:24:28
And if you use the link in the show notes, you can also get 10% off.
Ren:
00:24:31
So next week we're going to talk about the things in life that suck our attention away.
Ren:
00:24:45
Until then.
