Dickie's Digest - Inversion, Zoom Fatigue, and Moving Fast
Hey there! Happy Sunday.
This week someone asked me what they could expect to get out of the Digest every week. After thinking it over a bit, I said my goal was for every reader to find at least one link worth clicking on in every edition. Substack says that of readers that open the Digest, 60% are clicking on something. So my goal is to get that number to 100% over time!
In this week’s Digest we have:
🎢 My latest essay on the mental model of Inversion
😴 A deep dive into Zoom Fatigue
⌛️ The importance of working quickly
🎧 Two epic podcast episodes
🥃 Some thoughts on Owl Legs
Let’s dive in. Have an epic week!
Dickie
🎢 Inversion: The Reframing Technique of Top Thinkers
This week I wrote an essay on the mental model of Inversion. I explored the value of inverting problems and how I’ve applied it to improve my productivity, sleep, energy levels, and personal finances.
You can check out the essay here and see the Tweet thread version of it below.
😴 Why Does Zoom Exhaust Us? Science May Have an Answer
When work-from-home started, I liked the idea of Zoom meetings. Four months in, I’ve started to dread them. I physically feel my energy levels fall when I see an upcoming calendar event with “Click Here to Join Zoom” posted in the meeting planner.
Why is this? This WSJ article explores the evolutionary reasons behind Zoom fatigue. In regular face-to-face conversation, energy flows between speakers with non-verbal cues, body language, and conversational give-and-take. On Zoom, the slight delay, lack of eye contact, and silent feedback make the conversation all give and no take.
Do you feel the same way, or is it just me?
⌛️ Speed Matters: Why Working Quickly Is More Important Than It Seems
Reading this essay transformed the way I think about work and time. The obvious benefit of working quickly is that you’ll finish more stuff per unit time. But there’s more to it than that. If you work quickly, the cost of doing something new will seem lower in your mind; it’ll have lower activation energy.
Part of the activation energy required to start any task comes from the picture you get in your head when you imagine doing it. It may not be that going for a run is actually costly; but if it feels costly, if the picture in your head looks like a slog, then you will need a bigger expenditure of will to lace up.
🎧 This Week in Podcasts
This week I listened to and took notes on two epic podcasts. I’ve been creating Twitter threads with notes on each podcast I listen to, so be sure to follow me on Twitter if you aren’t already.
The first was the weekly edition of the Prof. G Show with NYU Marketing Professor Scott Galloway. The episode takes a deep dive into Twitter’s subscription model, Lemonade’s IPO, and interviews urban sociologist Richard Florida to get his outlook on cities post-COVID.
The second episode was an interview between Tim Ferris and Hugh Jackman. They talk morning routines, meditation, decision making, and the 85% rule. I could listen to these two guys talk for hours.
📚 Kindle Highlight of the Week
But we have to sleep sometime... Agreed. But nature set a limit on that, as it did on eating and drinking. And you're over the limit. You've had more than enough of that. But not working. There you're still below your quota.
From Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. You can find other books I’m reading at dickiebush.com/books.
🥃 Chasers
Thanks for reading!
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