Master your sleep cycles
Figure out your sleep cycles. It's a simple way to optimize your sleep, completely free. Once you know it, you can use your alarm clock in harmony with your natural rhythm, rather than against it.
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Responsibility: The trait of honorable obligation
The second key trait of productivity is responsibility. Responsibility is a moral reality, unlike agency, but it often increases agency in a person's life - sometimes tremendously.
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Agency: The “main character” trait
It's popular to describe high agency as "Main Character Energy," referring to the fact that the main character in a story is the person who does interesting things and has unusual experiences. The modern world includes so many opportunities to do interesting things, but also presents us with more tempting lifestyle scripts that keep us stagnant.
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Addicted to perfect conditions
I’ve been addicted to perfect conditions. Once there’s a “reason” for underperforming, a narrative explanation for it, then my body will take the opportunity to underperform.
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The two rules of personal organization
Generalists who juggle multiple projects often need to stop-and-go on them at different times. The only reason I can pull this off is because I'm careful about organizing and documenting my ideas, knowledge, and work. And good organization is easy. There are only two rules.
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Laziness death spirals
Laziness/procrastination has a kind of independent momentum to it. When you're having an off day, even if you consciously commit to getting back on track, the rut tends to find its way back to you within a couple of hours. I list three different courses of action you can take to get out of a laziness death spiral.
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Generalist struggles: 5 challenges to overcome
This post lays out a broad set of challenges that generalists are likely to face in life. It doesn't spell out all the solutions, because that's really what the rest of True Generalist is for. But I hope you read something you resonate with, and perhaps feel validated for it.
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Generalist strengths: 7 things generalists are best at
Generalist strengths: Here I list the broad categories of strengths and advantages that generalists are likely to enjoy in life. This is based on what I read in Range, some survey data from GeneralistWorld, and my personal experience.
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Be Incorporated
This post is for overthinkers. Really it's about a specific kind of overthinking; we could call it "over-managing." It's when you know what you should be working on at a given time, but instead of doing the work, you continue to deliberate over big-picture / planning decisions. I call this pattern of thought the "Manager." By contrast, the "Employee" does most of the hands-on work without worrying about the big picture, thanks to the Manager's direction. As productive generalists, we have to be good Managers, but we also need to be able to call the plan "good enough" and be the Employee.
