A lesson from physical labor
Last Saturday I spent digging around 15 meters of network cable in the ground. The only thing that remains now is to make a wall pass-through and install some wall outlets in the houses and then finally, all our houses are hard-wired with cat6 cables. It’s something that I have been waiting to do since we moved here, to get rid of the shaky Wi-Fi connection. But you must always rank-order your work and it took me four years to execute more important priorities before I could start solving this simple but highly annoying problem. And it felt so good to put it all back together. When I was done, it really struck me that there are few things that feels more satisfying than to complete some proper physical labor, to the degree that you can raise the “mission accomplished” sign.
The best part about the digging project is that I got some help from my three-year-old boy. Earlier this summer, I found a gardening kit for kids with a shovel, rake, and broom. He put them to good use, and it was wonderful to observe his focus. He noted that we were doing some real work, and he has got tens or perhaps hundreds of hours of digging practice at the kindergarten sand pit. I just showed him what we needed to do, and he worked like a machine. To let the kids, take as much responsibility as early as possible is my idea of being a good dad. We had a great time working together. When we were done, I pointed out to him very clearly how happy and grateful I was for his help. I could tell he was super-happy.
At the time of this writing, my body is very soar. It’s aching all over the place. And it is good pain. Hard physical work, with instant feedback. It is the perfect anti-thesis to what I do for a living: Extremely demanding cognitive work, and almost zero feedback on the result for several years. Sometimes no feedback at all. I guess that I am probably quite biased in my joy of digging a 15-meter ditch, because of this background. Some contrast in your life is usually a good thing. I wonder whether someone who does primarily hard physical work for a living, will experience similar feelings to what I describe here, by doing difficult cognitive work?
Another thing I noted last weekend was how easy it is to keep doing productive work once you gain momentum. Start the day by doing something good, and it will be very easy to do another good thing. And another. And another. Very similar to my complete abstention from alcohol (today is day 1280). The longer I abstain, the more difficult it is to open a bottle again. That’s why it’s so important to start each day with something worthwhile. You’ll set a pattern in motion. The principle works in both directions too. Be very careful with doing something you know to be wrong, the first thing in the morning. That’ll make it a lot easier to do some other “bad” thing. And another… The cool thing is that you don’t have to do something extremely ambitious. One small, good activity, first thing in the morning, is all you need to lower the threshold for the next good thing.
I often find it very difficult to focus. My head can feel like ten TV stations at once, all the time. That makes it easy for me to engage in “bad” activities i.e. doing stuff I know I shouldn’t be doing. A strategy that has helped me out a lot is to create a simple schedule or checklist for each day, where I scribble down some tick boxes with activities I must do. Sometimes I even decide in advance precisely in what order I should execute them. The beauty of that discipline is that I never loose time trying to figure out what to do next. I just grab the next item on the checklist and get going. I like to set my alarm clock very early. 04:30 in the morning is my best time. Then I can clock in almost two hours of undisturbed activity with zero interruptions, before dad and work duties begin anew each day. These early morning hours can be insanely productive. If I don’t have a prepared schedule however, there is a high probability that I will “waste” some of this precious morning time, trying to figure out what to do next. When the routine is established, I can be extremely productive.
Oh, and if you want to try out the early morning habit described above. The critical and most important factor is “GET RID OF YOUR PHONE”. Don’t even touch it until a bit later in the day. It completely destroys your thought pattern. To wake up with a blank slate mind and taking action based on intrinsic motivation instead of extrinsic stimuli from the phone, is something truly beautiful. It is a blessing.