Happy Sunday! I posted my notes on Built to Sell. That's 2 book notes posted in a week so I'm on a roll! Not much to cover this week so this episode is going to be short and sweet.

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Alrighty on to the Stir!

The World of COVID News

I know the last few Stirs have talked about COVID but honestly the news just keeps getting better and better on this front. Dr. Marty Makary of Johns Hopkins wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal called Covid Prescription: Get the Vaccine, Wait a Month, Return to Normal.

After slamming the CDC a few times for being paralyzed by fear and not "following the science" as they claim, he goes on to confidently answer this question: What am I allowed to do after I’ve been vaccinated? His answer:

"Once a month has passed after your first shot, go back to normal."

He goes on to say things like:

"Immunity kicks in fully about four weeks after the first vaccine dose, and then you are essentially bulletproof."

"There is little a vaccinated person should be discouraged from doing."

And he drives home his piece with this:

"It’s time to liberate vaccinated people to restore their relationships and rebuild their lives."

"We cannot exaggerate the public-health threat, as we did with hospital visitation rules, and keep crushing the human spirit with overly restrictive policies for vaccinated Americans."

It's time we return to normal and stop living in fear. He ends the article with a crushing bit of truth: "Loneliness has become a public-health crisis. Future research will likely find that the harms of isolation are greater than is understood today."

The mental health effects of lockdowns are going to have a ripple effect for many years to come.

The World of Distractions and Focus

Ours is world of distraction and notifications. We've forgotten the Magic of Doing One Thing at a Time. This piece in Harvard Business Review talks about how our productivity is affected by constantly switching from one thing to the next and never taking proper breaks.

What we’ve lost, above all, are stopping points, finish lines and boundaries. Technology has blurred them beyond recognition. Wherever we go, our work follows us, on our digital devices, ever insistent and intrusive. It’s like an itch we can’t resist scratching, even though scratching invariably makes it worse.

Tell the truth: Do you answer email during conference calls (and sometimes even during calls with one other person)? Do you bring your laptop to meetings and then pretend you’re taking notes while you surf the net? Do you eat lunch at your desk? Do you make calls while you’re driving, and even send the occasional text, even though you know you shouldn’t?

Yes I have and do. So we know we've got a big problem on our hands, but what do we do about?

The best way for an organization to fuel higher productivity and more innovative thinking is to strongly encourage finite periods of absorbed focus, as well as shorter periods of real renewal.

Here are some of the policies he recommends implementing if you can:

1. Maintain meeting discipline. Start on time and have an end time. Don't make meeting too long. Make sure no one is working on other things.
2. Encourage renewal. Take breaks. Encourage your team to take a true 15 minute break from work to get refreshed.
3. Do the most important thing first thing in the morning with interruption. Get absorbed in the work.
4. Schedule times to think creatively and strategically. "If you don’t, you’ll constantly succumb to the tyranny of the urgent. Also, find a different environment in which to do this activity — preferably one that’s relaxed and conducive to open-ended thinking."
5. Take a vacation.

The piece can be summarized in this sentence:

"When you’re engaged at work, fully engage, for defined periods of time. When you’re renewing, truly renew. Make waves. Stop living your life in the gray zone."

The World of Writing

I came across 2 tweets this last week from @david_perell and that I thought they were particularly wise.

"Writing is the best way to realize that half the ideas you’re 100% certain about actually make no sense once you put them on paper."

"Improving your writing is as simple as packing more useful information into fewer words."

Writing forces you to put structure to your ideas. It's during this process that you come to realize the substance of those thoughts. In your head they make sense, but then when you go to write them down you can't put structure and logic to it so it falls apart.

The World of Wisdom

“Guard your tongue in youth, and in age you may mature a thought that will be of service to your people.”

When you're young you think you're right about so many things, but then you experience life and realize that what older people were saying was more accurate. Be careful to development a posture of wisdom in your youth so that you'll truly be wise as you age.

End Note

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Live free,

Brennen