During my first visit to Tokyo, on a business trip in 2016, I took a long walk in the lavish park that surrounds Meiji Shrine. It was a glorious Sunday morning and the inevitable crowds had not yet intruded on this island of calm at the center of the bustling metropolis. I was enveloped by the tranquility of the place when suddenly, maybe two hundred meters ahead, I spotted a gardener who swept the wide footpath using something like a grotesquely oversized broom. That tool must have been immensely heavy, with its long bamboo handle and the dense bristles of thick straw. Nevertheless, the groundskeeper’s elegant, swinging motions had an almost effortless quality to them. At a closer look, they reminded me more of a dancer moving to an inaudible tune, a painter skillfully applying a brush, or even a Samurai knight wielding their Katana sword. There was nothing “menial” about the labor of that gardener—quite the contrary, even a small crowd had already gathered to watch his performance in awe.

If you’re a fellow IT-savvy millennial, I’m sure you also fondly remember the disk defragmenter utility that used to come with, like, Windows 98. Source: The Bleeping Computer Long before cheap solid state disks became ubiquitous, it was a common performance issue that, over time, the data on your hard disk became scattered all over the place. When you wanted to access a certain file, the magnetic heads of the disk would then have to (mechanically!) move around like crazy, tremendously slowing down the reading process. Defragmenting counteracted that by re-ordering the bits and pieces of information on the disk, so that data which was frequently accessed together also was physically stored next to each other. During the defragmentation process itself, your computer was pretty much unusable—and it sounded like it was munching on pebbles. However, the hassle was well worth it, given how much smoother the whole system ran afterwards.

Peak Mind by Amishi P. Jha. We’re all distracted, all of the time. More and more studies show that on average, we spend only 50% of our waking hours engaged with the present moment—the other half of the time we’re zoning out, ruminating, mind-wandering or daydreaming. Furthermore, research suggests that our ability to pay attention is on the decline. And why wouldn’t it be, given the increasing pace at which we’re assaulted by social media notifications, breaking news alerts, and instant messages. It’s no surprise that our minds, drowning in a sea of sensations without a chance for rest or respite, have a hard time to focus on anything at all. The dangers of this pervasive state of mindlessness are of course obvious in situations that depend on our ability to concentrate, whether you’re performing surgery on someone’s brain or simply driving a car. But not only does this constant running on auto pilot cause countless preventable errors of oversight or negligence. It’s also detrimental to our psychological wellbeing: Every time our minds are not truly present in the moment, we can’t fully enjoy our current experience, our social interactions become more and more shallow and less meaningful, our brains can only form inferior memories, and ultimately, we might miss out on what’s most valuable in our lives.

Getting people–others or ourselves–to do something that’s not obviously pleasurable is immensely tricky. Never mind if you want to start an exercise routine, eat healthier, or motivate someone to get their Covid-19 shot, the underlying challenge is always the same: In the short-term, it’s easier, less painful, or more convenient to simply avoid doing the “right” thing. So what can we do, in spite of that bias towards immediate gratification, to overcome the mind’s inbred inertia?

“Where’s the fun in that?”, many people asked after I had published my daily routine. Often, the question seemed borne not purely out of curiosity or interest, but rather inspired by pity, or even concern about my wellbeing. Doesn’t so much rigidity and discipline grind one down? Am I renouncing all of life’s pleasures? Doesn’t all work and no play make Jack a dull boy? How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett. Let me preface the following by saying: I’m neither an ascetic nor a masochist. But the more closely you examine the inner workings of your mind, the more you realize that pleasure is a complex, multi-faceted issue. Even the simplest taxonomies psychologists use to quantify the texture of our moment-to-moment experience require at least two dimensions: valence (pleasant to unpleasant) and arousal (calm to thrilled).

It’s 4:15am when my alarm goes off. I get out of bed immediately, without snoozing. Before I know what’s happening, I’m already in my running gear, and with a sip of water I’m out of the door no later than 4:25am. I run for 60 to 120 minutes, covering between ten and twenty kilometers. When I get back, it’s time for breakfast: Usually, oatmeal and a banana to refill the carbs I’ve burnt, together with a big glass of water to rehydrate. Some stretching exercises, as well as a hot shower, come right afterwards.

Designing Your Work Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. “F**k this s**t, I’m quitting!” Many of us have played with the thought of making a memorable exit from a job we didn’t enjoy at some point in our careers. I know a few people who actually did (though not with quite such strong language), but unsurprisingly that didn’t end well for any of them. In their new book Designing Your Work Life, Stanford professors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans explore not only how to quit well (spoiler: avoid the f-word if you can!), but also how Design Thinking tools can help us draw more satisfaction from our current jobs, thus reducing the need for quitting in the first place.

I once worked for a manager who would send his employees home by 5:30pm every day. This was at a time and in an environment where looking productive by working at all hours was not only prized and honored, but to some degree even expected by upper management. His argument for limiting the amount of time people should spend in the office was rooted in a different mindset though: He rightfully insisted that nobody produces outstanding results while being exhausted and overworked. It’s often more beneficial to let go of a pressing issue for the moment and coming back to it after a good night’s sleep, a relaxing walk, or a workout.

Good Strategy / Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt. Recently I read Richard Rumelt's business classic Good Strategy / Bad Strategy which, beside clarifying what strategy actually is and why any organization would benefit from having one, offers many insightful stories and anecdotes on economics. One I found particularly amusing was about Andrew Carnegie, who was arguably the most successful business man of his day, being ranked the richest American for several years at the beginning of the 20th century.

When it comes to engagement, motivation, and ultimately outcome of meetings, I find there's two extremely unsatisfying ends of a spectrum. One end — let's call it Dress to Impress — is the type of meeting where everyone tries to show off to somebody else. I saw that happen when a new manager is in the room to whom everybody wants to demonstrate how great they are, or just whenever too much ego is involved on anyone's part. That type of meeting is characterized by lengthily monologues, or pitches, followed by an awkward silence, followed by another persons monologue. You can easily spot that type of meeting by a lack of conversation: It's just a room full of people talking at each other, not with one another.