Outwork everyone by being bored
The way that you outwork people is by producing more value than them in the same period of time.
The real way to outwork everybody, get way more meaningful stuff done is not through discipline, it’s not through work ethic or willpower. It is through boredom.
Boredom is a heavily neglected and stigmatized part of modern society, acting as both the problem and the solution.
Boredom is a fertile soil where our unique thoughts, ideas and creativity can grow.
Boredom, if used correctly, can completely change your life.
Boredom can pull you ahead of 99 of the competition and if you stick with it, it can make you impossible to compete against in the future.
The problem
Have you ever found yourself sitting down to do some work and no matter how hard you try you just can’t seem to focus? You keep looking out the window, checking your phone, and 10 minutes feels like an hour. We struggle with focus, concentration and no matter what, we just can’t seem to get our work done.
We live in an age of distraction and laziness. We have so many ways to distract and entertain ourselves. And we pretend that we are being productive. We have lost the ability to sit down and focus on one productive difficult task for a long period of time.
Persuasive technology — technology that uses sophisticated techniques from behavioral psychology to “persuade” us to keep engaging with it — exacerbates the problem. So, over time, as our habit gains strength, we go looking for distraction. When things get quiet, or a task gets boring or frustrating, we reach for our phones.
We all have the same amount of time in the day. So the idea that you can outwork anybody by putting in more hours is completely idiotic. Plenty of people work two and even three jobs where they just grind around the clock. There’s literally no more time in the day for them to work.
The problem is, they’re working on the wrong things.
If we try to live our lives in accordance with hustle culture and fill our days with non-stop work, the result would be, we would do more work but not necessarily better work.
Success isn’t about how much you get done it’s about what you get done.
This is why Creativity is such a high value skill.
Dopamine makes us avoid uncomfortable options out of all the available options
Imagine yourself in a room with nothing but your phone and a book. You’ll naturally gravitate towards your phone which is much more stimulating and provides more comfort. If you try to force yourself to read the book, you may feel uncomfortable - especially if you are someone who regularly reads books. This is because, between the phone and the book, the phone provides more pleasure and we have been conditioned to seek instant gratification - thanks to highly addictive social media. Think back on how many times you’ve lost your sense of time mindlessly scrolling through YouTube videos or Tik Tok reels. There’s a reason why the CEOs of these social media companies don’t want their kids to be exposed to these addictive apps. You have conditioned yourself for years to use your phone all the time seeking dopamine from scrolling on Instagram - so of course you would choose to use your phone by having it.
We all have countless things in our life right now at this moment that we’re putting off. Things that we know we should do but for whatever reason we’re just not. We all exist in this state of Perpetual mental purgatory with countless open cognitive loops running in the back of our minds.
Things that we know we should do and that, we in fact maybe even want to do. But because we’re distractible little monkeys simply chasing the easiest dopamine, we push these off because they are, by definition, things that require an act of creation.
Our brains are conditioned to seek the most stimulating things available
Now imagine that same scenario with you in your room but with only a book. Your most stimulating option has just disappeared and now you have to choose between reading a book or meditating in silence for the next 8 hours - which isn’t even possible for most of us. Now the book that was uncomfortable to read earlier or the assignment that you’ve been putting off suddenly becomes much easier to do. Even if you resist doing it at first, you’ll cave in as it’s better than just sitting in boredom. You’re not necessarily doing it because you find it fun but because you find it more enjoyable than your other options. That’s the secret. As hyper stimulated as we are, we are conditioned to seek fun. Our brains are conditioned to seek the most stimulating things available. So what does this mean? If the most stimulating thing is your phone, you’ll want to use it. If the most stimulating thing is reading a book, you’ll want to read a book. Even your dreaded chores you’ve been putting off will be more enticing compared to sitting alone in silence.
Timothy Wilson’s study perfectly illustrates how boredom can be utilized as a tool incentivizing you to be more productive. Imagine you locked yourself in a room with nothing but the work you need to complete. Getting rid of all distractions like your phone, making it either do work or do nothing. You will find yourself choosing to do the work most of the time as sitting doing nothing is uncomfortable, even borderline painful. You will also find the work far more stimulating and entertaining than it would have otherwise been if you had other options of where you could direct your attention allowing you to remain more focused.
The answer - Use Boredom Effectively
Fortunately, there is a solution to help you fight procrastination and achieve a state of deep flow in work you may not even enjoy doing. Unfortunately, most people won’t do it.
So what is this miracle skill?
Boredom.
We are a lot more capable of success than we realize.
By using boredom effectively, we could effortlessly work on and enjoy difficult tasks for a long period of time.
Making your harder tasks a higher priority in fun is necessary as it makes them much easier to do.
With boredom, our lives will became so much less stimulating that work becomes easier to do - as it in turn becomes more appealing with less options for enjoyment. This is because fun is relative. Reading a book becomes fun compared to doing homework and doing homework almost becomes fun when comparing it to meditating for 8 hours. The things that are fun and boring are relative to your available options. When I was taking history in high school, I loved getting to watch videos in class despite me never wanting to watch those videos in my free time. It is only due to how the video is more fun compared to just sitting through a lecture. The work itself isn’t any more enjoyable or stimulating. It’s simply easier to convince yourself to do it.
So is that it?
Are we all just going to give up every distraction from YouTube to Tik Tok permanently? For 99% of you watching, including myself, the answer is no. While I definitely reduce my time spent on these social media apps I won’t delude you into thinking it’s realistic to just go cold turkey and all these apps. Some stimulation is easier to give up compared to others. For myself, I found it significantly easier to give up video games compared to YouTube or Reddit. Despite the instant gratification on these platforms, there are creators who make great content that I genuinely enjoy watching. And thus, cannot fully give up. However, we still need to avoid wasting hours on instant gratification content. This can be achieved simply through making a list of things you need to do. That’s it. Go grab a piece of paper and make a list of all the things you need to do. The trick here is to include things that are extremely easy to do - such as cleaning your room. Then, whenever you catch yourself bored, you can look at your list and pick an easy task to complete that will bring you fulfillment. Even if we can block out a majority of distractions, the truth is that no one on earth is always productive. So even if you can’t bring yourself to do your most difficult or tedious work, you can build momentum by accomplishing smaller tasks rather than consume social media. And this momentum of accomplishment will then help you do your harder work.
Consumption is is always easier than creation. But you can’t consume your way to fulfillment. Fulfillment can only ever be created. This creates a dissonance from many of us between what we’re doing and what we know we should be doing. It’s the difference between who we are and who we know we could be.
Most of the time, we can simply drown out these thoughts by turning on social media or Netflix. But when boredom inevitably occurs, our minds suddenly have space to wander to think and to reflect.
And the first thing that most of our minds will reflect on are around the big existential questions of life.
Most of us run desperately away from boredom because we are afraid to confront these questions. Because, we don’t like what we are going to find there or who we are gonna find there.
But as Aristotle said
The unexamined life is not worth living
which means, this is one of the most important battles any of us will ever fight.
Knowing boredom is important is one thing. But acting on it is something else entirely. Because being bored really sucks - which is why most of us turn into dopamine-seeking missiles the second we feel that twinge of boredom - when we’re standing in line at the coffee shop or waiting in the elevator or sitting at a red light.
References
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgW1u-84wuI
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=1iNyqomXQt8&list=WL&index=138
How to trick your brain into hard work?
Here are four ways to outwork everyone by being bored
1. Increase your capacity to be bored
2. Learn Day dreaming (again)
3. Act on New Ideas That Excite You
Some of the greatest comedians of all time come from Canada. Think of Seth Rogen, Jim Carrey, Mike Myers and Norm Macdonald. There was even a mockumentary made called the Canadian conspiracy about how many Famous entertainers are actually Canadian. Why is that, eh? Well, the brutal Winters in Canada make it so there’s not much else to do but sit around entertain each other and crack jokes.
Now that you’ve taken back your attention, found your unique voice and supercharge your creativity, it’s time to act. To make sure you are ready to act on your ideas, carry around a notebook and collect every idea that comes to you that seems like it could be of value. Once you’ve collected your ideas, it is time to work. Sit down, put your phone away, and give yourself two choices: do nothing or produce.
Famous writers like Neil Gaiman and Maya Angelou use this technique to become prolific writers. Neil sits in a room and he gives himself two choices: he can either sit there and do nothing or he can write. Maya Angelou would get a hotel room, take all the artwork off the walls, and either write or do nothing.
Whatever it is you want to get done, when it is time to act, use boredom to propel you towards action. Make it so your only two options are do nothing or get the thing done. As you do, it it will get easier and easier. And the path that only 1% of people take will become your default way of being. As it gets easier, you can get better at creating and experimenting on your own ideas.
Soon, you can be like the inventor of Netflix, who, on an experiment, decided to mail himself a DVD while he was on vacation. When he came back, it was there at his house and he had a billion dollar business idea.
I challenge you of one thing that’s wasting space in your mind commit to putting it to your calendar and then for that period of time either do nothing or get it done.
4. Make yourself impossible to beat. Create a Signature Style and Voice.
What do Rick Rubin and Joe Rogan have in common? They’re both proponents of the idea of self competition. Rick Rubin says art is about the maker. Its aim to be an expression of who we are - that makes competition absurd. That may be so but Google the words best music producer of all time and the name on top will say Rick Rubin.
When you create from a place of expressing what’s most true about you, nobody can out-compete you. Because nobody can outdo you at being you.
Just like nobody can outdo Rick Rubin at being Rick Rubin or Joe Rogan at being Joe Rogan. The best brands are built on something that’s unique.
Boredom helps you discover what you really love, to eliminate the noise so you can hear the valuable signal, and its motivation to go all in on what you love and build a unique voice that cannot be copied.
You will always be ahead of other people that are simple chasing quick money because you are authentically doing what you do out of love for the game. Who can compete against you when you go all in on what you love? The people doing it for money, clout and fame will all quit when it gets tough. And it will get tough. That’s life. But even when it is tough, you will have endless motivation. You will see it through to the end. Because your actions will be inspired by love and what’s truly important to you. Love for the game. Love for the process. And love for the amazing opportunities.
This consistency will mold you into the best version of you and all it takes to get started is to realize that nobody’s better at being you than you.
TODO