In high school, I gravitated toward math since it was clean, precise. I found the liberal arts to be stark contrast in its subjectivity. It was ‘squishy’. I hate squishy. (I must confess – I do seek to be a better writer, an endeavor that is currently squishy until the AI completely revolutionizes English generation at which point it will be beautifully )

As I get older, I find more that the world is infinitely complex. I find that life is not so simple. In a desire to reduce complexity and friction for myself, I’ve come up with a few equations.

I’m interested in figuring out metrics I can optimize for. I want to keep a running list of these equations and add more that I find useful. This will also help my focus — one of my values I seek to improve in. As the famous Druckerism goes: ‘what gets measured, gets managed’

I proudly introduce:

David Parkinson’s Handy Life Equations For Maximizing Your Life (A Continually Updated List) :::

$Life Success = \sum (rejection * valueOfEachRejection)$

I firmly believe that one’s success in life are directly proportional to the amount of rejection someone has experienced. Many people fear the pain of rejection so dearly that they seek safe environments where rejection is difficult if not impossible (I’m looking at you government jobs).

It’s not just the amount of rejections someone obtains, it’s also the VALUE of said rejections. For instance, if I simply went door to door selling paperclips I’d obtain many rejections but since the product I’m selling is low value, I’d achieve lower success than someone who figured out a higher margin product to sell.

This also means that if we want to be more successful, we can try to obtain rejections that matter more. I.e. the business distribution deal that could really move your life forward, or asking that person out who you really, really like. You want to be pursuing difference makers.

nb4 Walmart: Walmart sells millions of cheap items so it doesn’t really count.

$valueCreated = \sum (amountProduced) – \sum (amountConsumed)$

As covered in my production versus consumption series, there are societal forces at work to maximize your consumption and minimize your production. Your net value created is the sum of everything of value you produce less the amount you’ve consumed.

It’s not enough to produce. Look at the 78% bankruptcy or financial distress rate of former NFL players, or the 60% of NBA players who are bankrupt within 5 years. You must also reign in your consumption.

$netWorth = \sum (valueCreated)$

This is one of my takeaways from attending Tony Robbin’s Unleash the Power Within seminar courtesy of my buddy VJ Anma. The gist is if you want more net worth, provide more value. If you want to double your net worth, try providing 10X more value to people.

$skill = \sum (timeSpent * intensity * focus)$

This week I purchased a digital piano at a pawn shop and regretted not buying one earlier. I am realizing that it’s not just the time spent, it’s also about how well I focus and if I’m giving 100% of my effort (intensity).

When I play the guitar while watching Netflix or a boxing match I’m practicing but I’m not playing with intensity and focus, and such the session was of lesser value than if I remove all distractions.

$satisfaction = \sum (taskImportance * taskUrgency) – \sum (wastedTime)$

– or –

$satisfaction = \sum (2MarshmallowDecisions – 1MarshmallowDecisions)$

The Eisenhower Matrix, is a great way to manage your time, as long as you realize that as according to ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ author Stephen Covery would tell you, you should focus on working on tasks of importance to the point where fewer and fewer urgent tasks pop up out of the woodwork.

I have found that at the end of the day, I am proud of the times where I times where I ‘do the harder thing’, which is another way of waiting for the second marshmallow as opposed to eating the one marshmallow now.

Wasted time in the form of procrastination or working on tasks of non-importance (again, another form of procrastination) detract from the quality of my day.

What about you? Do you have a life equation you like? Did I miss one? Did I get one wrong? Please let me know in the comments.

PS: Is this article good enough to release?. Probably not.

PPS: But I am impressed that I wrote it in about an hour or less.

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What’s good enough to release? What’s good enough to see the light of day?

Is this sentence good enough? Does it deserve to be here? Probably not.

Was the title of this article good enough? Probably not.

Will anyone even read this? Does this article even deserve to see the light of day? Should you be reading it? I can’t answer that for you. But that these words exist at all, and that I hit the publish button to bring them to the world them brings me joy.

I think most people fail because they fear failure, or they worry that whatever they want to create simply isn’t good enough.

Or maybe I should rephrase — I know that I have allowed these two fears to afflict me. For the last 12 years, I’ve been writing privately in my journal about thoughts and realizations I’ve had. I’ve contemplated sharing these publicly but always thought to myself, “Oh I’m probably a shitty writer.” And you know what? I probably am.

But the only way I’m going to get any better is by forcing myself to publish what I write. Is that going to be embarrassing at times? Definitely. But I’ve found in my life that I often regret not taking action as opposed to taking action. Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon called this the "Principle of Least Regret." He prorposed that you should take the action that you would regret the least. And inaction is almost always worse than any action.

I think there’s a certain mysticism in the United States that popularizes the notion that successes happen overnight. They almost always don’t, but the most we see about this is shown during montages of Hollywood movies or buried in the meat of the story.

When addressing the problem of ‘What is good enough?’ I think there are three approaches:

1. Lower your perceptions of ‘what is good enough’

What has helped me with #1 is the realization that whatever I release, write, or publish is by default infinitely better than what I do not. So I win by default every time I release something to the public. I win by default every time I make the decision to produce as opposed to the choice to consume.

2. Accept that you may not meet your standard (or anyone else’s) of ‘what is good enough’ now, in the future, or potentially ever. And that’s OK!

In Buddhism they have a concept called ‘Dukkha’ which can be roughly translated into suffering, craving or attachment. Without getting all spiritual on you, they believe that Dukkha results in all the pain we have in life. So instead of experiencing this pain of not living up to our personal standards the second approach is to simply accept that we may never feel like what we produce is good enough. We may never be able to live up to these standards.

3. Taking action, doing something — anything, is infinitely better than doing nothing.

In fact, everything that we end up releasing to world might be objectively terrible. And other people might end up hating everything you do because it doesn’t meet their personal standards. And so what? It doesn’t matter. Besides, what’s the alternative? Do nothing? Do nothing? Congratulations — you’re not entitled to anything. It is only by continuing to take action, any action — that can we ever achieve the results we want for ourselves.

In summary….

I have no illusions that I’ll become a great writer, but I consider it an ‘Old Man Investment.’ I’m attempting at developing skills and hobbies now that I can continue to enjoy into old age. I also hope that by forcing myself to release what I write regularly, I can lower the bar of what I consider ‘good enough’. And to remind myself that any time spent producing and taking action is better than inaction, or time spent consuming. When I do release something I’m not completely happy with — I’ll become more comfortable realizing that I often won’t reach my standards — or anyone else’s — and that’s OK. Just showing up is a win.

Accepting uncomfortable truths is one of the best ways I’ve found to move my life forward. These are the truths that only a trusted friend would ever tell you — and even then — they might not. I think finding these universal truths are like finding waypoints in life. And I hope you ask yourself the question ‘what is good enough?’

You’ll probably find a better answer than I did

Fun statistics:

This article took me 2 hours to write. You’ll probably read it in less than 5 minutes. Such is the nature of production versus consumption.

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I must not pick up my phone.
Picking up my phone is the little death.
The glass — a screen — a window to the infinite.
Trying to fill each moment with stimulation — dopamine injections.
Wanting, needing like a junkie. Just one more hit. It’ll be different this time.
A slot machine with uncertain payoffs.
A waster of life. A destroyer of beautiful moments. An instigator of regrets.
There’s always a better thing. FOMO.
Always leading to one marshmallow decisions.
Training myself in the ways of consumption, becoming a sheep.
Suffocation of the moments in-between: destroying the space for creativity — for creating — for producing.
Boredom is beautiful — learn to embrace it.
Touching my phone without a purpose is purposeless.

The post Litany against picking up my phone appeared first on David Parkinson.

Chances are you’ve read this hackneyd question before, paused to consider it a few moments, then dismissed it never to think of it again.

Big mistake.

The distinction is more subtle than you might think. While the personal development industry and most modern media companies (read listicle creation boiler room) has probably churned out more than a few thoughts on these roles, I’ve come to some personal epiphanies that I haven’t seen elsewhere, and that I hope they will help you too.

First let’s define a few terms shall we:

Consumption (noun): 1.  the using up of a resource.

And the resource here is your time.  Each time you open your mouth and shove food inside it you are consuming. Each time you choose your favorite flavor of streaming service, turn on the television/radio, open your favorite social app and begin scrolling its infinite list of algorithmically derived stories you are consuming. Each time you read an article via web browser (including this one), mindlessly surf the Internet, fire up your favorite link aggregator (Reddit, hacker news etc) you are consuming. You’re even consuming when you read a book… listen to a podcast, audio book, or music. Consumption is modern day’s Soma. And I’ll posit that it has destroyed more people’s dreams than any other force in history. Worse than heroin. Worse than meth. Worse than opium.  Really.

Wait, I suppose you’re going to tell me that all consumption is bad. How is reading a book or listening to a podcast on my morning commute a bad use of my time?

Don’t put words in my mouth! Without the majority of people spending the majority of time consuming — you’d find it hard to be a producer. Some consumption is inherent to survival. And not ALL consumption is bad obviously, but I want to alert you to how common consumption really is… and how often we practice the act without realizing it. The first step in being able to change something is being aware of its existence. And as we’ll see, shifting your thinking by asking a simple question, “Right now, am I producing or consuming?” can be very helpful.

David Parkinson’s First Law of Consumption: Consumption is our societal default.

An illustrative example: During Christmas dinner last year I came to realize that most of the conversation centered around consumption. I realize I’m cherry picking a bit here (it WAS Christmas after all) and of course you would expect some of to discussion to center around the coveted items that had magically appeared into people’s lives earlier in the day. In one case, a very adorable small person received an American Girl Doll. Immediately, everyone wanted to share personal stories about their particular doll, American Girl variety or otherwise. Somehow there was a transition to blindingly hot sauces and where they could be obtained… and that led to a debate about where the best spicy tacos are in town. Next, a couple was going on vacation to Florida and wanted to talk about it. Our group listened intently.

To most people this looked like a normal conversation, but in my mind it was centered around people discussing the consumption of various products and services.

Is this nothing more than the human experience? The American experience? People sharing a common unifying characteristic? Sure! But I asked myself, what did all these seemingly disparate topics have in common? Consumption. It’s the common thread. Again, I’m not saying that consumption is a bad thing! There’s nothing wrong with being a kid, getting a doll, tacos, or going on vacation. But I realized in that moment, that so much of the our experience is hinged around consumption.

David Parkinson’s Second Law of Consumption: Most people start their day with consumption… but you don’t have to.

Illustrative Example: Every morning, my Philips GoLite blasts 200 lux of piercing blue light at my blearing eyes. NPR News would helpfully recount the daily news. And until recently, my morning ritual consisted of rolling over and checking my phone. I’d fire up my RSS reader and read some of my favorite feeds, then scroll through Instagram as I reminisced when I saw photos from friends and places I remember fondly. Then I’d scroll Twitter for a bit. And before I knew what was happening, I just lost 30 minutes of my life to consumption (182 hours a year). Consumption is the vampire of time. Don’t believe me? Look how much time the average social media user uses over their lifetime. Hint: 5 years, 4 months of continual 24×7 use!  This is why I’ve uninstalled Instagram and Facebook from my phone.

When I unplugged my phone from its charger, I was essentially plugging into the online world. An infinite sea of voices clamored for attention. They wanted me to listen to what they had to say because attention is the new coin of the realm. Instead of producing my own ideas and thoughts, beliefs, and reality… I’m essentially plugging into the matrix of consumption.

What can you do instead: Make yourself the focus of your mornings. Do 20 push-ups. Roll your abs with an ab roller. Do your StrongLifts workout. Try morning pages.  Try a morning success ritual. Whatever works for you… but for God’s sake, don’t passively consume content.

David Parkinson’s Third Law of Consumption: Consumption: Beware the slow killer in life.

Physical pain is immediate and it damn well better be otherwise we’d be more like dogs than humans (punishing dogs is pointless unless you can catch them in the midst of an undesirable activity)…. but consumption isn’t like that at all. It’s choosing one marshmallow now as opposed to two later. Its symptoms are regret. It is a destroyer of dreams because unproductive consumption today limits your potential future.

Consumption doesn’t kill quickly — that would be too obvious. You don’t notice a day at a time sneaking past you until they have added up to a lump of time you can comprehend. One day, one week, one month, one year, a decade, even a lifetime.

What can you do: be aware of what you’re doing by cultivating mindfulness. Consumption is an illustrative example of Newton’s First Law of motion (object at rest tends to remain at rest, and an object in motion tends to remain in motion). As I work myself to become more of a producer than a consumer I realize how engrained my habits have been — watching Netflix while preparing food, watching the UFC while playing the guitar, or simply being content to read someone else’s article instead of writing my own. The list goes on and on…

Bonus: You can also try to make your typical consumption patterns less enjoyable.  For instance I used to check Facebook when I was bored and in need of a dopamine rush.  Most of what makes Facebook Facebook is their “News Feed” — algorithmically optimized stories from your social network.  To start out with, I found block Facebook too difficult, so I installed Facebook News Eradicator — a chrome extension that eliminates your News Feed.  I can still use Facebook — but now I have to have a targeted objective instead of mindlessly scrolling an infinite list of stories.  Having destroyed the main reason why I visited Facebook, I now find myself doing it much less often.  Great!

David Parkinson’s Fourth Law of Consumption: Some types of consumption are better than others.

When it comes to consumption there is a hierarchy of types of consumption from worst to best…

Visual Consumption:

• Mindlessly watching television
• Watching a specific show Netflix or otherwise
• Streaming documentaries

Audio Consumption:

• Radio
• Entertainment Podcast
• Music
• Business Podcast

Computer / Smartphone / Tablet Consumption:

• Mindless internet browsing
• Social Media in all its forms
• Reddit
• Blogs that you subscribe to / rss reader
• Reading NYTimes
• Hacker News
• Instapaper
• Reading a book i.e. the ones that help you build your business or expand your mind…
• Reading books purely for fun & entertainment

Takeaways: Ask yourself, “Right now, am I producing or am I consuming?”. And if you’re consuming, “Is the most productive thing I could consume right now?”

David Parkinson’s Fifth Law of Consumption: Some consumption is absolutely necessary. But start tracking your time, and limit the worst offenders.

The saying goes, “What gets measured gets managed”. I think its essential to have unstructured play time… Times where you’re free to consume whatever you want. In this article, I seek to discuss how consumption sneaks into our everyday lives (and even our work lives)

For me I realized that I was consuming too much… and would like to focus on producing more. And producing more than I consume. But I first had to see the scope of the problem. I use Taskwarrior / Timewarrior, to manage and review my time. Whatever you see fit to use is great. You can start asking yourself the question of “what am I really spending time on?” and “Should I be spending this much time on activity X?”. These are questions you cannot hope to answer until you begin diligently tracking your time.

Fun fact: I had the idea for this article 9 months ago. But then I wasn’t sure where I’d put my writing online, then I didn’t like the way this website used to look, etc etc etc. Focus on what matters. And if you succeed in just getting your ideas/product/vision/music/project out there, you’re ahead of 90% of people.

David Parkinson’s Sixth Law of Consumption: pick a day to consume and enjoy it!

Even God needed a day for rest.  You probably do too.  Pick one day to rest and don’t schedule any activities.  Enjoy & thank me later.

To close, I leave you with one of my favorite poems of all time:

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