The Lazy Approach to Improving
What I'm Up To (Not burning up), What I Reflected On (Lazy Improvement), and What's Occupying My Mind (Claw Machines) - all part of Allen's Friday Flights
HELLO to my Friday Flights
What a busy week, am I right? Anyway, welcome back to my personal updates around the random things I do.
Ciao!
Allen
Past Friday Flights
What I’m Up To
TL;DR: Keepin’ it cool even though I published unintentionally too early.
The Things:
I accidentally published on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. This caused people to think it was Wednesday. But it was actually Tuesday. Oops. Sorry? But more of you read it on Tuesday?
I had a chat with LJW - and it’s very funny to find Ex Big 4 in Crypto who are also writing.
9 Alumni of CSULB including myself suddenly started receiving emails less than a week ago from our university career center recommending jobs we’re eligible to apply for, like an accounting role for $40k. We all graduated at least 5 years ago.
A great short podcast episode on Cultural Intelligence, specifically around the concept of Tight and Loose Cultures and how that impacts communication and thinking styles. I learned about Cultural Intelligence originally from this guy. Heard he gives talks. ;)
Anyone interested in looking at climate-related jobs? Check out Terra.do! Thanks Adam B.
This burger place in Tustin has great simple burgers, with fries like McDonalds.
This sushi place offers Omakase, DIY Handroll Kits, and so many other goodies for cheaps. It’s in Irvine.
This podcast episode on “How to Think” focuses on Thinking Traps.
What I reflected on
TL;DR: My career break has made me appreciate the concept of incrementalism, as applied to your human self.
The Lazy Approach to Improving
I’ve never been one for New Years Resolutions or big meticulously planned goals.
Making big New Years Like Resolutions or initiating sweeping changes are things I shutdown on. As in, I won’t do them nor will I ever keep them. I find these kinds of proclamations to be exhausting and fatigued, and that’s me before I even started.
In looking back and reflecting why it this, I’ve observed this about myself:
If I overthink it, I won’t start it.
I recognize that while making changes, things around me are also changing and my plan will have to change or adapt. So in stead of focusing on planning well, I tend to focus on adapting well instead. I’ve done this long though.
I like to minimize energy expenditure (lazy me talking) and instead of focusing on problems that have yet to arise, I wait for the problem to arise and then respond to it then. Improv & winging it. I basically needed to stumble the first few times before my improv muscles get developed.
For me to develop behavior-level changes, I had think of things at an atomic level. I haven’t actually read the book atomic habits, but I’m going to assume it has something to do with doing things in a very small but meaningful way, and doing enough of these “small things” that it flywheels into a “bigger thing”.
I much prefer Northstars where we set a theme for a day, a week, or month/year - and we’ll count anything that contributes to the Northstar. I’m not very consistent in applying new systems, processes, or advice, into what I do everyday. I have a high adoption fail rate when it comes to trying a lot of traditional things.
That is, until I figured out incrementalism!
What’s that?
It could be referred to as “continuous improvement”.
Here’s example 1:
What’s something I could do 1% better at today, and what very small action is that?
One percent is an oddly specific percent.
But it turns out, doing something 1% better each day contributes to a 37.78x return. Basically, you are 37x better by the end of the year.
Here’s the math:
Here’s example 2:
Let’s try reading 30 minutes every day.
If you read 30 minutes a day, you’ll have read 33 books in a year.
Which is 990 books in 30 years
Or 2500 books in a lifetime.
Here’s example 3:
You can also apply incrementalism in fitness.
A 10 minute run per day is:
7 miles ran per week
or 365 miles ran per year.
Here’s the magic of all these figures and numbers.
I’ve learned that incrementalism is not about the numbers or the vanity behind all these feats.
It’s about creating sustainable habits that result from your very-small every day actions. These small actions create a momentum.
The magical thing I realized is that after I continuously do something incrementally everyday, I suddenly find myself doing a lot more of it a month later.
Here’s my results:
Redditing: I’ve reddited for 414 hours this year or 24,840 minutes - which is about 1.5 hours a day
Picking up my phone: I picked up my phone 164 times a day or 44,772 times this year
Eating Trader Joes Mochi Ube Ice Cream: So far, I’ve eaten 24 mochi ice creams this month
Boba: I get boba about 3 times a week. So I’ve had it 117 times by now. That tracks.
See? You can find incremental improvement too.
I’ve thought about all the different approaches to think about how you can apply incrementalism to your life.
Here are some.
Short hot reflection takes.
What’s something you can be 1% better at today?
What’s something you can be 10% better at?
What is something you can do for 5 minutes that will bring you absolute joy?
Fitness related - What’s something you can’t do for 1 hour, but can do for 1 minute?
Whose day can you make better in 15 seconds or less?
What was the last boringly delightful thing you did?
If you dollar cost average bitcoin at $10 a day since inception, what would you have?
What is on my mind:
TL;DR: Claw Machines.
Here’s the technical manual on how to configure the win-rate of a claw-machine at the arcade.
Page 27 - describes claw grip - how much voltage will be channeled into the crane arm, thereby increasing the strength of the claw.
Page 51 - describes how to adjust the claw strength based on the voltage knowledge in page 27
Page 58 - describes the win rate, aka when to apply high voltage.
I don’t know what to do with this information, but I figure pulling you in would help.