It's Giving "People Pleasers in Their Villain Era"

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💭 ONE THING WE’RE THINKING ABOUT

What is the 2-minute version of the task I'm avoiding?

This question popped into our inboxes recently (courtesy of James Clear) and it’s definitely been bouncing around in our heads ever since.

We often avoid starting things when we build them into these incredibly complex operations we have to execute. But complex things don’t happen in one fell swoop — they get off the ground in small, simple actions, one thing at a time.

It’s been our experience that pretty much anything on your to-do list can be accomplished in 15 minutes, 1 hour, or 2 hours. Even still, sometimes 15 minutes feels too daunting. If you ever feel that way, try lowering the bar even further to a 2-minute version of the task.

The task/project → The 2 minute version

Write a proposal → Open a word doc and title it

Go for a walk → Put on shoes and stand outside your door

Cook dinner → Get all the ingredients out of the fridge

Bookkeeping → Start or open the folders you need

Writing → Write a short outline in your Notes app

Cleaning → Choose one small surface to clear off

After you do that thing, you’ll probably have have gained the momentum to do a few more minutes. Or you can stop completely! It’s up to you! But just remember that you don’t have to spin out about how complicated something is if you can start with the 2-minute version.

🎧 ONE THING WE’RE LISTENING TO

FREAKONOMICS RADIO:
Yuval Noah Harari Thinks Life is Meaningless and Amazing (52 min)

Yuval is a genius among us — he’s an Israeli historian who has an absolutely gift for storytelling. If you’ve ever wondered how humans got here, this is your guy. He’s well known for his groundbreaking book Sapiens — but if the whole shebang is intimidating, Anna just started digging into Sapiens: A Graphic History for the very same reason. It’s a comic book about the origins of humanity… so 10/10.

👀 ONE THING WE’RE OBSESSED WITH

Not trying so f*cking hard all the time & aiming for a B+ instead

If this concept intrigues you, you’re either an overthinker, perfectionist, or someone who is taking it all waaaaay to seriously. You could be all three of those (like we are).

By aiming more mid, your work will probably still be excellent, and you’ll do more of it.

In the weeks leading up to the application of this, we were spinning our wheels a bit on “what’s next” for Spacetime, but since we starting applying the B+ philosophy, almost everything has started moving more clearly and efficiently. Just in the past month, we’ve released new products and more content, and we’re getting work done more efficiently, making decisions faster, and have an easier time letting go of inconsequential details.

Being able to remind each other to cut ourselves some slack and focus on the B+ work has been a huge advantage — we keep each other in check. If you have someone in your life that could benefit from this philosophy (friend, partner, favorite coworker), run an experiment where you both ask the other, “What’s the B+ version of this?” when you can tell the inner perfectionist is running rampant. Try this for a month, then report back… we’ll wait 😏

🤔 ONE QUESTION FOR YOU

Have any questions you think we should ask? Reply to this email!

⭐️ ONE LAST THING

“How many times did you watch this?”
Us: “Yes”

@kangarootails

He's just a silly little guy #wombat #rescue #wildlife

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