Weekly Update 6 - Carrots and Sticks (Feb 15 2021)
🥕 This week's theme: what are the secrets to motivation? 🥕Premium post preview 🥕 Books, music, articles 🥕 Freebies and discounts 🥕
Quote of the week
What I'm reading
"How To Have A Good Day" by Caroline Webb. Don't let the size of this book put you off - this one is really useful, and approachable, with plenty of menus and summaries to guide you through.
"Where The Stress Falls" by Susan Sontag. I come back to Sontag whenever I want to remember how good it feels to read well and write lots. This is not really an "introductory" Sontag collection, but the pieces are bite-sized enough to ration according to appetite.
"The Man And His Bike" by Wilfried De Jong. One journalist gets on his bicycle and writes about the love of cycling. Simple, sometimes a bit crude, but always insanely enthusiastic about a sport I'm also in love with.
(Please, note: if you go ahead and buy a book using one of the links above, you’re supporting a non-Amazon bookshop, and I may get a percentage of the sale. You don’t pay any extra though.)
What I'm hearing
"Trilogy 2: Live" by Chick Corea, Christian McBride and Brian Blade. A titanic jazz trio, and a really good live album. Chick Corea's idea of play and fun is on my mind as I write Friday's post.
"The ECM Recordings" by Steve Reich. Some of the greatest works by this brilliant composer. My ultimate get-in-the-zone album.
"ILMAMÕTSAN" by Mari Kalkun. It felt surreal to wake up one morning to see snow outside my window, and hear one of the songs from this album on the radio. Estonian folk meets Japanese zen in north London, who knew?
Elsewhere online...
"Beyond Burned Out" (Harvard Business Review / Jennifer Moss). Possibly the most important piece you can read this week. Think the pandemic will lead to burnout? What if it's much worse?
"The country rejecting throwaway culture" (BBC / Peter Yeung). Such a punk thing to do: DIY it, fix it, use it until the wheels come off, then fix it again. Vive la France!
Freebies, deals, and offers
"Lunar New Year Sale", by Humble Bundle. Two days left in this sale at the time of writing, and this consists of games mainly. I'm posting this because sticks need carrots, and because productivity needs downtime, and because some of these games are deeply discounted classics.
"Work Won't Love You Back" - online book event. My favorite bookstore moved all its events online - this conversation is about the cult of work, and what happens when it goes wrong. Free - with a solidarity ticket option.
This week's premium post: a sneak preview
On Friday, we'll explore pleasure and pain, reward and punishment. There are several good reasons for doing so. By figuring out how we motivate ourselves, and how the external world motivates us, we can become more aware of when work gets done, and why.
If you want to tag along, there is a tiny exercise you can start doing yourself. I'll let you focus on the good part before I discuss the tricky bits on Friday :)
Write down, in any form you like, as many words / phrases as you can, in association with the ideas below. Think of senses, places, actions, names, brands,
emotions...anything.
- reward
- deserved
- satisfaction
- achievement
- relax
Bring this along to the Friday premium post. Or come to it fresh and catch up then!
Stay productive,
Vic