Hi!
I’m normally not updated on new shows or songs, but 2 things launched over the last few days that really excited me.
First was Arcane - the League of Legends animation. I don’t play much LOL anymore, but I loved seeing the lore come to life in a beautifully done show.
Second, the release of Red (Taylor’s Version). I wrote previously about some of my thoughts and emotions from listening to her re-recording of Fearless, and those thoughts repeat here.
Anyway, I won’t be a Taylor Swift fan without writing something about it.
Have a good week!
James
Productivity lessons from Taylor Swift
I’ve always felt that the excessive focus on exams in school creates various bad productivity habits. For example, we are incentivised to only work on the “right” things. - being the things tested in the exam. After the exam, we joke that all the content is “returned to the teacher”.
Outside school, I realised if I wanted to do good knowledge work, there is a need to learn new practices to manage knowledge, creativity, and content. Practices which appeared inefficient in school are actually valuable to help us form good ideas, and deepen our understanding.
Over the past few years I’ve been working on recalibrating my principles and strategies around productivity. The release of Red (Taylor’s Version) shows some examples of the practices which I believe are effective. She likely is not the only person doing these things, nor the pioneer of them, but her success is good anecdotal evidence of how they might work.
1. You don’t need a good reason to create.
In pursuit of efficiency, the tendency is to only produce when asked to do it. We only write, research, or learn when tasked to do so by work, school, or some clear exchange-benefit.
Taylor is always writing songs. The presence of “Vault” tracks in her re-recorded albums is testament to that. There are stories of how she even has half written songs on her arms. She does not only write when asked to make an album. In fact many of these songs did not get into her original albums. They only surfaced now, and there are possibly many more hidden away somewhere.
This creation-first approach has several advantages. It is constant practice for exercising her craft, making her better at it. It allows the things that go out into the world to be her best pieces, while keeping things in reserve to catch opportunities that arise, such as this chance to re-record.
Often, I spend too much time thinking about what is the “highest-value” thing to be working on, and needing some obvious reason to start working on it. There is an irrational fear of doing “redundant” work.
Instead, I ought to always be learning, trying, and producing, without worry in the moment if it will amount to something.
2. It doesn’t matter how you keep your notes, but keep them.
The signature track in this album is All Too Well (10 Minute Version). This song came about as a result of an improv session to let out emotions. Taylor’s mum asked the sound crew after the session if they had, by chance, kept a recording, and they burnt a single CD of it. It was not intended, nor was it produced in perfect conditions.
I used to feel disturbed if I did not have the right conditions before working. I would worry that I did not have my laptop to record notes in the right place. I would expect to have the right ambience, maybe some nicely decorated cafe with enough space and good wifi. It is probably a bad influence of productivity porn on the internet, creating a fairytale view that work requires beautiful planners and workspaces.
Striving for perfect conditions takes effort. Having an effective system, and meticulously organised notes and materials takes effort. All this time can be better spent simply doing what matters. We end up always waiting for conditions and filling our time with less essential activities.
All Too Well shows how great things can be produced under imperfect, unplanned, conditions. Especially as a parent now, good conditions to work never exist. Rather than care about efficiency or neatness, I find it more useful to learn to be comfortable working in a scrappy, chaotic way. I might edit this newsletter on my phone while waiting for Alcina at a store, exercise randomly without some planned routine, or listen to a podcast in fragments while driving.
3. Control the soul of your work, not its shell.
There’s a section in Rework about how you can have a hot dog stand without any sauces or relishes, but you can’t have a hot dog stand without hot dogs. Regardless of the field, all work has a soul. A core essence which is most valuable, and once taken away, causes the work to cease to have true meaning.
I often see an obsession with building a database and gathering materials. Collecting the best study notes, contract templates, or slide decks.
We exist in a time where the internet exists as everyone’s database. Material can almost always be found easily.
If the essence of your work is in these databases, then your value is small and fragile, as you rely on material prepared by others. It can be easily replaced, maybe by a google search.
These collections must only be a convenience, for us to save some effort. We must have control over the soul of our work, to re-create or apply those collections even if we cannot find them again.
Taylor’s re-recording embodies this. She can break artificial barriers of intellectual property rights because the she is so much control over the ability to create her music, and the part of it which matters to her audience.
Recognising this frees up my own bandwidth because I worry less about keeping things or consuming content. I’m not afraid to let notes or drafts disappear or be deleted. I don’t waste energy keeping backlogs of things I feel I “should” read. I’m not obsessed with making sure I can find everything I want. I trust that if I had internalised things well, I already have what I need in my mind.
Productivity, creation, and knowledge management is still very much a work in progress for me, and these are some of the principles I try and apply in my own journey. I’d love to hear your own tips and strategies around these topics, do drop a reply and share them!
Other things…
Statement by Singapore’s Youths on COP26
There’s a climate crisis going on now, and I think its both encouraging that youths are so active in this space, and also embarrassing on the older generation for not doing enough. I feel that big structural change is needed to avoid the potential dangers, and this requires climate issues to be seen as an opportunity for a new age, rather than a balancing act between pollution and destruction.
Effortless
Finished this book recently, a decent, easy, read to help reframe your mind and lifestyle away from throwing energy needlessly at problems.
Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear your thoughts, start a conversation, or simply connect over a chat. You can reply this email, leave a comment, or reach me at jameschanwz@hey.com.
If you enjoyed reading this and would like to support my writing, do subscribe or share this with a friend.
Take care and have a good week!
James