Engage in Activities That Check Multiple Boxes
“Find three hobbies: One that makes you money, one that keeps you fit, and one that makes you creative”
Spend your time engaging in activities that check multiple efficiency boxes.
As an easy example, we’re going to take the hobby of working out to be our first illustration.
There are a handful of ways one can choose to get in shape physically. Regardless of what activity you choose, please make sure you’re doing something to work out. It’s important. BUT, for the sake of comparison, let’s talk about training for a marathon vs. playing squash.
When you are training for a marathon, you are alone. You are running alone. You are by yourself. You are able to do some deep thinking, which is extremely valuable, but you are there, alone, with your own thoughts. That’s the extent of running long distances.
Training for a marathon takes up quite a bit of time. It takes a long time to run 26 miles. It also takes a long time to get your body acclimated to the point that it is capable of running that long of a distance.
You should likely start by running shorter races, so you can get a feel for how your body responds and what your cadence should be like for the long haul. You’re also going to have to go on a run multiple times a week, with the long run getting up in the neighborhood of 20+ miles, once a week, while running 5+ miles multiple other times a week.
Again, this is a lot of time spent alone. (listening to a podcast/audiobook would be a valuable use of time spent here, but that’s damn difficult when you’re running, haha!) You’re looking at 15+/- hours of training/week. Running. Alone.
You could also argue that there are diminishing returns once you get to that level of cardiovascular fitness. One could say that as long as your body is capable of running 5 miles without stopping at any point in time, you’re probably in pretty good cardio shape. 26 is arguably overkill. Again, all good, but this is an argument that could be used.
15+/- hours is a lot of time spent alone, where you’re not really improving any skill set other than your cardiovascular fitness (or your ability to run - which is likely not changing a whole lot). This is important, no doubt, but potentially not the most valuable use of hours in the day.
Now, take a cardio intensive sport, like squash, for example, showing the other side of the coin.
You’re extremely active during squash games. It is very fast-paced, (think tennis, but 2x faster) so you’re getting an excellent workout. Usually, you can burn well over 500 calories if you play for about 45 minutes. Check the box for cardio - and higher ROI (for time spent) than distance running.
Another advantage - it is extremely social! You have to play squash with an opponent. It could be a buddy, it might actually be someone completely random, who also just simply wanted to get a game in. But you’re interacting with this person. You’re learning about what they do, what they’re working on, what they’re interested in. You’re learning about a new industry, or at the very least, how to improve your squash game cause they’re beating you so badly! You’re increasing the size of your network. You could also be playing doubles, which increases the number of players from 2 to 4. This adds even more human interaction.
There is also competitive banter/real wins and losses. The feedback is immediate, not delayed. You have this when you’re running as well, but it’s a bit different competing with yourself vs. others. (at least for me - everyone is different though!) You also have immediate satisfaction/response from intense competition. From my experience, you don’t have this same feeling when running or training for ultra-endurance events.
You’re also fine tuning a motor skill. Squash is hard. You have to play regularly to get better at it. You have to train your mind / develop muscle memory to advance to a higher level of opponents. This is forcing the mind to stay active.
When you run/complete a marathon, you achieve a massive goal. And that’s cool. Check it off the box. But, I’d argue, you want to be more of a systems person in your approach to life. More to come on that later.
Another example of this type of behavior -we’re going to compare to the type of work you could do professionally. Let’s take being an accountant vs being in some sort of a sales position.
Of course, there is a ton of nuance to being an accountant, and every position is different, but, at a high level, here is the thought process:
As an accountant, often, you’re crunching numbers. You have an excel sheet in front of you, and you have inputs. It’s your job to figure out that puzzle and provide adequate outputs. Now, while building the model, you’re doing a ton of problem-solving, working with a bunch of people, etc. You’re optimizing tax strategies, and the corporations may differ, but day in day out, year in year out, you’ve probably seen the majority of this stuff before.
Now compare that with someone in an outside sales role.
In sales, your role is changing on a daily basis. At the highest level, you’re learning about how best to interact with other humans, at every time of every day. This is valuable for life in general, as you are going to be forced to interact with humans, at every point of every day for the rest of your life. It helps you get along better with your brothers and sisters. It helps you get along better with the hinge date you lined up earlier in the week. You’re dealing with a ton of people, so if nothing else, by the process of osmosis, you’re learning what to do and what not to do.
You learn about negotiation. You’re in more negotiations. You learn how far you can push some people. You learn how to get to the root cause of what the other person on the other side is getting at. You learn that what is important to some is not at all important to others. You learn how to set an anchor and come back to more realistic compromises. You learn that it isn’t personal, but it is serious.
You have to establish a relationship with your clientele, often starting from scratch. You have to communicate the wants and needs your client has back to your organization at large, and vise versa! You have to communicate with other team members. You are constantly learning the value of effective communication, and how to get better at it.
The difference is subtle, but can you see why the argument could be made that even something as simple and personal exercise or your day job can be compounded if you get yourself into one activity vs. another.
The way that you spend your time matters. It matters above all else.
There is a huge difference between putting on mainstream news channels in the evening and listening to biased nonsense for hours every night, or streaming a youtube chat from legend John Malone talking about the past and future of the cable business. Subtle changes to inputs, with massively different outputs.
Analyze and choose how to best spend your time. If you can optimize what you like to do/time spent around activities that check multiple boxes, you are living a more efficient life that will inevitably lead to more opportunities and circumstances and fulfillment and success.
The best part about living life along these lines is that it will not be forced, it will be normal. Accidental almost. But it’s not by accident. You designed it by carefully choosing what to be interested in and where to spend your time.
Scott Adams talks about this concept in How To Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big:
You make your own luck. Very little happens in life by accident.
Acton items:
1 - Think about how and where you spend the majority of your time. Are there any activities that could be optimized? If so, how hard would it be for you to work in those optimizations? There is no need to completely upend everything you currently do, but you likely can cut waste from your current regimens. Be brutally honest with yourself.
Look specifically at some activities, and if it’s easy to make a minor change, start there. Soon you’ll begin to notice things that are happening that weren’t in the past. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Trust me!
2 - “Find three hobbies: One that makes you money, one that keeps you fit, and one that makes you creative.”
Cheers to your continued success! As always, follow itschriskeith on Twitter for more regular updates!