Welcome to the first “Deliberate Internet” issue of 2024. I hope this will be your most deliberate year so far 🌟.
Programming note: You might have noticed this issue of Deliberate Internet looks a bit different, as I have migrated my substack to WordPress.com
Like every year, I reflected on the previous one. I highly recommend the practice as you get to course-correct or relive the best moments again.
I took my notes, Google Photos, and calendar to see the enjoyable things each month and what activities I would like to avoid. There were no surprises when it came to the types of activities bringing me joy: meeting friends, cycling, water sports, spending time in nature, and building cool stuff constantly delivered.
Additionally, I enjoyed months where I got to do a lot of stuff, and I was most annoyed by the liminal moments – waiting, getting around, and getting shit together. All those momentum killers.
The science of momentum
Momentum is the energy (in physics, the kinetic one). It is the flow of things where one thing happens after another without much effort. Once you get a flywheel going, you need less effort to do the next thing:
- Each following sentence flows easily when writing
- The next step comes naturally when running
- You follow the next idea when indulging in your curiousity.
- You find it less daunting to invite one more friend to a party
Momentum is not only about keeping up speed. It’s about aligning yourself with what you want done:
- You are now a person who writes
- You are a person who is intellectually curious
- You are a person who runs
The energy you get out of momentum is also keeping you happy and even alive.
Unused muscles atrophy, underutilized brains turn to apathy, and unrealized potential turns people bitter.
The hardest part is the start
Starting is the hardest. Once you start, momentum keeps you going – in fitness, diet, reading a book, or being that sort of a person.
Everything else is compounding
Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it … he who doesn’t … pays it.
Albert Einstein
Momentum is so powerful because it lets you exploit compound growth in any area of life:
- You work out
- You see results
- You feel good
- You work out more
Compound growth is typically talked about in terms of investing, but this newsletter is a momentum / compounding hack. I created a weekly loop ( which sometimes breaks, like over the last few months ) to keep up my curiosity and share my thoughts.
The more I write, the more ideas I have, the more feedback I get from you – the more I can refine them.
Negative momentum
Momentum also can be negative.
We often do things we regret because we built up momentum:
- We binge-watch entire TV show in one sitting
- We eat way too much
- We scroll tiktoks all day
A reframing of rest
During my sabbatical I decided to “rest”, so I stopped writing for a while. I now regret losing my momentum in being intellectually curious. It has been hard to start again, and the longer I waited, the more problems piled up, the longer I waited.
The first rule of compounding is to never interrupt it unnecessarily
Charlie Munger
We all assume you need “rest” to be healthy and sane, so we deliberately kill momentum and I am not sure that is good.
Regardless if we talk about work, busy social schedule or a diet, its useful to think of rest in fitness terms. When you are going to gym a lot, you need:
- Recovery to deal with the negative side effects of whatever momentum we are keeping up
- Leg Day – or a focus on different area to enjoy a full range of human motion or experience: reading a book, meeting with friends, swim in the lake.
A whole day of scrolling tiktoks will only leave you tired and frustrated.
Optimize for momentum, and everything else will take care of itself.
A few things I’ve read
This week, I’m sending you only one thing to read. But it’s a good one!
How to do great work
“How to do great work” by Paul Graham explores all the factors and implications you should consider when endeavoring to achieve something great.
If you collected lists of techniques for doing great work in a lot of different fields, what would the intersection look like? I decided to find out by making it.
(…)
If you asked an oracle the secret to doing great work and the oracle replied with a single word, my bet would be on “curiosity.”
Paul’s essays are impossible to summarize, so instead, I’m going to point out the overlap with the science of momentum:
Momentum is about keeping the pace of iteration.
Great things are almost always made in successive versions. You start with something small and evolve it, and the final version is both cleverer and more ambitious than anything you could have planned.
Momentum also keeps you prolific. You do stuff, you try a lot and you learn. By trying more you have more shots at discovering something about yourself or your ideas:
Being prolific is underrated. The more different things you try, the greater the chance of discovering something new. Understand, though, that trying lots of things will mean trying lots of things that don’t work. You can’t have a lot of good ideas without also having a lot of bad ones
Have a deliberate week!
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