The Logarithmic functions of despair. Voting options.

Wow, it's already Tuesday! I feel like I've been super productive the last few days, but apparently, that didn't include posting to my blog. I guess I always know I have to do this, but now I'm gathering all the other things I didn't really know about, because they are one-off things, and so my days are full of that stuff. There is so much I could talk about. I want to talk about logarithmic utility curves for working on "good day building blocks." I want to talk about Faustian deals made apprehensively with apple watches, I want to talk about the power of priming willpower with little wins. I want to talk about how awesome getting back to my original miracle morning has been, I want to talk about the valentines day experience I'm shipping to my new squeeze.

But I've got a lot of other things I need to do tonight as well, and it's already almost the time where I'm trying to turn off work and start winding down. Like, two minutes away. Tell you what, I'll just pick one, and if I missed your favorite option, send me an email or a comment and I'll elaborate on that one next post.

So, logarithmic utility curves: when I say "good day building blocks" what I mean is, there are a few things that we can do, that, if done, make a big difference in the quality of our days. Usually they are some or all of the following: exercise, enough sleep, good diet, spiritual practice. There are plenty of less common ones, and the spiritual practice is maybe a smaller category than the sleep, exercise, and diet, in terms of number of people who it's important to.

Anyway, here's my point, or theory (based on personal experience and observation): there is an initial point, where time invested, say, into the first 15 minutes of exercise, yields HUGE rewards. I feel so much better when I've gotten even just a little exercise, vs. none, that it is absolutely ridiculous not to do it. It's not extra time in my schedule, if I look at the rest of the day, because I get probably twice as much important stuff done. That is a good time investment. people are happy if they get a 10% return on stocks, and we are talking a 100%+ return.

However, there are people who get really excited about one of those categories, say exercise, since we are using that, and they want to get that double return on more time. But it's not a straight line, it's an inverse logarithmic line (like my cookie tastiness over time graph) that quickly levels off, giving negligible gains for increased time in after a certain point.

People tend to get focus locked on one thing, like sleep, or diet, or exercise, or spiritual practice, or any number of other little side avenues, and end up putting tremendous effort and time in, achieving only minimal additional benefits for their hard work and extensive time. My suggestion then, based on this theory, is, once you've reached the basic level of good returns on one of these Good Day Building Blocks (GDBB or God-bubba) you then shift your attention to getting another one up to that basic level of maximum returns on investment.

Say you're getting a nice walk for 20 minutes a day, but you're eating white bread covered in corn syrup: leave the exercise as is for a bit until you've gotten yourself onto more fruits and vegetables and whole foods. And maybe all of those are on lock, so you download f.lux to your computer and get off the phone and computer entirely an hour before you go to bed. And then maybe you add in a few minutes every day taking a walk in nature, or chatting with close friends, or dancing, or meditating. Whatever fills you up. Not all of those, just the things that make the biggest difference to you. Maybe the next thing to do is just sit down with a piece of paper and brainstorm all the things that fill you up and are GDBB's for you, and then try them out to see which ones make the biggest difference. Then, once you've got your building blocks all at basic levels, you can take your favorite and keep pushing it as much as you want.

But if you're missing one of the holy trinity: Food, Sleep, and Excercise, then you probably need to get on that. I would personally also add Silence (meditation, for me) to that list of essentials, but I don't want to be prescriptive, just encouraging: go find your GDBB's, and get yourself doing even 5 minutes of each of them. If they really are your biggest GDBB's, the results will be sufficient reason to expend the energy to keep them up and expand them to the point of diminishing returns.

Graphs!









This last one is where I got the title of this blog post from: