Zachariah Lewis

I’m over 25 days into my plan. In terms of the outcomes I went in seeking, things are looking good.

I’m making progress on all objectives – and seeing progress in the indirect areas that I was hoping for. 

I’m keeping track of every objective, but rather than just doing a statistical review, I thought I’d share the best things I’ve learned so far that I haven’t covered in my newsletter.

My Five Favourite Lessons:

Inspiration through Biographies.

Biographies are the most underrated non-fiction genre. I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it until something changes.

I’ve spoken before about how easy it is to learn from biographies. You can in a few hundred pages discover the lessons from an entire life time. You can see where someone went wrong – and prevent it in your own life. You can see what strategies worked for them – and adapt them to your ends.

One of the most overlooked aspects of biographies is their ability to inspire.

I do not think it’s possible to read a biography of Alexander Hamilton, and not want to “write like you’re running out of time.” Or, to read a biography of Marcus Aurelius, and not want to develop your patience and kindness.

I’m currently 500 pages deep into The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris. It’s phenomenal. Not only for how it captures the life and character of Teddy Roosevelt but for the reason that it gives me intense energy. Roosevelt is the epitome of what he himself called “the strenuous life”. Every moment was well-spent and the industry he displayed let him achieve his wide-ranging goals.

But it’s not only what went right that is inspirational. The Universe tested Roosevelt under the worst of circumstances. From a childhood plagued by illness, to his mother and wife both dying with little warning on the same day. He endured injuries, crushing political defeats, and the death of countless friends and family.

Roosevelt kept going. He pushed on through it all. He let his virtues shine through. He made mistakes, as we all do, but they’re outweighed by his accomplishments – especially in the shadow of all he endured.

Thinking Well.

It is not only your internal world you can shape through thinking – it’s the external world.

Thinking is a skill. The best methods I’ve discovered so far for improving thinking are strategy and mental models.

You can cut goals and obstacles down to size if you will approach them with strategy and the application of mental models.

For those interested, I suggest looking into the OODA loop as a starting point.

Positive Reinforcement.

Negative Reinforcement feels easy to do – but it’s mostly ineffective. It rarely changes behaviour, creates animosity, and is the “lazy way” to achieve an outcome.

Yet, from pursuing our goals to interacting with others, we rely almost solely on negative reinforcement most of the time.

Instead, we should look to use positive reinforcement more often. It’s more effective, improves relationships, and makes the process enjoyable. What’s not to love?

Here’s a couple dead simple ways to start experimenting with Positive Reinforcement:

• Don’t want to do something? Set a tiny reward to get over the inital inertia. (E.g. Don’t want to go gym? Reward yourself for driving to the gym. Don’t want to write an essay? Reward yourself for doing the topic skeleton.)
• When someone does something you appreciate – make sure that you positively reinforce it. Even just a kind word and a smile can make a difference.
• Once you’ve developed a habit, shift to a variable reward system. It’ll make it more engaging and allow you to not lose the joy of the reward.

A Counter to the Law of Diminishing Intent.

We’re all familiar with this law – even if we don’t know the name.

The Law of Diminishing Intent states: “The longer we delay doing something, the less likely it is that we’ll do it.”

We’ve all had ideas – for books, businesses, projects, or ways to improve our life. We’ve all learned things we thought would be useful. We’ve all spoken about plans we had.

Yet most of them have fallen into the ether – never actioned and then slowly forgotten.

The Law of Diminishing Intent steals away your confidence and joy – one idea at a time. The solution? The Principle of Rapid Action.

If you have an idea for a project, get started on it as soon as possible – even if you’re just testing it. Learn something useful? Start using it immediately.

I started doing this during the challenge – and I’ve started to witness major and significant changes from it.

Take note of your ideas and what you’re learning. Don’t let the Law of Diminishing Intent steal away who you could be.

Random Reading Hack.

A common theme in vintage (1900’s) self-development books is a simple message. At the end of the introduction, the author asks the reader to treat the book as if it’s written for them by a friend.

This is a great way to treat a book with more reverence and attention. It encourages you to take notes and put it into action. It lets me approach books with more care – and I treat the information in them as far more valuable.

It’s very reminiscent of that classic quote: Success comes from taking simple ideas seriously. Give it a try.

This blog post covers my reading strategy acquired through years of practice. I’ve always tried to get the most that I can out of what I read – especially when related to non-fiction books.

Whether it be a skill-based personal development book or a biography of an Ancient Philosopher, there’s always things I can find to apply to my own life.

There are some obvious nuances and exceptions to this plan. I’m not trying to convince everyone to read the same way – but I implore you to try at least a few of these strategies and see how they help you.

SELECTION

• Before starting on a book, write out what I intend / hope to learn from it. This is just a quick hack to get me even more excited about the book.

• No limits for when I can read biographies, philosophy, general non-fiction, or fiction. I usually read these books without a specific purpose in mind. Most of the time, they’re just to increase my general knowledge, gain random insights, or for pure enjoyment (the best of them hit all 3).

• Only start with practical based books when I intend to use them. This method, called the Just-In-Time System, has been a great way for me to stop procrastinating by reading. For example, I refused to let myself read any books on Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu until I had attended my first class. For years, I read business books without any concrete plans to start a business. The same goes for people who read books on the craft of writing and never put down their own words. The JIT system is the best counter I know to this tendency.

READING

• Make time to read each day. There’s a great study that shows people who seem most disciplined with things tend to be using the least discipline. Why? They enjoy it or have trained the habit well enough. If I read a page, I’ll end up reading way more. Once I get over that inertia of picking up the book, it’s all easy from there.

• Train reading speed (Tim Ferriss Method for increasing speed). When I was younger, I trained my reading speed up to a break-neck pace without losing comprehension. Over the years, I let it dwindle down to a rather average pace. I’ve changed that again recently. For those interested in boosting their reading speed, check out this great video from Tim Ferriss: How to Speed Read | Tim Ferriss

• Use advanced speed reading for less important books. It feels egotistical to call any book “less important” – and an argument can be made that I shouldn’t be reading those books at all – but occasionally, I’m looking to get a few insights from a book that is largely derivative (think a book that essentially summarises other books). In that case, I’ll skim the book, taking notes of chapter summaries and marking particular passages that interest me.

• Take notes on each read – unless planning to reread from the start. I’ve had people – most who don’t read – be appalled to see me writing in my books. The fact is, if I’m reading to learn, I need to take notes. So, I underline, I write in the margins, I circle passages, you get the idea. Occasionally, if it’s a short book that I know I’ll be re-reading, I’ll miss notes on the first pass through – but I’m thinking of phasing this out since I’ve found it to be less effective than I hoped at forcing me to retain.

• (Optional): Apply How To Read A Book Strategies for deeper understanding. Want to get some weird looks on the train? Pick up a copy of “How to Read A Book” by Mortimer J. Adler. The book, written back in the 40’s and heavily revised in the 70’s, provides an intense guide on how to read to understand the most you can from a book. There’s a lot in the book that is dated or confrontational, but it has a lot of great stuff in there too.

• (Optional): Use Active Recall throughout the process. If I’m waiting in line, or just driving without an audiobook or podcast, I’ll think back to what I’ve learned so far from the book I’m reading. It’s a good habit that’s easy to do: the moment you close the book to think back on all the things you’ve read, and before you pick it up again, try to remember what you read in your last session.

NOTE-TAKING

• Take notes while reading by marking the pages. Let notes “simmer” for 1 to 2 weeks before going through them to filter out the unimportant. I’m fairly liberal with what I mark in a book, it might be a quote I like, a tip I want to try, a story I want to remember, or a book recommendation I want to read – the list goes on. Because of this, the amount of notes I take is ridiculous. One tactic I’ve recently learned about was letting the notes “simmer” for 1 to 2 weeks before going through them. This naturally lets me filter out the unimportant, as I’ll only want to transfer the best of them. 

• Create an index at the front of the book. Pick up any non-fiction book I’ve read in the past 3 years, and you’ll find an index at the front with my favourite notes. It’s such an underrated tool that makes it a breeze to review the book or find a certain passage.

• Transition key ideas / quotes to index cards. I might be changing this soon – funny enough back to a commonplace book. Either way, it’s useful to pull the best ideas out and have them in one place.

• Write a review of the book – summarising key points. This is just another way to force yourself to distil the contents and see how much you actually understood from the book.

• Produce a one-page summary of the book and create necessary one-pages on topics. Although similar, this is different to a review. The one-page summary makes it extremely easy to implement what you’ve learned. For example, a book on writing better – I might just have all the best tips on a single page. However, if there’s a great amount of information on one topic (for this example, let’s say editing) I’ll produce a one-page summary on that as well.

IMPLEMENTATION – Words Into Works.

• Create an idea list (or multiple) on experiments to implement the information. The gulf between the person I am and the person I want to be is more action and more discipline. By forcing myself to create these lists, I distil further from the book (helping me retain it) but also give myself a low-effort way to put the ideas into practice. When I first read “How To Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie, I tested the concepts with a couple of people – the results made me change my behaviour completely.

• If the book is convincing, run through implementation of experiments. If I read a book that’s not very convincing to me, I might hesitate to run through the experiments. If the book is convincing, I have no excuse, and will start to experiment as soon as possible.

• Track experiments with blog posts or in journals. I like to track my experiments. Most of the time I just catch them in my notebook or journal, but the most effective ones, I’ll start to transition into blog posts.

• Produce a one-page summary of the experiment / implementation. You getting an idea of a theme? If the experiment is successful, I’ll create a dead-simple one page guide to doing it again OR keeping it for a long-time.

LONG-TERM LEARNING

• Review notes: 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, and 1 year after reading. This usually involves a skimming of my summaries of the book or the index cards I created. Sometimes this will spur me to do a re-read or a deep review, but most of the time, it’s just a good way to jog my memory or remind me of things I should be doing.

• Re-read index often. This is just a way to keep capturing ideas, generating new experiment ideas, and reminding myself of how much I want / need to learn.

• Add findings from experiments to notes on each category. All of my findings from an experiment will go into my notes on a subject – it could be Writing, Mental Health, Motivation, etc. It’s just a way to help reinforce and capture what I’m learning.

• Gather one-pagers together into subject playbooks. Having all of my one-pagers together let’s me create playbooks that inform how I handle particular situations or achieve certain outcomes. In the end, these are my ultimate guides to particular subjects.

And that’s a wrap.

Yes, the system is much more complex than simply reading the books cover to cover. It’s more time intensive but I believe the returns are more than just marginal.

I think this system provides a magnitude more benefits than “ordinary” reading. It is something that I hope to prove as I continue to improve it and attempt to apply it.

This is the third post in in my explaining Zachariah 2.0 Series.

This one I’d wager is the most useful of the lot. I’m going to explore all the strategies I’m planning on using to increase my odds of success. Steal whatever you find useful.

INDEX CARDS.

Each night I write out an index card with my five items (and bonus items) for the next day.

This helps me keep organised and is key to the next strategy.

REWARD SYSTEM.

I straight up stole this from the Jocko Podcast episode with Andrew Huberman. I have a box of 36 numbered ping-pong balls. I have a list of rewards, raising from free (watch a movie) to pricier (Think Weekend).

Each day when I complete all the items on my index card, I pull a ball out at random. Half of them will mean no prize, but the other half of numbers I have attached to a reward.

I’ll update the rewards as time goes on or I receive one.

Scientific evidence suggests randomness in rewards creates more excitement around the rewards. I’m taking full advantage of this.

HIGH STAKES.

There’s a saying: Reasons reap rewards.

Just as important are STAKES. I’ve set some sky-high stakes for failing at this challenge, that’s going to force me into action.

I don’t want to share all of them – since that would raise red-flags for my more risk-adverse readers. But one that I can raise, stolen from A.J. Jacobs and Nik Winter is the anti-charity.

I’ve set aside a decent sum of money that will I will donate to an anti-charity chosen by my friend if I fail. The anti-charity will basically be the worst cause he can find that I need to make a public donation too.

No, thank you. Time to get to work.

80/20 ATTACKS.

Once I’m a couple of weeks in, I’ll be able to recognise the 20% of things causing 80% of my results – and the 20% of things wasting 80% of my resources. I’ll do more of the positive 20% and cut out the negative 20%.

I’m also going to analyse what 20% of things will help me get 80% of the results I want per objective – then do more of those as well.

It’s a thinking tool / mental model that I’m going to use to make this challenge easier on myself.

SELF-EXPERIMENTS.

I have a requirement to do 1 self-experiment related to each objective. I also know that self-experiments are the key to rapid progress.

I’m going to be experimenting non-stop with what I learn and the ideas I generate.

It’s a way to make it more fun and more effective.

MINI-CHALLENGES.

Related to the above, but putting mini-challenges (parts of objectives with a deadline) is crucial to growth.

It well help me create excitement and let me go through periods of racking up progress.

SELF-REFLECTION.

I’m pushing forward in large part due to my self-reflection. I’m using all the lessons I took from my journal to push myself forward here and let myself climb faster.

I’m adding to it with constant journaling, reflection questions, and the next strategy.

CONSTANT CHECK-INS.

I have a daily check-in and weekly check-ins for the duration of this challenge.

Each I have split into four columns: AREA, RATING FOR THE DAY/WEEK, NOTES/NEXT STEPS, STATUS OVERALL.

This gives me a great insight into how I’m travelling, areas I need to improve, and lets me notice / track patterns.

It also prevents me getting a rude shock at the end of a month or at milestones in the challenge.

PUBLIC DECLARATION.

This is a bit meta but by making a public declaration – to people, through the newsletter, and on my blog – I’m tying myself to the challenge.

I don’t want to fail in public – and I can’t afford to give up.

Writing it all out has also helped me think better about the plan and challenge.

SWORD OF LAST CHANCE.

This is something I tried to use before but it was never genuine. It was hard for me to convince myself in High School or at the start of University that I only had one chance left.

That is the case this time around. I’m coming fast to the end of my degree. I know that a full-time career and other obligations are bound to load my plate over the next few years. In other words, I need to become more realistic about the things that I do. This is my last chance (time-wise) to do a huge life overhaul.

THE ESCAPE HATCH.

It might surprise people to see a strategy called the Escape Hatch but it’s a very simple premise.

At the end of the challenge, the results and stakes will determine how effective I was.

However, on a personal level, I’m only going to judge myself on my own efforts – the external factors are just a way to measure how effective they were.

—

That’s it for the series establishing the plan.

I’ll provide more updates as time goes on, share things I learn, and hopefully, share some wins.

This is part 2 in my 3 part series on my 100 day personal development plan.

The purpose of this post is to address the objections that – rightfully – are raised about the challenge.

In fact, I actually crowdsourced objections from people I shared tentative plans with. Let’s take a look at the most common:

• HOW AM I GOING TO QUANTIFY?

For goals that are not quantity based, I’m relying on contrast and vision.

I compare who / where I was at the beginning, and how far I am from the ideal. It’s a bit more of an art than a science – but it should be enough to get me over the line.

• WHAT ARE SIDE-QUESTS?

Side-quests are things outside of my usual life. I cannot do them to directly knock off an objective, but an indirect effect is fine. They exist to add variety to the challenge.

• HOW WILL I BALANCE IT ALL?

My little cheat-code with this entire challenge is the amount of overlap. Every objective influences more than one other objective.

The struggle will be balancing it on a daily basis – which just requires me to take effective actions (luckily that’s already an objective).

• WHY NOT HIGHER OR LOWER TARGETS FOR MY GOALS?

The common thread between feedback was people suggesting that I should raise or lower certain objectives. The funny thing was, they were all in conflict. Some people suggested I halve one goal, while another person suggested I double the same goal.

The target level for each goal I based off two criteria:

1) EFFORT: The target level had to need an above average effort from me to do. I wanted to push my limits but not burn myself out.

2) IMPACT: Each target level should create significant change based on impact. The level had to be enough that it would cause the most impact with the least effort. Efficiency and effectiveness in one.

• WHY AREN’T MORE OF THE GOALS SPECIFIC?

Some goals were hard to quantify – and I kind of rushed in getting it out.

For example, Value is quite vague. I could have listed certain skills I wanted, knowledge to gain, etc.

However, I didn’t want to box myself in too much – and this leaves plenty of room for me to manoeuvre during the challenge.

• THERE IS WAY MORE THAN 20 GOALS, WHY?

The most astute observation was that there are way more than 20 goals. In fact, there’s 40+ when you add up all the subgoals.

This is because these are 20 areas that I want to improve. The sub-goals were the actions I believed would provide the most value. I felt I could manage the burden and didn’t need to cut it down further.

It is worth noting that I left 60+ other ideas on the cutting room floor.

From myself, WHY SO MUCH?

This was never raised in a direct manner – but it underlined most feedback.

It’s a valid question. At the moment, I’m loving the book “80/20 Your Life” by Richard Koch. I’m sure that 20% of these objectives would have gotten me 80% of the results I wanted.

But the fact is – I wanted this to be difficult. I wanted a huge challenge that would call out the best in me. I know that I get excited by having so much to do. I’ve tried to focus on a single goal before and it didn’t work out (my rapid failing “North Star” Plan). In my experience, nothing has produced better results than these large-scale challenges.

This challenge is ambitious – but I can only see upside from it.

I’ll leave this post off with a quote from Google Founder, Larry Page:

“Even if you fail at your ambitious thing, it’s very hard to fail completely,” he says. “That’s the thing that people don’t get.”.

Larry Page.