Month: Aug 2023

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.