Being an input junkie I consume a lot of information. Actually, almost my entire day is filled with collecting and digesting news, ideas, reports, and thoughts.

• I read (mainly articles, tweets, and blogs)
• I listen (to talks and podcasts)
• I study (businesses and the people building them)
• and most of all I watch (TED Talks, tutorials, documentaries, etc.)

I think to collect and analyze relevant information, always looking for useful data and learning - this is a great way to learn (= to get better) and probably among the smartest things to spend your time on.

But I have noticed one thing:

We, the generation that cannot leave the apartment without a device and headphones have forgotten how silence feels and how useful it is.

Here is my theory on this one:

Your mind appears to work in one of two modes: it is either all about receiving and analyzing or about creating and sending. You are either learning about the thoughts of others or making up your own ones - never both at the same time.

As you can only speak OR listen - you can only consume OR create. Focus outside OR inside.

As long as you are reading this post you will not be able to come up with an answer to your current main problem. That is not a problem in general - just something to be aware of.

Here is my recommendation:

1. Get as much interesting stuff in your head as you can manage.
2. But keep moments of silence - to create, think, and to develop/invent ideas and solutions.
3. Give yourself some time in silence (that means to distraction, not even background music), and wait for thoughts to come. Every thought is fine.
   

You will learn what really bothers you and what you are capable of - if only the stream of information stops for a bit…

Get a notebook or a sheet of paper and some silence… everything else follows.

Pro hack: headphone with no music on it work great to put the world on mute no matter where you are.

Your m

One day I’ll find out why… my time is the night.

I’ll find out 

… why 2 am still feels like evening while 2 pm seems to be morning to me…

… why I am awake in the middle of the night but tired whenever the alarm rings. 

… why 2 hours of sleep seemed perfectly fine before I went to bed - and then reveals to be close to torture the next day…

… why the tv program is horrible at my prime time. 

… why I cannot perceive that most of those hours won during my all-nighters are nothing but borrowed time´as I need to catch up with sleep now. 

… why a few hours in the dark are more productive than double the amount during opening hours. 

One day - or more likely one night I’ll find out…

Until I find an answer to all this - I simply stick to my nature and keep grinding in the dark. 

Your m - to all the other owls out there.

How much a certain project means to you can be easily measured: 

By the number of midnights, sunrises and Sunday afternoons you invested.

How?

If you still can count of them you are 
- not really into it.
- not following through.
- not all in.

Period.
My personal take on this.

Your m

You have heard it a million times: 

80 - 20 - The famous Pareto Principle. 

In short: 

“20% of work will generate 80% of results. The other 20% will take 80% of the time.”

This rule is said to apply to many areas in life and economy - for example: 

Chances are great that only 20% of your products generate 80% of your overall revenue. And that not more than 20% of your customers are responsible for around 80% of your sales… (If you don’t know, feel free to double check)

This rule is among the most well-known ones in the world of business. 

Honestly, I am not so sure about it being universally true, but for the most part… 

Here is my approach to this: 

Over the years I have noticed the following…

a) we are all extremely busy - having a tremendous amount of tasks and to-dos day in and day out.

b) if you complete the most important 2 to 3 things every day, you are making significant progress towards your goal.

So - every morning one of the first things I do (before getting dressed) is to scroll through my to-do list (I mostly organize it via an amazing app on my phone) and ask myself: 

“What are today’s 20%?”
“What are the 2 - 3 things I HAVE TO get done today (more than anything else?)”

This helps me…

• fighting the feeling of being swamped.
  
• focussing on what really matters most.
  
• figuring out how I can create the most impact on my work. …and impact equals significance.
  
• making sure to do the right things.
• understand my work by reflecting on the relevance of tasks and projects.

So I enter the shower knowing what are main objectives today - may it be that call I need to do, that mail I need to send, that decision I need to make… 

My personal version of the Pareto Principle: 

Know your 20% - and your day will be 80% better!

Your m

An idea I caught up reading an article about procrastination: 

We all know this and it happens to me all the time: you find yourself facing a big task or long-term project. Something that will take “forever” to complete. And you cannot manage to start. You postpone it over and over - or in other words: you procrastinate on it. 

But there is a great way to attack especially those tasks you know you cannot complete in one session or even right away: 

Make a deal with yourself to sprint for only 10 or 15 mins before putting the stuff aside - no matter how far you’ve come. 

You’ll notice right away that it becomes a lot easier to kick things off. And whatever you will accomplish within that time span is a lot more than what you would have had if you had just shied away again. 

You made it out of the stance and passed the first couple of meters!

Making that deal and sprinting somewhere is how you make a small step towards your end goal. 

I love the idea - and by the way: this is how a lot of my posts on this blog are being created.

Your m

Due to current events I lost some thought about gear, coming to the conclusion that there are two sides of this coin ant two ways to see this topic. 

In my opinion they are both equally true and as always in life everything is a question of balance… but decide yourself: 

Side 1

“Your gear is what you need to do what you do.”

Your laptop, mac, smart phone, notebook, tablet, … camera, barbells, drums, bike, makeup, etc. - all that is nothing less than what was the brush to Picasso, the chisel to Bernini, the guitar to Hendrix or the knife to Bocuse.

If a tool helps you or even enables you to create something significant (to you or someone else), go for it. And - invest in the good stuff - nobody in the world has the right to tell you not to and nobody can tell what you need and what you don’t. 

But you should clearly decide between stuff you want and tools you need! 

Side 2

Nobody cares about tools. 

Have you ever asked yourself what brand of brushes Dürer or Monet used? Have you ever lost a thought about what kind of typewriter Agatha Christie wrote her bestsellers on? The size, shape or color of the pencils DaVinci had? No? Of course not! Because the results matter, not the tools! 

You will never become successful/respected/rich/famous/great… for using the latest computer or most expensive camera but for what you do with it. 

How you use what you have, what you create with it and what it does with your audience - that’s what counts!

Great creators often take this thought to the limit and sacrifice their tools/gear for the result of their creative process.

Examples:

Ferran Adrià - one of the greatest chefs of our time used to close his restaurant entirely for several months a year, accepting huge losses, just to have enough time to create new recipes the world had never tasted before. 

Film maker Casey Neistat throws away every lens cap he receives with new camera gear. He says he does not own one single cap for any of his lenses. Why:

“I would rather break the camera than miss the shot.”

Therefore: Stop glorifying the tools. Stop caring so much about editions and updates - and start seeing what these things are: your brushes and chisels.

PS: This blog post was done with a … who cares. 

m