How to outsmart yourself

with a lot of help from your friends

What! Can’t believe you’re here too. Small world.

☠️ “How’s the book going?”

Quick update: I’m no longer on book leave, but the book is farrrr from finished, so I’m doing Bloomberg work during the day and squeezing in book work on nights and weekends and in between.

Right now I’m doing a lot of revisions, which you might think is easier than staring down a blank page. But I actually find revising way more challenging. It feels like playing Where’s Waldo. You stare at the page for a while. You think you have an idea of what to do next. You spot some red stripes — aha — oh no wait that’s a wizard in boxers. Fuck, that won’t work.

poking around, hoping to find a strong active verb

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📌 An introduction to EXTERNAL ACCOUNTABILITY, aka the only way I’m making progress these days

Some people might have “willpower” but I sure as hell don’t, especially not in the face of a big hairy scary complicated projects (book).

If you think of yourself as someone with "willpower” who “gets things done” by “just doing them,” please skip to the end of this newsletter, because you will definitely judge me for everything that comes after this. (I know you won’t cheat and read this next part because, you know, you have willpower.) So……….please scroll.

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Ok now that we’re among friends, let’s talk about some of the things I’ve had to resort to in order to keep writing!

I need deadlines to get things done. Unfortunately with a book you only have one deadline — you sign a contract and then are expected to turn in a book 18 months (ish) later. This is a terrible system for people like me.

To compensate, I’ve been setting myself many, many short-term deadlines — daily, basically. But for the deadlines to actually work, they have to have teeth. And consequences.

That’s where Nihar comes in. Nihar is my housemate and a wonderful friend. And for the last few months he’s also been serving an essential purpose in my life: book accountability enforcer.

not an actual picture of Nihar

You may be thinking, aha! I need an accountability enforcer in my life. You might! But before you pick someone, a few important notes about who can serve in this role:

1. They must be excited to nag you, even when it’s clear you would rather avoid them (and you will want to avoid them)

2. It helps if they either live with you (an excellent form of surveillance) or you are willing to submit to remote surveillance from them

3. Despite point #2, I do not advise using your spouse or partner. You will feel extra annoyed at this person

Common points of failure:

• Your enforcer cares too much about your comfort and accepts when you say “no I think I need the day off.” Good friend! Bad accountability enforcer.

• Your enforcer has limited visibility into your day-to-day actions. You (read: I) will get sneaky and try to shirk responsibilities. Too easy to avoid. If Nihar texts me “hey let’s schedule out your goals for the next month,” I can avoid responding to his text for a while … but then I run into him in the kitchen. There is no escape, which in this case is a good thing

Now you get to pick your poison

Once again, we return to a strategic discussion of my lizard brain. Last time, we soothed my lizard brain into a flow state using digital chimes. This time, we’ll be exploiting the lizard brain’s fear sensors!!

In order for a deadline to feel important, it has to have STAKES. Stakes can be either carrots or sticks. You could give yourself a great reward if you meet your deadline, or you could threaten yourself with something terrible if you don’t meet deadline (enter fear!). The hardest part: picking a stake that’s big enough to feel motivating, but not so outlandish that you won’t take it seriously.

This ends up being a never-ending war. Ellen’s Brain 1 would like to play a short-term game: relax and avoid pain. But Ellen’s Brain 2 would like to accomplish this long-term thing: write a book reasonably well.* In order to get the latter done, I must constantly outsmart Brain 1, using a new tactic each time.

* Others have come up with better metaphors for this two-brain divide, including a much more eloquent one — the elephant and the rider

In order to stay ahead of myself, Nihar and I have to come up with a different motivating threat/reward every few days as the old ones lose effectiveness. The ones we’ve tried (mostly successfully) have often fallen into a few different categories:

Simple threats (I am the one who suffers):

• I pay Nihar $500

• Nihar destroys a houseplant of mine (not one of my more treasured ones; that would be unthinkable!! but like a medium-good one)

• Nihar bakes cookies and everyone in the house eats them except me

• no drinking tea for a week (!)

• at a weekend away with friends, I have to sit in a separate room and finish the day’s work before I can hang out (truly painful for an extrovert)

Indirect threats (someone else besides me suffers, which can be surprisingly motivating)

• Nihar can’t go to sleep until I finish the day’s work

• our friends are having a goodbye party at the park and Nihar can’t go

Meta-level motivations (not explicitly chosen goals but effective nevertheless)

• when I missed a few deadlines or generally was feeling resistant to accountability, it got less fun for Nihar. Then I became nervous he would quit his (completely volunteer and very time-intensive) job as my accountability enforcer. That fear kept me motivated to meet the next goal. Gotta do it so it’s still fun for Nihar!

• one time I also felt motivated to finish in order to prove Nihar wrong bc he doubted I could do it. Spite — it works!!!!

In conclusion: Nihar has been incredible. Thank you Nihar. And thank you all for reading this appreciation post.

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✅ Review it with Huet: ⚡⚡⚡ lightning round ⚡⚡⚡

That was long, so we’ll make the reviews short this time. A few things I have enjoyed lately:

• These sweatpants. If you (like me) have ever thought to yourself, “Putting on leggings is too much work,” I recommend these leggings-esque-but-super-soft joggers, which are likely my most-worn item of 2021

• The music of Islandman (recommended by my housemate Anna!!). If you want to know what it was like in my head during book leave, it was basically me staring at my laptop and playing this repetitive music on loop (and absolutely obliterating my Spotify Wrapped)

  • Then, when the Islandman got too much and I needed a palate cleanser for the mind, I listened to this song about a seaward pony, which I think is almost perfect, a lovely dream

• Fresh ginger tea. The best tea. Get a ginger root, chop it up into tiny pieces — grater, food processor, in a blender with some water, whatever. Brew. (Teapot rec here.) Make it strong. Add honey and lemon if you want, but it’s hot and juicy on its own

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☎️ Let me know if you

have a task/goal that keeps slipping away from you. I have a lot more accountability thoughts!! And will probably revisit this topic in the future.

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🌅 See you next time, whenever I get around to it*!!! To tide you over until then, here’s a weird cat

*This newsletter will now slam into your inbox “once every three to four weeks ish,” emphasis on the “ish”