Organised Chaos PDF [PDF]

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ORGANISED

CHAOS A GUIDE TO SUCCESS WITHOUT HABITS AND CONSISTENCY

ELIZABETH FILIPS ELIZABETH FILIPS

A Guide to Organised Chaos

Elizabeth Filips

Table of Contents 01 Introduction

03

NO, YOU ARE NOT LAZY

02 Fish On Dry Land

08

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU TAME A CHAOTICALLY ORGANISED PERSON

03 You Give Love a Bad Name

13

'ARE WE ALL JUST PRETENDING MOTIVATION IS SHIT? OH, OK."

04 Ahead of Her Time

18

BABY LIZZIE, THE ACTUAL PRODUCTIVITY GURU

05 A Huge Misunderstanding MOTIVATION IS NOT WHO YOU THINK SHE IS

22

A Guide to Organised Chaos

06 Patience is a Sin

Elizabeth Filips

26

IT'S NOT CHILDISH TO BE IMPATIENT

07 Organised Chaos

31

THE STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO IMPATIENCE PRIMING

08 The Virtuous Cycle of Impatience

49

IT'S NOT PAIN, IT'S PLEASURE

09 Pick Your Wars

54

THE BATTLES WE WILL NEVER WIN

10 New Beginnings

57

LIVING LIFE INTENTIONALLY IMPATIENT AND EVERYTHING I NEVER EXPECTED WOULD CHANGE

Bonus Content Notion Template: Impatience Priming LIVING LIFE INTENTIONALLY IMPATIENT

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01 Introduction

No, you are not lazy.

01 Introduction

No, you are not lazy.

Chapter 1

Introduction No, you are not lazy.

"But we can't do that right now." "Oh..." I looked down at the image on my phone. I had really wanted to make that painting. "It takes a very long time to get to oils. You need to understand form and composition first. Light and Shadows, object shape, dimensions, perspective, human form..." my art teacher laughed. "Oh, it will definitely be years before we can get you to oils! You can't even draw properly yet!" "Oh..." "It's fine, don't worry! Look, let's go back to the apple now. Don't think about that just yet. The shadow reflection needs a bit more work," she said gesturing for me to put my phone away as she took her position back in her chair. The conversation was clearly over. I looked at the stupid apple on the stupid tablecloth and the stupid pencil in my hand and I'd never felt more bored in my life. I didn't want to draw apples. I barely wanted to eat apples. I wanted to paint, and now I had to sit there for the next hour pretending I was interested in stupid fruit still-life knowing there was no way this lady was ever going to teach me anything about oil painting any time soon. I could smell in the paint in the studio, see her stunningly incredible pieces in the corners of my eye. I absolutely hated being there. 04

Elizabeth Filips

01 Introduction

No, you are not lazy.

I quit my art lessons shortly after. I only ever ended up drawing fruits and a few bowls. I then bought myself a bunch of paint and made a few paintings. They were all absolutely horrible. Just as my art teacher had said, they were flat, didn't make sense, the lighting was all off and the proportions were painful to look at. But I absolutely loved making them. And eventually I did get better. And I never had to get good at sketching apples to get there either.

Why am I writing this? I'm a child of modern productivity. I've read the books, seen the videos, gotten the general message. Habits, routine, consistency are key. And I get it, mainstream advice is mainstream because it works. The only issue is, it only works for most. And we're not all most.

There are two things I take issue with: the fact that habits are necessary and helpful for everyone, and secondly, that motivation is unnecessary and unreliable for exceptional work. Because the reality is, if you're at all a chaotically passionate person, following this advice is a death sentence. Not only does it drain your soul of its desire to live, but to speak in the 'results and success' language: in the long term it leads to mediocre, miserable performance. And the belief that the issue is with us, that 'we're just lazy'. So what is the point?

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Elizabeth Filips

01 Introduction

No, you are not lazy.

Before I completely bash habits, I know they can be absolutely amazing. They can bring brilliant results and god knows we're all aware of that already. I'm not going to waste too much time defending them, because everyone genuinely has done a great job at that. My point is, they're just maybe not for everyone.

Who is this for? Quick check before we proceed: does this make sense to you? If you've somehow found your way to reading this, you've probably spent a lot of time thinking about habits, dreaming of their compounding benefits, wishing you were slightly different. It's fine for people to promote habits because they work for them, but where things start getting a bit scary is when we all agree that they're the only way, or the best way to succeed, for everybody. Because it leaves those of us who are a bit habit-phobic, chaotic, disorganised, sitting down wondering if we'll ever get anywhere in life. If you recognise the difference in your motivated and unmotivated work. If you seem to struggle more than most with sticking to something regularly and creating habits and streaks. If you've maybe even tried the habit-way and ended up worse-off, miserable or quitting. Especially if you've been told to calm down, stop being impatient, stick to things, work harder, just show up, because otherwise you'll never be successful. If there's even a part of you that isn't sure you buy this 'ignore your motivation and just do the work' thing, because you know just how much better you work when you're motivated. If you're open at all to the idea that motivation is NOT completely out of your control, then this is for you. Because I swear habits aren't the only way to succeed. And furthermore, I've found that learning to understand, increase, control and direct my motivation can lead to just as much 'success and results' as the habitway does for people who love habits. 06

Elizabeth Filips

01 Introduction

No, you are not lazy.

Honestly, I've done absolutely fine for myself without habits. Actually I've done a lot better than I did when I was sticking to them regularly. Because as one of the most naturally chaotically-passionate people I know, I always struggled with habit formation. Through a combination of self-hate, low-self-esteem and terror that I'd get absolutely nowhere in life, I completely ignored my instincts and motivation for a long time. I measured, structured and worked consistently and as I'll explain, it led to mediocre results and world-class burnout.

A peek into Organised Chaos Understanding the way I'm actually wired, my needs, strengths and weaknesses, leaning into my natural, passionate chaos rather than trying to tame and put in in line is how I managed to (cringe pass) study to become a doctor, build a 300k+ YouTube channel, work full time on the side of that, have a podcast, newsletter etc, while gathering skills like learning to script, edit, paint, write and managing a whole bunch of the usual personal life and mental health stuff. All by myself (and my therapist). And above all, not only do I feel like my results are incredibly better than they were when I would force myself to be consistent, but I'm endlessly less anxious, so much happier, more confident and in my element. Just as I somehow found the confidence to ignore my teacher's advice and taught myself to paint chaotically when I was younger, I finally managed to do the same for everything else as an adult. And I WISH someone had told me how to do this sooner, or at least given me the example and validation that it just can be done. Because learning to learn and work chaotically is definitely a superpower. Here's how I think we can get (at the very least) the exact same results that the habit forming, consistent crowd are getting, without ever needing to create habits or be consistent. Here's to endless passionate, organised chaos. Let's intentionally mess it up. 07

Elizabeth Filips

02 Fish on Dry Land

What happens when you tame a chaotically passionate person

02 Fish on Dry Land

Taming a Chaotically Passionate Person

Chapter 2

Fish on Dry Land What happens when you tame a chaotically passionate person

Before I can fully bash this habit lifestyle, I have one thing I need to confess: at some point I thought it was absolutely genius, and I did follow it myself. I was an organised, strict, motivation-ignoring queen. Let me explain the full story before you hate me.

Discovering Productivity So, I'm not going to lie, the first time I heard about the 'just show up' approach to work and ignoring motivation, My mind was blown. I always had been at the mercy of my motivation: when I wanted to do something, getting it done was easy; when I didn't want to do something, getting it done was torture and almost impossible. So when I found out that there were people who were completely ignoring motivation and just doing things anyways, I was shocked. This was genius. You're telling me successful people don't always want to do things? They just do them? Am I an idiot? Why am I wasting so much energy? Why am I so weak? Ok, from now on, no more excuses, Elizabeth. We're ignoring the motivation, and we're just doing. The only reason I haven't been able to stick to habits so far is because I struggled with the motivation to do so. Now I don't need it. Right? Absolutely right, baby. 09

Elizabeth Filips

02 Fish on Dry Land

Taming a Chaotically Passionate Person

Stage 1: Hell yes I felt invincible. I might have struggled with patchy motivation that didn't always show up when I needed it, but what I did have was endless self hatred. You combine that lifelong frustration with myself for not being able to stick to things, with the realisation that people were getting things done on sheer steel will alone, you have a formula for success. Ignoring my needs? Pffffft easy. And running on that fuel is definitely possible. I divided my waking hours into 15 minute slots and booked them all out. Food, rest, study, work out, call grandma, stretch, meditate, read, take notes, study some more, draw, meal prep, shop, study, work. (15 minute increments worked best because the shortest activities took about 15 minutes.) Did I want to do those things every day? No. Did I nonetheless? Yes. Was I consistently motivated? No. Did I still manage to create and stick to habits? Yes. Was I finally proud of myself? Hell yes. Did I completely end up resenting every and all tasks that were scheduled on that list? Hell yes.

Stage 2: Wait, what? This method absolutely fried my brain. I was showing up without wanting to be there and ignoring my motivation until I completely ran it into the ground. For the first time in my life, I had almost none at all. And that was fine, I didn't need it, I could still continue, I'd committed to this. My feelings didn't matter to me at the time, so what really made me re-evaluate was my results. Because I cared about those, and they weren't great. It didn't make sense. I was putting in the hours, but my performance was mediocre. My improvement was, for the first time, slow. My calendar and to do list were all ticked off, but my results and mood were absolutely miserable. 10

Elizabeth Filips

02 Fish on Dry Land

Taming a Chaotically Passionate Person

My first burnout Now before you say 'sounds like burnout to me', 'who in their right mind would work that much, you took it too far', you might be right: but let me first explain a bit about myself. I'd never burnt out before this. And I was working exactly as many hours as I always had. I'd been making sure to schedule in rest and exercise and take time off. I was sleeping more regularly than ever, I wouldn't stay up late as much. The amount of work definitely wasn't the problem, that had basically not changed at all. It had to be something else.

Wait, it gets worse There was one thing that was giving me pleasure though. And this is where we get a bit sinister: I was starting to enjoy the pain. I was seriously proud of myself for doing work I hated. I was secretly loving the tiredness of powering through an early morning. The satisfaction of crossing off another day in my calendar streak when I had absolutely hated every moment of the work I'd been doing. I was so proud of myself for ignoring my needs. Rest? Not now. Stop? Not now. Don't ruin the streak. Missed a friends' birthday for a planned study evening? Hell yes, that's dedication. Look at me, I'm like one of those successful people who sacrifice for their goals.

Fish on dry land Except my work was utter trash because of uninspired, mediocre performance and I hated everything I was doing. All the pleasure I was getting, was from the pain of sacrificing for my stupid habits, and feeling as though I'd finally conformed. I didn't recognise myself. Without passion and motivation, who even am I? I couldn't remember the last time I truly wanted to do anything anymore. I couldn't remember the last time I was fully enjoying work itself. I sure didn't need motivation to get this stuff done, but I fucking missed it. I missed myself. I missed excelling. I missed being excited. I missed visible progress. What the hell do I do? 11

Elizabeth Filips

02 Fish on Dry Land

Taming a Chaotically Passionate Person

Now I get it. If you don't understand what I mean by enjoying work you do chaotically, feeling depressed and as though you've lost yourself when you're forced to be consistent, if you don't relate to the absolute horror of not feeling passion, everything I'm about to say next is probably not going to make that much sense. But if you're the sort of person who wants to throw up when they think of schedules. If nothing kills your motivation to do something more than having to do it consistently for a long time (3x a week for 12 months, anyone?). If you have ever been called crazy for spending 10h+ in one sitting doing what you love, let's do more of that, because it's great.

Some people love their habits and that's brilliant, but they can do their own thing. Why should we play their game? Why compete in a challenge we'll never win? And if somehow we hate ourselves enough to do it, for what? It still feels like being a fish on dry land. Let's build a habitless corner of the world where we can wield chaos productively. Because I've heard enough about motivation being the devil, but goddamn. Are we all going to pretend motivation isn't actually amazing?

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Elizabeth Filips

03 You Give Love a Bad Name

Are we all just pretending motivation is shit? Oh, ok.

03 You Give Love a Bad Name

Motivation is shit? Oh, Ok.

Chapter 3

You Give Love a Bad Name Are we all just pretending motivation is shit? Oh, OK.

I'm sorry, but who hurt you? Seriously, can we please leave motivation alone? It's absolutely been trashed and dragged through the dirt. And honestly, I think it's just a huge misunderstanding. I get that it hurts to feel that you can't rely on motivation and it's fickle and annoying. I've been there. But are we just going to sit and pretend motivation isn't absolutely amazing? Come on. Think back to an activity you've been motivated to do. it doesn't need to be productive: telling your crush you like them when you finally get the courage, playing a game when you get home, finding out who's ending up with whom at the end of that book. Got it, good? Any of this sound familiar:

Motivation makes activities actually fun. It's the desire to want to actually do something. Look forward to it. Enjoy it. Choose to do it. Bask in the positivity of feeling 'hell yea, this is how I want to be spending my life'. 14

Elizabeth Filips

03 You Give Love a Bad Name

Motivation is shit? Oh, Ok.

Motivation puts you in flow. You know that feeling of being in-distractable? God knows what's happening around you, and most importantly, who the hell cares. You're immersed in your activity. You're lost in the task. You don't fear failure, you don't worry, you're barely self conscious at all. Time is distorted. Has it been 5 minutes or 5 hours? Who knows? Who cares?

Motivation can lead to superhuman results. It's crazy how much you can get get done when you actually want to do the thing. The difference between forced, uninspired work and passionate work is astounding. One day, you're re-reading the same sentence 5 times as nothing goes in and you're hating your life choices, another day you're breezing through work like you've already done it before.

Motivation makes you look forward to things. When you do things without motivation you feel dread. When you have it, do you recognise that overwhelming compulsion to just get home so you can get started on doing what you want to do? The rush of actually wanting to do something can add pleasure of anticipation to non-working time. Which just increases your desire to do the thing. Beautiful.

I won't go on for much longer about how amazing motivation is, because it doesn't really need selling, but it does need reminding. For so long we've painted this false portrait of motivation as a mythical, fickle devil with a mind of its own. It shows up when it wants to and disappears whenever and so it's been made to seem unharnessable and unreliable, when it doesn't really need to be that way. Learning to understand, work with and influence your motivation to target towards activities you need to do (but don't want to right now), making yourself hopefully almost as excited to learn as you are to play is what this is all about. Because learning to be effectively chaotically organised is SO worth investing in. Leaving your passion on the table when you potentially can have tons of it is a depressing and huge loss. 15

Elizabeth Filips

04 Ahead of Her Time

Baby Lizzie, the actual Productivity Guru

04 Ahead of Her Time

Baby Lizzie, the actual Producitivy Guru

Chapter 4

Ahead of Her Time Baby Lizzie, the actual Productivity Guru

We're going to need to dig up that cringe pass for this chapter again, but it's for a good cause, trust me: here's where we might find out we're made of the same stuff (in the head). Here's to baby Lizzie, because that girl had a much better idea of how her mind worked before she decided to stop listening to herself and listen to mainstream advice instead. Let's have a look at unweilded, disorganised, motivation-driven work in it's natural state, before we get into how to actually target it as adults. Let's do it.

What it looks like to be a 'gifted child' I was always considered to be a gifted student. From kindergarten to uni, I'd always get the best grades and win awards for excellent academic achievement. I mean, depends on how cringe we want to get, but I was nerd of the year, every year. Especially in sciences (although my history teacher was so heartbroken I wasn't going to be a historian, he stopped talking to me for two years after I had to drop his subject for Physics). Anyways, the main point is: you'd think this super-awkward, super-shy, girl with bad skin was the most organised person ever. And you couldn't be farther from the truth. 17

Elizabeth Filips

04 Ahead of Her Time

Baby Lizzie, the actual Producitivy Guru

What 'gifted' really looked like for me Because despite my overall knowledge and performance in exams and projects, if you zoomed into any random day of the year, God knows what you'd get. Definitely no organised girl, I'll tell you that much. Chances are, I had no clue what day of the week it was (so I just had the books from yesterday in my bag and not a single piece of homework with me.) Did I do my homework every day? Nope. Sometimes I forgot it home, sometimes I genuinely forgot to do it. And sometimes, if I wasn't allowed to do my homework in class during the lesson itself (which is when I did most of it), I just couldn't be bothered and didn't do it at all.

This is not to say I was some rebellious genius, but rather that I was a disorganised mess that often fell behind in class. But what I had back then: was absolutely no anxiety around studying. It didn't bother me in the slightest that I fell behind. I knew fully well that I'd want to do the studying/work at some point, so I didn't care. If I didn't feel like doing something now: what was the point of doing it? It would be so much more fun to do it when I wanted to.

I recognised that falling behind was completely normal, I didn't even think it was a thing, I definitely didn't call it that. Because I knew, when I'd finally want to, I'd catch up on the last few days or weeks or work in one night, get super pumped by all the progress, and in the same night study the next 3 months of that subject and do all the exercises for things we still hadn't covered yet. (God bless my teachers, one day coming in without homework again, next day asking about the exercises in last chapter of the book. They must've thought I was unhinged.) 18

Elizabeth Filips

04 Ahead of Her Time

Baby Lizzie, the actual Producitivy Guru

The "Fall behind - Catch Up - Go Ahead" Schedule The point being: I was working firmly with what I now call a fall behind, catch up, go ahead schedule. So even though on any given day I was probably a hot mess, when it came to deadlines at the end of the year, I was absolutely smashing it. I had gone through the same chapters 2-3 times at this point because I jumped around the book. I had probably watched a bunch of university lectures on YouTube on my high-school topics. I'd probably read a bunch of extra books, and even though I had overall still spent less time than most actually studying (I was only working in crazy flow, so this stuff did not take a lot of time, it was done very fast). It made absolute sense I'd smash it. And I was having so much fun. I think one of the main things I grasped when I was younger was that falling behind is NOT quitting. It's just a third of the story.

The reasoning behind chaotic passion Being a chaotically passionate person, I recognised that I had SO much more fun and was SO much more efficient if I did things when I actually wanted to. And if I didn't have a really threatening deadline (end of year exams, projects to be sent in the next day), there was absolutely no point in forcing myself to do work I didn't want to do on an arbitrary schedule. Because it was guaranteed that I'd want to do the work at some point. So I would catch up and go ahead then.

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Elizabeth Filips

04 Ahead of Her Time

Baby Lizzie, the actual Producitivy Guru

Trying to fit in That "falling behind is not quitting" is one of the most important things I had to re-teach myself as an adult. Because for some reason as I got older, the way people were working around me finally started to get to me. I don't know when exactly I got convinced that habits and routine were essential to success, but at some point, being able to stick to things on a regular, consistent schedule seemed necessary. I gave in to the the advice my parents and teachers had been giving me all along. And it didn't work. I went from previously always catching up, to thinking that because I couldn't keep my streaks like everyone else, that I'd quit. There's a lot of things I stopped doing because of that.

Falling behind is NOT quitting So the first thing I want to emphasise it's that falling behind is not quitting. You absolutely can catch up (with most things, more on that later) when you want to. You can also go ahead overnight. And you can end up with better results than trying to be consistent that way. (Sometimes with better results than naturally-consistent people being consistent too, if we're lucky.)

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Elizabeth Filips

04 Ahead of Her Time

Baby Lizzie, the actual Producitivy Guru

Real vs Arbitrary deadlines Essential to this is the distinction between real and arbitrary deadlines. Real deadlines: end of year exams, project deadlines, clients needing their work delivered, meetings. Arbitrary deadlines: the 2h of work I've scheduled for the essay due in a month, the revision I've scheduled for my end of year exam, the deadline I've set for the first draft of my work.

Real deadlines: I accept and can't change. Arbitrary deadlines: I treat as fake. If I skip, I don't care, I can catch up when I want to. (much more on this later)

"Wait, I never want to work though" Ok, so something might have come up by this point. "Yea, but you're saying you eventually wanted to do the thing. What happens when I never want to? Then falling behind is just falling behind. This really hasn't solved any of the motivation issue?" I got you. Let's finally have a proper discussion about motivation.

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Elizabeth Filips

05 A Huge Misunderstanding

Motivation isn't who you think she is

05 A Huge Misunderstanding

Motivation isn't who you think she is

Chapter 5

A Huge Misunderstanding Motivation is not who you think she is

Motivation is the main antihero of the modern productivity advice I've been getting. The narrative makes sense, if you buy into it (which I did before). Motivation is painted as this mythical, god-knows-where-it's-coming-from or when-it'sgoing-to-go, unreliable, fickle kind of thing. A muse is a harsh mistress, and if you depend on it, you're screwed. I mean of course, it's like attaching your life support to a slot machine. Not good. But... is it really that mythical, unreliable and mysterious?

Demystifying motivation Ok, let's get serious for a second. Think of the feeling of being motivated for something properly. Really imagine it. It can be absolutely anything (doesn't need to be productive). Let's say it was leaving work to meet your crush for a date. Got it? Great. 23

Elizabeth Filips

05 A Huge Misunderstanding

Motivation isn't who you think she is

What did that actually feel like? Probably intense. Exciting. You might've felt keen, focused, a rush. You couldn't wait to see them. Depending on how motivated you were, you might actually have felt your heart beating faster, you couldn't focus on what you were doing at the moment: the guy from across the desk had to call your name twice to ask you forward him an email. Your mind wasn't there, it was on what you want to do and say later. You felt a rush as you imagined it. You anticipated the pleasure of the date. You might have ignored food and sleep. You ignored all your other priorities, you just wanted to do the thing as soon as possible. Agreed? Well, you know what that sounds like to me? Impatience.

It's not motivation, it's impatience. I think a lot of what we consider to be motivation is actually impatience. A burning desire to do something? Is that motivation or impatience? Distraction from all things at hand until you get to do what you want? Motivation or impatience? Sitting down for 14h in a row to learn something now? You call it motivation, I call it impatience to learn. I truly believe that a lot of what looks like passion and motivation is really impatience with wanting to do the thing. And this is valuable because, you see, I may or may not know a lot about motivation, but let me tell you. I'm the queen of impatience.

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Elizabeth Filips

05 A Huge Misunderstanding

Motivation isn't who you think she is

Let me change your life The moment I discovered, that my natural tendency to be impatient could be harnessed and transformed to look like motivation, my life changed. Because yes, I struggle to pace myself, but I found out, that the more I go in the other direction, the more I actually lean into my natural tendency to be impatient, the more 'motivated' I get. And let me tell you right now, I can definitely teach you how to become more impatient. The more you intentionally lean into impatience for the right thing: things you want to do, or things you want to want to do, the more it starts looking like motivation. And the easier and better your work and life gets.

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Elizabeth Filips

06 Patience is a Sin

It's Not Childish to be Impatient

06 Patience is a Sin

It's not chilidsh to be Impatient

Chapter 6

Patience is a Sin It's not childish to be impatient

"Calm down." If you know me at all, one of the top 3 words you'd use to describe me is impatient. It's definitely one of my top emotional states of all time. At any given moment I'm probably being impatient about at least one thing, but probably quite a few things at once. When I want something, I want it then and there. I can be impatient with anything: waiting, doing, wanting results, wanting things to start, to be finished, progress, growth, rate of growth, you name it. And so all my life, I've been told to slow down, calm down, wait. "Jesus, just calm down, Lizzie, what's wrong with you." "For God's sake, just wait." "Speak slower." "What's the rush?" "Please pace yourself." "Calm down." I've never let a kettle boil until it turns itself off - water starts to roll, I'm pouring my tea. Waiting for the toast to pop out? Nah, push it up (or even better, if there's multiple slices in there, fish out one so the others can keep heating). As a child, I permanently had a burnt tongue, because I'd never let my food cool down first. And I've always felt bad about this, I always wished things were different. I never felt rushed, this was my natural state. Impatience felt natural. It just doesn't look great from the outside. 27

Elizabeth Filips

06 Patience is a Sin

It's not chilidsh to be Impatient

Crucifying impatience Impatience has been given a bad name. The "patience is a virtue"-crowd always seemed to grasp something I never could. I've genuinely never heard a single good thing said about impatience. It always was discussed in the context of rudeness, impoliteness and childishness. The amount of times I was stared at scathingly across the room by my parents or teachers for blurting something out, wanting to leave, wanting to read or ask something at the wrong time is insane. And I get it, to some extent. I can appreciate the importance of timing and respecting other's needs too, but that's not at odds with being impatient. No one seemed to make the connection that maybe what got me the good grades and the cleaning of the whole house in 2 hours, was the exact same skill that had me leave the dinner table first and want resolutions to my issues on the spot (and NOT later.)

Reconsidering impatience I firmly believe that no natural (harmless) state is 'truly a sin' within itself. Yes you can be impatiently rude. But you can also be impatiently generous, kind, loving, caring, hard working, inspired, in flow, loving life and motivated. So let me just make the argument for the other side, our side. Let's not be rude with it, but how about we have the space and validation, just for bit, to lean into our natural gift of passionate impatience. And the farther we go, the more motivated we become, I swear. Because there's a power in impatience, and leaning into it and harnessing it properly means we can ride a wave of 'motivation' like nothing else. What if the reason people say they don't rely on motivation is because they don't always have it? If they had it, there's no harm in using it right? So why the hell am I listening to them?

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Elizabeth Filips

06 Patience is a Sin

It's not chilidsh to be Impatient

They are clearly struggling with getting and staying passionate about things, but me: I can engineer impatient passion quite easily and then use motivation to get things done. And enjoy doing them. If we're the same, our endless sources of impatience and passion shouldn't be neglected, because they're super effective.

What harnessed impatience looks like Here are a few things I've been 'childishly impatient' with:

Learning to edit videos So I sat down and learnt to do it in one night. And then just started my YouTube channel. I hadn't figured out what to make videos about. I still have no clue, but I don't have the patience to figure it out. We move. It does fine.

Learning to draw I'd never properly drawn before and wanted to get into a postgraduate art degree: so I spent a few weeks in a museum teaching myself how to do it and created an art portfolio from scratch in a few weeks. (I did get accepted btw!!)

Starting a podcast I had no clue how to do this or what to talk about, so I brainstormed some ideas on a whiteboard, frustratingly figured out how to get the audio to work (it still only comes out of one side of the earphones, so I have to copy-paste it twice in the edit), but just got it done and out. Two seasons in and tens of thousands of streams.

Starting a newsletter I hate writing, but think it's a good skill, even though I had huge imposter syndrome and no idea what to talk about, I just set up a newsletter in a few minutes and got started, without waiting to figure it out.

3D sculpting I really wanted to learn how to sculpt things in 3D (like characters in computer games). So I downloaded a free version of Z-brush, watched a YouTube tutorial, and sat down for 3 days in a row faffing about until I could create anatomy body parts. It was really fun. 29

Elizabeth Filips

06 Patience is a Sin

It's not chilidsh to be Impatient

All of these things were done overnight, on a wave of 'I absolutely need to and must learn all these things right now,": a level of impatience and motivation that is just so fun and so powerful. If you've ever felt a blinding desire to get something done: you know what it's like to have super focused energy, to not sense time, to improve really fast and not care about making mistakes because all you care about is that you're actually getting to do the thing.

"You need help" vs "omg, show me how you did it!" I find it funny when people are shocked with long, focused hours of work. If you're doing something productive and you tell them you're just really motivated to do it: they just get confused. "What do you mean you enjoy studying so much? That's not healthy. You need to go out more. You'll burn out. No-one enjoys work, come on, be honest." But if you tell them you're super impatient and want to learn this one thing, it makes much more sense to them. "Oh, that's very cool. Hope it's going well."

Don't focus on motivation, focus on impatience I think the concept of impatience just makes more sense, is much more relatable, understandable and concrete than the version of it we call motivation. And most importantly, it's much more useful: because we can influence it. So let's just be more impatient. And here's exactly how, broken down in detail, to be childishly, obnoxiously, powerfully, passionately and absolutely insanely productively impatient (motivated) with the things you need to do. Let's get it, baby. 30

Elizabeth Filips

07 Organised Chaos

The Step-By-Step Guide to Impatience Priming

07 Organised Chaos

The Step-by-Step Guide to Impatience Priming

Chapter 7

Organised Chaos The Step-by-Step Guide to Impatience Priming

Impatience Priming We're here, we've made it. This is where the magic happens. How do we harness motivation? This is where I'll break down my process step-by-step for something I call Impatience Priming: the intentional, determined, fun, passionate and chaotic increase of impatience until it turns into motivation. (a template for this will be at the end of the guide, with a Notion link you can download and use if you're into that) Pick something you want to motivate yourself to do, and join the circle. Let's go. 32

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The Step-by-Step Guide to Impatience Priming

How to Use this Exercise 1.Pace Yourself This is the line reasoning I've used on myself to increase my impatience to want to do something. I would never go through every single question in each tool for a single activity. I'd read through it all once, to get a gist of the concept, and then highlight the things that resonate with you the most. DON'T ANSWER THEM ALL, it's too much.

2.Familiarise Yourself The exercise is divided into 3 main tools: Sexification, The Bare Minimum and Mental Breakdown. Knowing what the function and concept in each tool is, will allow you to then use whichever feels more relevant to your situation and activity at the time.

3.Internalise Eventually The aim of the written template is to eventually not need it at all. I'll only pull up the written questions when I'm desperately struggling with something - I use the principles for everything in my life just in my mind. This way of framing things is now second nature and internalised for me.

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The Step-by-Step Guide to Impatience Priming

Impatience Priming A Quick Overview Before We Jump In Tool 1: Sexification This tool is made up of three steps: Ignoring Results, Isolating Skills and Intensifying Cravings. The aim is to generate impatience and motivation for a task we are uninspired to do.

Tool 2: Bare Minimum, Baby This tool is a perspective shift that allows us to use impatient chaos to get things done passionately, creatively and uniquely.

Tool 3: Mental Breakdown This tool addresses the emotional issues behind getting work done: how to overcome the barriers that stop us doing things we know we have to do. In a fun way.

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The Step-by-Step Guide to Impatience Priming

Ends to a Mean Before we begin, let's expand a little on the basics of our project. We're approaching this the other way around, trying to find the means (impatience/motivation) through analysing and breaking down our end (completing the task). So what's the end?

Questions I love for this: What do you need to do? Why do you need to do it? Why are you struggling to do this? Why do you need to do it now? By when does this need to be done? What are the milestones you can expect to reach when completing this task? How would you know you’ve completed a milestone?

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07 Organised Chaos

The Step-by-Step Guide to Impatience Priming

IMPATIENCE PRIMING: TOOL 1

SEXIFY IT I don't always trust myself.

I like to think I know what I want and don't, what I like and hate, what I find boring and what exciting, but in reality, I've often found myself losing motivation for 'fun' activities halfway through doing them, or on the opposite end becoming obsessed with things I previously found 'boring'. I don't think anything is black and white: a lot of my motivation for doing things depends on how those things are framed for me. Anything can be made sexy if framed in the right way, and I've made myself an expert at doing this.

What does "sexifying" mean? The basic reasoning here is that we won't have motivation for things if we are looking for it in the wrong place. And I've found results to always be the wrong place to find motivation. As I will aim to explain, even guaranteeing interesting results for completing a task cannot make up for the boring work needed to complete it. And this leads us to a downward spiral in our levels of motivation. On the other hand, a simple perspective shift: focusing on the skills we grow by doing the task can immediately increase our impatience for completing it. Learning how to do this intentionally and properly can amplify impatience until it turns into burning motivation. So here is how I make something I don't want to do but have to do sexy enough to fuel my impatience. 36

Elizabeth Filips

07 Organised Chaos

The Step-by-Step Guide to Impatience Priming

Sexification Step 1: Ignore the results of the project/task I really want to establish the idea that results are in the best case feeble and in the worst case dangerous for our motivation (and impatience), given that the process of doing a task is boring or painful. The more boring or painful the task, the more pointless the reward for completing it. This is why.

Case 1: Boring task + boring result This doesn't need much explanation, but if the process of doing a task is boring, it will give me no motivation. And if the result of the task is something I equally don't care for, there is no motivation to be found there either. Say my coworker's friend found out that I can paint and wants me to teach her young son to do that (which I definitely don't have the time or desire to do). The activity itself would be very boring for me, and the result is something that (in the best possible way) I really don't care about. There's no motivation in the process and no motivation in the result. So overall, I end up with no motivation to get it done. This is fairly obvious. Any task that falls into this category is difficult to do, and we all would struggle with them.

Case 2: Boring task + interesting result This is where I think a lot of people get tripped up. They assume that just because they care for the result of the task that they're supposed to do, they'll want to do it. But then they start, they hate it, and don't want to finish it. This is why. Say for example I want to become a doctor. I genuinely want that result, it's one of the things I want the most, there's a lot of motivation there. 37

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The Step-by-Step Guide to Impatience Priming

But all the little steps in between: studying, exams, tests, projects: the process is painful and sometimes boring. I can't rely on the motivation from the result of becoming a doctor to sit down and do 3h of studying every day: because given a very boring or very difficult task over a long period of time, my brain starts to get creative. "Do I really need to study right now?" "Do I really need to study today?" "Do I really need to be a doctor? Maybe I can do something else to help people and earn a living." If in the long term there is pain, difficulty and boredom in a task: any desirable results are incapable of providing a lasting source of motivation. And we're again left struggling to get things done.

Ignoring all results So my argument here is that we completely ignore all results. Anything that people have told us to care about: "my friend would be so grateful" or "your grades in this exam really matter for your future". These are not sufficient to make boring things interesting or to increase our impatience. My first step in making something sexy, is to identify and isolate all the results I've been told to, or have wanted to care about so I don't confuse them up with the things that actually matter to me. That's what comes next.

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The Step-by-Step Guide to Impatience Priming

Sexification Step 2: Focus on the skills involved in the task Now that I've scrapped the results, my focus shifts onto skills instead. A task can seem boring on the whole, but I think that's just because I haven't dissected it yet. I will take anything I'm supposed to do and break it down into every single skill necessary to complete it. And I will go wild with this: typing fast, being a better speaker, structuring my arguments better, putting feelings into words, understanding myself, communicating with others, appreciating someone's pain or perspective etc.

I'm impatient with improving my skills I will then look at this list of skills and identify those which I'm interested in improving for myself. The reason this works is that I'm constantly impatient to improve the skills I value. In the same way I will read a book, listen to a podcast, watch a YouTube video or maintain a 3h conversation on any of these topics, I have endless sources of impatience to get involved in anything that improves them for me. All I need to do now is tie this endless source of impatience for improving the skills to the task I want to make myself more interested in.

The 3 things required to dissect out skills to increase impatience: 1. A clear understanding of what the skills I value and want to improve in myself are 2. Some understanding of the task and what skills it requires 3. A bit (or a lot) of creativity in matching the two with one-another

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The Step-by-Step Guide to Impatience Priming

And I've become very proficient and creative at doing this. Say I actually needed to teach the child to paint in my previous example: that's very boring, but I'd care about understanding and appreciating child psychology because this might make me a better parent. Communicating lessons with children would help me gain a better understanding of the things I'm trying to explain. Learning to appreciate the interests and struggles of someone trying to learn might make me more empathetic. And it goes on. The task remains exactly the same, but I'm suddenly keen and impatient on understanding why someone would struggle with art and how that might make me a better artist myself. I'm motivated again.

Selfishly impatient (with myself) This process transforms the task from something I need to do, from a result, into a way for me to improve the skills I care about. I still don't care about the task itself most of the time, but I do care about my skills. It sounds self-involved, but it works so well. We tend to be a lot more impatient about improving ourselves than we are about getting things done.

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The Step-by-Step Guide to Impatience Priming

Sexification Step 3: Intensify Cravings Using the framing I've developed in the previous two steps, I'm now in a position to fully focus on increasing my impatience. I'll do this by looking for things in the world to tempt me. I want to fuel my desire and impatience for improving the skills I care about that are involved in the task. So I want to see what I can use those skills for. I'll look for cool things people have done using the same skills. I'll look for cool things people haven't realised they could use the skills for. I will think of what I could do if I was the best person in the world at the skill, and then see how even having just 1% of that level of skill could change my life right now. I will think of how I can transfer and combine the skills with things I already know how to do in order to improve my life and have fun. This involves looking at projects other people have done, work they've done, improvements I could make, pleasure people have gotten in their life using these skills. I don't care that my coworker will like me more if I help their friend, I care that I can become a better painter and parent myself if I teach art. I don't care that my professor says that writing an essay will get me good grades, I care that being good at structuring my thoughts means I can be a better partner.

Making the task work for you I make tasks I need to do work for me, align with my values, my path, my desires, my passions, and spend time looking at how much more fun my life could be if I improved the skills I value. This productive daydreaming ends up slowly increasing my impatience to get all that to the boiling point of wanting to get the task done, every time.

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The Step-by-Step Guide to Impatience Priming

IMPATIENCE PRIMING: TOOL 2

BARE MINIMUM, BABY

This leads me to one of my favourite places of all time. Rock bottom. The very start. The innocent cluelessness. The potential. And most importantly the bare minimum. I just love basics. First principles are stunning, powerful and often underrated. They are too easily outshined by the sexy features, complicated moves, advanced techniques as no-one sings praises to how far you can go and how complicated you can get with just the simple basics. If I could help anyone learn or start something, no matter how complicated it is: the one thing I would recommend is that they figure out what the bare minimum knowledge/work to get started is, and get impatient with learning or doing that. This tool becomes necessary as I often face a wall of panic when I try to start something. I can easily become overwhelmed with the crazy-complicated and huge projects I want to complete when I don't even have the knowledge and tools to get started. But knowing how impatient I can get by focusing on incredible results, I don't want to just throw that source of motivation away and focus on small tasks that would be "realistic". Realistic is often quite boring. 42

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The Step-by-Step Guide to Impatience Priming

So, if I want to learn to 3D sculpt from scratch for example, I could take a course and learn how to use the brushes and what the features of the app are for the first few weeks: that's realistic. But it's so boring. I won't be impatient or motivated enough to do it. If I think I can get to sculpt a complete body part today: that's very motivating and exciting and so I'm highly impatient, but it's also overwhelming and so I can't get started. I'm stuck.

Don't learn too much: get started ASAP So my formula to solve this is: grasp just the core basics and immediately stop learning. Start doing the task as soon as you can. I'll learn a few brush techniques (a few minutes work) and I'll use them to try and sculpt. I'll pick new tools up if and when I need them. I love the endless impatience-potential of having to learn or start something from scratch: because this is where you can amp up the impatience to the maximum by harnessing the bare minimum.

The Core Basics of a skill are underrated: Core Basics can take you a lot farther than you might think because: 1. They're usually quick and easy to learn (so you get impatient with starting and can do it sooner) 2. They therefore give you a (misguided, but that's fine for now) sense of confidence and impatience to use them 3. Everything complex is derived from core principles anyways, so once you know how to use them, you can combine them to get very complicated and cool results 4. They lead to creative solutions to things - if you try and use just the basics to get complex results (because you haven't learnt the more advanced stuff yet) you end up with something unique and creative - doing this in the long term leads to much better mastery of the task.

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The Step-by-Step Guide to Impatience Priming

So whenever I need to learn something new/complicated/big, I isolate just the very core basics I need, look at cool and complicated results that people get by performing at a high level at the task, and I get very impatient with learning them and just getting started. I trust that I'm able to get some easy-bad-version of the task done using just this knowledge, and I'll get huge amounts of pleasure in doing something completely new. The pleasure and results will then be enough to fuel my desire to learn more. I fall into a beautiful self-sustaining cycle of impatience:

The Self-Sustaining Cycle of Impatience: 1. Impatience to start helps me learn the basics: so I start and have done something which isn't great 2. Impatience to improve it helps me work and learn more: which makes me create something better 3. The progress fuels my impatience to improve it further, and now I'm good, I'm working.

The alternative has often been losing all passion, impatience and motivation while being sat down and taught a bunch of seemingly pointless things for a task I didn't want to do in the first place, without any chance or space to perform or improve. Pointless and prolonged learning without action is boring. And so, as soon as I have some basic ability to jump in and tackle a task, I'm in. I'm too impatient to learn more before I do, so I lean into this.

"You're so weird" When people see me draw/paint/use words/apps/knowledge they think I'm weird. "You know there's an easier way to do that complicated thing right?" Cool, I'll learn it then, I've been using a crazy way I've figured out myself all along. The reason? I've been passionately doing it using just the basics, the way that came naturally to me: if I'd just been learning a bunch of functions and rules in a row, I'd have gotten bored ages ago and never stuck to it long enough. 44

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The Step-by-Step Guide to Impatience Priming

Chances are, I love doing most things my own way. I don't care about tiny rules and the 'easier ways to do' them. I'll only learn complex things when I need to - and I get the same results, trust me. So start from the bare minimum. I know I said look at crazy-impressive results in the first point, but trust that chances are you can get most of that done with a few simple functions. Start before you're ready, and definitely before people tell you you're ready. It's much more impatiently fun to work in that way. Learning a list of slow, boring things without doing is the antichrist to impatience, let's safeguard our baby.

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The Step-by-Step Guide to Impatience Priming

IMPATIENCE PRIMING: TOOL 3

MENTAL BREAKDOWN And lastly, it's sometimes time to accept: if you know you're supposed to do something and you aren't doing it anyways, this isn't a logical issue. You have an emotional issue, baby. And that just takes a little bit of a different approach to solve. But it's doable, worth it, and translates to a host of other un-related benefits. So let's have a mental breakdown. This is not the breakdown that keeps you up at night, this is the break-down type. The dissect type. The pull the mask off in Scooby Doo type. I find having a Nervous Breakdown (I just love to say it meaning this, God knows I've said it in it's original meaning enough already) becomes less and less necessary the more you do it. Once you're in the habit of breaking down your fears a few times, you'll become more confident at doing it. It's only the bigger things you'll need to do this for again. (I no longer have any 'I'm going to fail this exam or not send this project in in time' panic, I'm fully comfortable with the consequences from having done this exercise enough times. I now have 'I'm writing things for people to read' breakdowns.) At the end of all the prompts, or the combination of things that made sense here, hopefully we're a lot more excited, focused, passionate and impatient to the point of motivation. Next, we'll go into how to actually build and execute on this way of thinking in your life and how Impatience priming leads to virtuous cycles of pleasure. 46

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The Step-by-Step Guide to Impatience Priming

Elizabeth's Mental Breakdown: What is the worst that can happen if you don't succeed in a genuine attempt to do this task? No seriously, be specific. You'll lose a lot of money? Move back in with your parents? For how long? Can that change and improve again? Why does success in this genuinely even matter to you? Write down 2 things you're actually good at (that aren't related to this). See, you're fine. You don't need to be amazing at everything. Doing this well is just a plus for your life. No-one is judging you the way you are judging yourself. Life is about experiencing and enjoying things. Life is about change and novelty, let yourself experience things more. Life is like a sin-graph with a general upwards trend (Google it), not an exponential graph (growth or decay). If this turns out to be a shit-show, it will get super-funny at some point. Listen, we've been called impatient, inconsistent failures for ages. The worst that's going to happen is that we're going to do just that again: start something and not stick to it. Lol. How many times have you done that already? If this doesn't end up working out, given your chaotic passion, you're guaranteed to find something else fun at some point. Another degree, another job, another project. You don't need to commit to all your passions forever, diffuse the pressure here. You can learn anything. Don't think you can't do something. Don't think you're not an artist, writer, poet, singer, physicist, genius. Go explore: the world is our business.

Caveat: I am referring to arbitrary-non-life-threatening, personal projects and deadlines here. If things have genuine and real consequences, I don't want to dismiss them! 47

Elizabeth Filips

08 The Virtuous Cycle of Impatience

It's not pain, it's pleasure

08 The Virtuous Cycle of Impatience

Its not pain, it's pleasure

Chapter 8

The Virtuous Cycle of Impatience It's not pain, it's pleasure

I don't work if I don't want to Another huge point I want to get across with this chaotically organised work is something I might get positively crucified for: I don't work when I don't want to. (for arbitrary deadlines of course) Let me explain why this makes all the sense in the world.

Firstly: have you ever been called a mad person because you can do a single thing all day? Reading/gaming/playing an instrument/drawing/watching a TV show? If there's any chance you've done something all day that's in any shape or form considered conventionally 'productive', oh Lord. You might've been called a productivity guru, an inspiration, hardworking or maybe even a toxic workaholic who has a bit of a problem. I get it. "Work hard, but not too hard. What's wrong with you? Don't you need to rest? To eat? To drink? I could never. Wow, this really isn't healthy. You're going to burn out if you continue like that." Burnout. That's a topic for a whole other day, because it confuses and annoys me quite a bit when this word gets thrown around. Anyway, back to bingeworking. 49

Elizabeth Filips

08 The Virtuous Cycle of Impatience

Its not pain, it's pleasure

I promise, it's not what it looks like I have something to admit here (which I try to say, but no-one seems to listen), I can work for 15h a day on some things: when I do that I'm not in pain, I'm not struggling, I'm having fun, I'm enjoying it, I don't end up burnt out. BUT I don't have some superhuman strength or brain. The things you'd consider normal and easy to do, I actually struggle with. I don't have some crazy motivation for everything: I usually can't muster the ability to answer an email, even if it takes 2 minutes. It's not black and white: being a hardworking or lazy person. It's about the thing at hand and how impatient I feel about it.

It's not me, it's you When you see me working like a mad woman, it's because I don't feel like I'm working: I feel like I'm having fun. I'm in pure flow, 10h feels like 20 minutes to me. Make me do a task I hate for 20 minutes and It'll feel like 10h, so I'll avoid doing it and do anything else in the world instead. But it's not just about the feeling. When I'm doing work I don't want to do, it doesn't only feel like it takes longer. It genuinely does take longer. I need to read the same sentence 5 times. My mind flies and I need to look back at what I'm doing. I'm slow and stupid. "Yea, obviously Elizabeth." But no, no. Do you understand what this means? What is the point of doing work in that state? If I could guarantee that I will want to do that work at some point (using the techniques in the previous chapter), I can get the same amount of work done in 20 minutes: when I feel like doing it, that would otherwise take me hours to do now. Seriously, think about it.

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08 The Virtuous Cycle of Impatience

Its not pain, it's pleasure

Why you should never work when you don't feel like it Talking arbitrary deadlines here (self-imposed deadlines and work): let's say I've booked in work for today, I need to work on a project that's due in a month's time but I really don't want to do it. Let's break this down.

Option A I ignore my feelings and I do the work anyway. I'm a bit annoyed with the task, but that's fine. I'm quite distracted. I'm in a quiet room and my phone is on do not disturb, but I'm not properly focused. I do slow, uninspired work for 2 hours. I make some progress, but it's not much. At least I did something.

Option B I don't do the task now. I spend the next 20 minutes Impatience Priming for that task instead. 3 days later, I actually feel like doing the task. I get 5 times the amount of work done than I usually would in that time. I avoided the pain of doing work when I didn't feel like it, and I got the pleasure of doing work when I felt like it. And the work was therefore much better than it would've been otherwise.

Which sounds better? The thing is, we've all done work in both states: unmotivated and motivated, and there's a clear difference in the enjoyment, results and progress that we can make in both states. 51

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08 The Virtuous Cycle of Impatience

Its not pain, it's pleasure

What I'm saying is, that when I'm not motivated to do a task that I don't have a real deadline for immediately: I am better off not doing it then, Impatience Priming in that time instead, and then doing it when I feel like it. When I can catch up, go ahead, and progress sooo much more than I would've been able to otherwise. Does this make sense?

Give me 5 hours to axe down a tree, and I'll spend the first 4 sharpening my mind It's my version of "give me 5h to axe down a tree, and I'll spend the first 4h sharpening the axe". My mind is the axe. And she'll be blunt forever if I don't spend time sharpening her. This is me trying to create a structure out of my natural reasoning for the Virtuous Cycle of Impatience, so I can try and break it down to you and see if it makes sense for others too:

Step 1: Is this going to be mediocre work if I do it now? If the answer to that question is yes, I'll skip working on the task and I'll impatience prime instead. This is because: I recognise that I can do mediocre work if I truly want to force myself: but why do that? If there's only an artificial deadline there, and I'm not properly primed to work -> I'll skip it, I'm comfortable falling behind. I know that in the long run, if I don't feel like working, it's a much better investment of my time to prime myself to want to work rather than do mediocre work: because I can be SOOO much more efficient and enjoy the work when I want to actually do it. Priming is always fun. It's just browsing fun stuff, thinking about my feelings, it's almost like procrastination. (it's only fully procrastination if you're not doing it properly, otherwise it's axe-sharpening) 52

Elizabeth Filips

08 The Virtuous Cycle of Impatience

Its not pain, it's pleasure

Step 2: Catch Up and Go Ahead We're finally back here again. When I do feel like working: I work. I ignore the 'this is toxic, you'll burn out narrative': I've never burnt out working when I want to. Yes, if I consistently work at that 15h/day rate I probably would, but we've already established I never 'want' to do anything consistently. My chaotic passion will never lead to consistency. There's no risk in following my feelings with work. I'm having fun here. I'm engrossed in what I'm doing, I've forgotten time, I'm progressing fast, I'm being challenged, this is what being alive feels like, I'm in the zone.

Step 3: Painless Improvement I've avoided a lot of pain here. The pain of doing things I don't want to do. The pain of mediocre progress and distracted work. I've avoided resentment for the task and I've been focusing on the pleasure of it and actually enjoyed doing it. That positive feeling, coupled with the overnight insane jumps in progress means that I'm excited. I can see progress, I've become so much better in just a few hours. I've fueled my motivation and impatience for even more improvement. I've broken into the virtuous cycle of impatience. None of this was driven by pain, it was all pleasure.

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09 Pick Your Wars

The Battles we will never win

09 Pick Your Wars

The Battles we will never win

Chapter 9

Pick Your Wars

The Battles we will never win

There's things I will never be good at OK so you've definitely noticed this 'overnight progress' thing doesn't work for everything. And you're 100% right. It doesn't. I've slowly started to accept the things I absolutely and completely suck at: organisation, memorising facts/names/numbers, things that require slow progress, rigid milestones, strict rules for how and when tasks need to be done. Basically, anything that requires patience, structure, frequent repetition and you can't improve overnight in (sadly can't build abs in a night), I will be absolutely mediocre in. And that used to make me sad, but honestly, now I just embrace it. It does mean there are a lot of things out there I completely suck at, but it also means there are just as many other things out there I have a huge unfair advantage in.

There's things I'm ridiculously good at I can do inhumane amounts of focused, intense work in one sitting. I can come up with very creative solutions to things (because I use first principles a lot, and because I tend to work very intensely and then not touch my work for a very long time, so when I come back, I usually have a very fresh approach.) I love bigger picture thinking. I can learn things super fast and have crazy amounts of passion. 55

Elizabeth Filips

09 Pick Your Wars

The Battles we will never win

Living in a world ill-suited to me Now, the world isn't divided into things I can be inconsistent and things I need to be consistent with. And sadly, the world is still built to fit consistent people. But who cares, it is what it is. I can still work within that constraint to improve the situation. Even though a certain amount of willpower, structure and routine is absolutely necessary with anything (buses don't run when I feel like it, I can't organise meetings when the mood strikes me at 2am), clients want their work finished when they need it, not when I feel like doing it most. I just know that I don't particularly enjoy the organisation. I still do these structured things because I have to, but I know that because I don't enjoy them I only consider external deadlines as real and serious. So I don't create any harsh deadlines of my own on top of them.

Not making my life harder than it needs to be, for the sake of it Because realistically, in every job/project/degree I've had to do: between now and when the real deadline is, be that in hours, days, weeks or even years, a lot of the work will be self directed and organised by me. And I know how to organise myself chaotically. Without habits. Without routine.

Optimising for passion, not consistency In life, when I can, I now optimise for passion and not consistency. Consistency Is a losing battle for me, but passion is definitely one I can win and enjoy.

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10 New Beginnings

Living life intentionally impatient and everything I never expected would change

10 New Beginnings

Everything I never expected to change

Chapter 10

New Beginnings

Living life intentionally impatient and everything I never expected would change

It's been a while since I've switched up my approach to life to fit this way of working. And it's been incredible. I'm starting to see the compounding effects of optimising for my brain, for the way I work best, using my strengths and having fun. It's not just better results in individual tasks, but it's changed me overall as a person: I now have familiarity with very different fields: arts, science, philosophy, poetry, literature, writing, acting, design, public speaking, the internet, marketing, business, coaching. I have much less fear of failure: I recognise my fickle nature and I don't tie myself to the things I'm interested in forever: if it's fun, it's fun. If not, I'll probably come back to it at some point the future. I haven't failed or quit. I'm just priming. I'm much more confident in my work and abilities to learn: even when I had great results when I was a younger student, I deep down felt like a failure. Because the majority of days I would be a mess: not knowing what everyone else was working on, what I should be working on, why I don't feel like doing things. I would get sighs of frustration from my mum and my teachers with my disorganisation and impatience. 58

Elizabeth Filips

10 New Beginnings

Everything I never expected to change

Yes, the results of my work would be great in the end, but I always was anxious about them: worried that they had been a fluke every previous year, that I was going to fail, that I was doing everything wrong. Because no-one legitimised my way of working, I thought it wasn't real, right or allowed. I was doing what came naturally to me and having fun with it, but I was very anxious about my results. I never had any confidence. Now I know it's legit. Not because anyone has legitimised it for me, but because I have enough evidence to see it works. And that's what I REALLY want to legitimise for you if you're on the same boat. Now rather than later, or God forbid, never. Fun. I cannot even express just how much more fun working is for me now. I compromise still, of course. But I don't worry that my 'process is wrong'. I'm no longer overcome by guilt and shame when I hear people's rigorous habits and routine. And I'm almost always working in flow. And I haven't burnt out since I stopped creating habits.

If you've made it this far, there's something quite personal I want to share with you. I've been talking about productivity for a while online and my apparent passion for it always confused me. I don't really care about getting things done. Deep down, I couldn't care less about efficiency, speed, results, money, achievements or success. So I've been wondering for a while now where this all comes from? What is fuelling my desire to want to figure out and share how I work and how people like me might too. And I think I've finally found it.

It's not about doing things. It's about how the way you do things shapes you as a person. I've been scolded, shouted at, told to work harder, shut up, talk louder, talk less, talk more. I've been told off, been made fun of, called weird and threatened with 'a guaranteed failure of a future' as someone apparently incompetent at doing anything 'the right way'. I've been, in ways, bullied by my teachers, caretakers, friends for not conforming to the norm. It's not about stupid habits, honestly who cares? The risk of not being able to get things done is not that I don't do them: eventually we're all going to figure things out to some extent. But the risk is how I perceive and think of myself, and how that then shapes me as a person. 59

Elizabeth Filips

10 New Beginnings

Everything I never expected to change

Because had my mum known these things, maybe she would've gone easier on me. Had my teachers known these things, maybe they would've been kinder. Had I known these things, maybe I would've suffered less and felt OK in my own skin. The effects of work don't just end in the classroom or the workplace, but living your life with unmet and unknown needs can shape children into insecure, selfhating, suffering and confused adults. Like me. And so, more than anything, I know I'm not a parent and so I would never advise anyone how to raise their kids, but as someone who needed to be raised very differently: I just want to say, maybe it's OK for some children to work in their own natural chaos. And if you're an adult and have yourself resonated with me, I hope from the very bottom of my heart that this is helpful in some way for your work, but above everything, that you can feel even a tiny bit, that you're OK. That we're not that bad, lazy and weird. I'm absolutely convinced in the liberating power of treating yourself, your body, your mind the way it wants to be treated. And this is what works for me. Chances are, a few of us might be wired the same way. If so, hope this helps, and wish you all the passion, impatience for the right things, and above all, luck in the world. Love you loads, Elizabeth xx

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Elizabeth Filips

Bonus Content

Impatience Priming Exercise

Bonus Content

Impatience Priming Exercise

Sexification Put the task to the side for a moment, what skills does this task require? List them.

Which one of these skills are you actually interested in?

How can improving any of these skills be used to make you better at other things you’re interested in?

What other results can you use these skills for?

What cool things have other people done using the skills you would be improving?

What cool things have other people not done yet using the skills you would be improving?

How would being exceptionally good at this skill(s) give you advantages as a person?

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Elizabeth Filips

Bonus Content

Impatience Priming Exercise

Sexification If you were the best person in the world at this skill, what cool things would you be able to do?

Where is improving your skills in this category taking you as a person? Do you want to grow in this direction? What does that look like?

How does proficiency/improvement at this skill align with your values?

What transferrable skills does this task give you?

What part of it do you care about? Screw what people say the benefit of this task is: what do you care about?

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Elizabeth Filips

Bonus Content

Impatience Priming Exercise

Bare Minimum, Baby If you had to get started doing this task in the next 30 minutes, what core skills would you need to learn now?

What are the very core functions of this app/laws in this domain/rules in the field that you need to know?

Look at the best work in this field: what elements do they have in common? Make yourself literate: what does good look like? What does bad look like? What is the difference between the two, so you can avoid the obvious bad elements.

If possible ask/or see what experts say the biggest ROI things to know are. Learn only those, and learn them well.

Stop learning as soon as possible, start doing. Learning is boring, doing is much more fun. Start doing way before you’re comfortable with what you know.

If any function or thing to learn seems too complicated, ignore it for now. Only learn it when there’s no other way to solve that problem.

Be very impatient with starting. When do you start?

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Elizabeth Filips

Bonus Content

Impatience Priming Exercise

Nervous Breakdown What is the absolute worst thing that can happen if you don’t succeed in a genuine attempt to do this thing? Be very specific, go full catastrophe - then imagine 3 months after the catastrophe - how do. you build back up again, is there still hope for you?

Are you maybe known to yourself to have a bit of a negativity bias? Have you ever (or consistently) ever thought that you’d perform a lot worse than you actually did?

Write down 2 things that you’re decent at doing. Why does success with this genuinely matter to you? What happens if you don’t succeed?

No-one is judging you the way you are judging yourself. Life is more of a sin-graph with a general upwards trend than an exponential/linear graph.

Two things are guaranteed: if you fail, things will definitely get worse than that point of failure in the future, and things will definitely get better than that point of failure in the future. (same thing if you succeed). If this turns out to be a complete shit show, think of how funny it will seem at some point.

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Elizabeth Filips

Bonus Content

Impatience Priming Exercise

Nervous Breakdown If you genuinely thing this is something you have to do and are worried you cannot, and you would be broken if you failed, but you’re a chaotically passionate person: how many things in the past have you felt the exact same about, that you now don’t care about? What if this is the same? It’s guaranteed you’ll fall in love with something else in the future, and you’ll care a lot less about this in the future. You can learn anything. Don't think you can't do something. Don't think you're not an artist, writer, poet, singer, physicist, genius. Go explore: the world is our business. Be impatient with your complaints and fear, give yourself the space and time to verbalise your fears and explore them, then ignore them lol

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Elizabeth Filips