Hi friend,

Hope your weekend is off to a rad start!

This week, I wrote about how I plan out each week - complete with surf time, work time and $10K thinking time. (Plus it includes a shocking statistic on the declining utility of free time.)

Rad friends - we're gonna close enrollment of Supercharge Your Productivity. If you're looking to get inspired, energized and work less - this course is for you.

650 students (like serial entrepreneur Johannes Rietschel) can vouch for the transformational nature of the course:

Yup, we help lost souls find back their tracks. Hurry though, enrollment closes on January 23rd.

Planning your 30 hour work week.

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Mother Nature is a fickle beast.

Especially when it comes to waves.

Surfing, unfortunately cannot be scheduled.

There's the wind. The tides. The swell direction. The sandbars.

In Manhattan Beach, the optimal "surf window" is between sunrise and 11 am.

So, here's how I plan each week.

First, I block out the surf window. Yup, no calls or meetings until 11 am PT. (Except the occasional Europe call at 10:30 am.)

Next, I block out 30 minutes of Thinking Time.

It may sound silly, but when was the last time you allocated time to think about your career, relationships or life direction?

Then, I leave Fridays totally open. No meetings. No calls.

(In fact, when peers/friends try to schedule calls during the week, I tell them "Just call me any Friday, I'm wide open.")

Lastly, I aim to shut my laptop around 6. Which leaves roughly 30 hours of work.

Of course, this is the life of a remote-only business owner who isn't vying to maximize profits-at-all-costs.

But whether you're a W-2 employee or a Vice President at a Fortune 500 company, you can apply these 3 principles to master the art of strategic laziness.

Here are this week's top reads:

// one

The age of anti-ambition

13 minutes | The New York Times
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What is the emotional relationship of workers to their jobs and to their employers? Is it one of pragmatism and basic needs? Or does work find and fill a gap of meaning in our lives? Which leads to a perplexing paradox of ambition: too much leads to burnout, not enough leads to ennui.

→ Read the article​

// two

Why we seek the high of stardom

6 minutes | Psychology Today
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Fame can be an addiction and a trap. You become famous, need a bigger house, bigger car, bigger everything. Next, you’re surrounded by people who only say what you want to hear. Now, you’re living in a fake world, with a skewed view of reality. What’s really behind this craving for fame? We want to be validated in our identities. Affirmed. We want to feel like we matter.

→ Read the article​

// three

Why do we buy so much stuff?

10 minutes | Vox
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What’s at the heart of modern American consumerism? Turns out it’s not just persuasively good marketing tactics that gets us to buy stuff — it’s competition with our peers. We all have a social desire to “keep up with the Joneses” (enter: lifestyle creep). We don’t buy a house because we saw a great commercial for a house — we buy a house because our best friend did.

→ Read the article​

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// four

The new case for social climbing

9 minutes | The Atlantic
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Social climbing gets a bad rap - we feel icky being labeled in this way. But what happens when you realize that meritocracy might also be squishy? There’s one form of capital that’s not finite - social capital. This isn’t a case for shallow, transactional social climbing; it’s a case for cultivating relationships that have the potential to improve your lot in life.

→ Read the article​

// five

New years resolution idea: be normal

4 minutes | Pet Hair on Everything
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New year, new start — cue the mood boards, goal setting, dreaming, and resolution writing. How about this for a 2023 goal? Aim for normal (hello, ambition crisis). Dream of being average. Cut yourself loose from competition. Invest in your hobbies and communities. Deepen your friendships. And focus less on the accolades.

→ Read the post​

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Below the Fold
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LAST WEEK'S MOST READ

• ​Can you have too much “alone time” (RadReads, 1,105 clicks)
• ​52 things I learned in 2022 (Medium, 416 clicks)

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And finally, our 90s babies will recognize this (R&B) siren song.

With gratitude,

Khe

PS Supercharge Your Productivity is the only course that connects the pursuit of productivity to life’s larger questions. Enrollment ends on 1/23, sign up today.​

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