Becoming Indistractable and Stressless in the Modern World | September, 2019
A Letter to My Future Self
Dear Zake,
I’m the 26-year-old of you from 2019, how have you been? Since 2015, I decide to take a day every month to reflect on work, life and mental clarity.
This is the 46th mail I’m sending to you.
September — Becoming Indistractable and Stressless in the Modern World
It's bit too late for the September review, but as I mentioned in the previous articles. The way of sitting quietly in a room and taking a step back for our life, is such an important and precious moment that I have with myself.
And I couldn’t relate more while I’m sitting here today.
“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
This is the quote I learned recently from Ryan Holiday’s new book, Stillness is the Key.
When I think about it, I realize that besides sleep and swimming in the pool, I cannot even sit still not doing anything, listening to anything or thinking about anything for 5 minutes.
And usually this is when our stress and anxiety come from all directions and hit us like thunder storm.
Have I spoken to person A about xxx?
What would person B think about me if I only speak with A?
What would she think about me if I like her photos on Instagram?
Why am I in this low productive mode and not achieving anything?
Did I lock the window this morning?
…
These questions go on and on, and come to us quietly and without any signs. It’s difficult to shut them down completely, because they are like satellites around the earth, always distract you and destroy your original workflow.
I think since I join this smartphone company, the average screen time has increased dramatically. It’s not because I get addicted to certain apps, but rather spend more time on these mobile devices destroy my focus muscle.
When I’m going to do a comparison between phone A and B, so many app icons come to my eyes, and sometimes you are on autopilot, every click and scroll might not even have a purpose, which decays your mind and body day by day.
Then one day, you realize that you lose control to your body and mind, you cannot make yourself happy, let alone focus on the big dream and goal.
Besides, thanks to the convenience of Internet and mobile devices, you are always reachable at any time, which even puts our mind in an even worse situation.
So how you are going to do about these problems? The thing is, we all live in this world and no one can escape from this distractions and stress, and the one who handle these problems better, will have an advantage over other people, no matter what they are trying to do.
These are main problems I have with myself, and I will also share the journey of tackling the stress and distraction below and future updates as well.
Work
September has been a busy and fulfilled month.
We launched our latest smartphone in India, as well as our first TV product. I’m lucky to still be the keynote speaker for the camera part, and introduce our product lines along with OnePlus founders Carl Pei and Pete Lau.
During the keynote rehearsal, I also have more time spent with them, observing and learning what they say, how they do and their personality.
One is incredibly calm and thoughtful, even when shit happens before getting on stage, or when we are so late for the final call boarding. He always react in his own ways, which is a calm voice or a question, with a smile on his face.
This do calm down the people around him, and help them start looking for solutions right away.
One is always showing up with a big smile, communicating with users about the needs and push back within team to solve feedback. He’s bright and professional at one side, and super young at heart at the other.
I think since college, I picked up the skill of building role model, by observing closely about what they do and say, I build up this virtual avatar in my mind. And when I encounter the similar or related problems, they are like my north star guide that helps me walk out from the rut.
Just like bounty hunter, I will call myself a people hunter.
Yes, that’s the name! Because the true greatness for me, is challenging yourself every day and always being a student.
Besides the product launch event, I also push teams to make a big final feature change before the code freeze.
I remember in my reviews, I talk many times about how you hold your opinion will greatly affect other people’s action. There’re so many times in my life that I give up just so easily and I do not hold fast to my own thoughts and product ideas.
What happens in the end is that, people will just think you are not meaning it, or it’s not that important.
If you are not deciding your life and time, someone else would.
Because eventually people will see the truth as time goes. If you are right, your team believe you more and everybody is happy; if not, you are the one who learn the most during the process.
Life
First thing first, the 30-day challenge for myself in September is, quitting smartphone for 30 days. I switched back to Nokia feature phone, and have a lot of fun with it.
Besides the 30-day challenge video, I also made 2 other job interview videos for people who are interested in joining tech companies and becoming a product manager.
My subscribers on Bilibili are growing, there’s sometimes a sponsorship opportunity, and I kind of find the way to merge my interest on video production with product management skills…
Everything seems to be perfect until the golden week in October, Chinese National Holidays. I went to Coron, Palawan in Philippines with 3 other friends. It’s such a paradise and beautiful beaches, coral garden and ship wreck that’s perfect for snorkeling. But I realize there’s bigger problem of myself.
I bring the laptop with me, because I want to do some video editing and blogging when I get time. But, somehow I feel that I’m hijacked by own ego and social platforms along the journey.
I care too much about how I show up in my videos, how frequently I post on my channel, how people think of me on Instagram etc…
So I’m constantly checking my phones, editing my photos and posting on Instagram, editing video until I pass out every night… while my friends and person I like are right there with me, showing up and bearing with my soul absence.
I crash the drone that I rent during the trip, and the annoying process costs me much time and effort.
I was having the hard time and feeling extremely stressed out 3 days ago, because the tasks that I put on myself, writing this blog, editing my video, starting the new challenge, swimming in the morning, cooking every day…
Sometimes I feel like I am shackled by all those “health habits”, and cannot squeeze time for experience more in this world. So I come back to the fundamentals, our happiness.
I realize that growing up in a working class family of a third-tie small town in China, has not only not equipped me with any privileges, but have some ingrained negative effects on me, which start to contradict with what I learn and experience here in Shenzhen.
The one that come to me recently is the opinion for money and time. Most of them back in town has a word called “MAKE DO”, “凑活” in Chinese.
This dramatically affects the your output quality and meaningful time you spend with yourself.
For example, when I am purchasing a backpack, if I care more on the money side, I end up spending more time searching for the cheaper one, and sometime suffering the poor quality.
And if you go too much on this, you will end up borrowing the time scheduled for your routine and things you enjoy doing, which eventually makes you less happy and more depressed.
So my take on this is that, I will put time as the top priority of whatever decision I’m making. Set a timer for whatever I’m doing, try to give my best performance during the time and stop immediately after the bell ring.
Okay, my time for the self review is up. Hope next month I will get better at handling stress and all those distractions.
What I’m Digesting
1. Product Design by Google — Part 1
2. Lean, Agile, Scrum, Kanban : Building Better Products by Exploring Workflows and Design Processes
3. Indistractable: how to control your attention and choose your life — Nir Eyal
4. How to find your creative calling — Chase Jarvis
5. Joe Rogan | The Information Age Will Reverse the Industrial Age with Naval Ravikat
6. How craving attention makes you less creative
Hey Zake, I hope you will find this email helpful and bring your some great memories. LIFE IS A DRUG, LOVE IT, LIVE IT.
Much love,
Zake
