Tips For Doing Hard Things | DEEP DIVE | Episode 178

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all right but let's do a deep dive

uh so i wanted to talk about this topic

of

tips for doing hard

things

and what's going to be different about

this deep dive versus

past deep dives is i'm not giving my

advice for doing hard things i actually

want to relay some advice

that i saw in an interesting video that

a reader sent to me from 2020

of an author giving a talk about this

topic and i recently wrote an essay

about this talk and i publish it in my

email newsletter

which if you don't

get you probably should you can sign up

for that at calnewport.com but i figured

i just wrote that this morning before we

started recording i said i want to talk

about this on the show so i brought in

some of my notes from it so here's the

setup

the video is from 2020 it's from the

fantasy novelist brandon sanderson

who wrote a bunch of best-selling series

i've read some of his books i read name

of the wind

and whatever the second book was in that

particular trilogy and it's really good

and i'm actually now one of the books

i'm reading right now as i decided i

wanted to read some

ursula k gwen

and i was going back and reading some of

her earth c chronicles which has

that's from the 60s but it has some

ideas about the true names of elements

being critical to the magical system

that

sanderson plays with anyways think

big successful fantasy

novelist and he gives a talk in 2020

that was titled

we have it here the common lies writers

tell you but this was not really what

the talk was about

the talk was about doing hard things

and sanderson comes right out and

you know i'm going to appreciate this he

comes right out up front and says he

dislikes the fact that the media keeps

telling young people

that you can do anything you want to and

you should follow your dreams

and he said look that is way too

simplistic that's not the way it works

that's not going to help anyone to say

that

it's definitely a

perspective you would hear for example

in my book so good they can't ignore you

and he says okay here is the more

realistic claim

i'm quoting him here

i can do hard things doing hard things

has intrinsic value and they will make

me a better person even if i end up

failing

he said that's the right way to talk

about

ambitious goals

is there's value in doing hard things

you're able to do hard things and you're

going to get value out of it no matter

what actually happens whether it makes

you a famous novelist or not

or whatever that dream happens to be and

that this is better than telling people

no of course you'll succeed you can do

whatever you want

and then for the remainder of his talk

he said so let's talk about doing hard

things and he gave three

tips

three tips for the reality reality-based

tips for dealing with hard things

so i thought what i would do here is i

want to go through these three tips i'll

tell you what he said and then give a

little bit of my own

commentary on each

so the first tip he gave was

make

better

goals

so when it comes to doing hard things he

thinks we are

not good at setting the right goal so we

don't help people set better goals

so he mentioned for example that

in an ap

literature class in high school he won a

minor contest for a story he wrote and

decided oh my goal is to be a successful

novelist and he said that was not a good

goal

it was way too

long-term

vague and grandiose how do you make

progress on that particular goal in

particular what are you supposed to do

tomorrow

to make progress towards that goal

become a successful

writer he said what you should do

instead is make goals that you have

control over and what sanderson ended up

doing was writing 13 manuscripts before

he actually had a book he could sold and

he said his goal should have been

focused on

producing a certain number of

manuscripts as an act of practice and

having a

commitment with each manuscript to be

more ambitious

than the last to push and develop his

skills because that's a goal he could

make progress on

i could write another manuscript i can

for sure make this next manuscript be

even more ambitious in this way this way

or that way those are achievable goals

saying be a successful author that was

too vague

all right now my take on this is i write

about something similar

in my book deep

work in that book deep work i talk about

this methodology this business

methodology called 4dx the four

disciplines of execution and i i talk

about how this methodology which was

designed to help teams and companies do

better

gives us some insight

into accomplishment when we apply it to

individuals and one of the core ideas

from that methodology is lead versus lag

indicators

a lag indicator is the the big goal you

eventually want to accomplish

i want my next academic paper to get

into a

top-tier journal

the problem with lag indicators

according to 4dx is that it doesn't give

you a clear action

so they said instead you should focus on

what they call lead indicators which are

things you can track and do and control

and they should be chosen such that if

you do well with those lead indicators

you're likely to have successful lag

indicators but it gives you something

concrete to focus on and so for that

example the right lead indicator might

be

i'm going to do 15 hours of deep work

per week

on the paper i'm writing

well that i can track

that creates friction i can push back

against now i can actually make real

changes in the intentional application

of my energy cancel things move things

wake up early progress can happen

so i like sanderson's idea there and

i've talked about variations of that all

right his second tip

learn how

you work

so sanderson when it comes to writing

thinks it's a real disservice

when he hears people say things like

real writers have an overwhelming

compulsion to write

and that if you don't have that

compulsion you should do anything else

and only people who just can't help but

write and that's all they can do should

be people who should be writers

he thinks that's nonsense he says

writing is hard and it's hard work to

figure out how to get yourself to do it

he is a professional writer and i'm

quoting him here i love writing

but i have a hard time sitting down and

writing

so even for this very successful

professional writer

says writing is hard so his advice is

when it comes to doing hard things

you have to put in a lot of effort to

figure out what works for you

to basically get yourself to do that

type of effort and it could differ from

person to person sanderson uses

daily word count tracking in a

spreadsheet it's like a game for him he

likes that but he says other people

thrive under the social pressure of a

writer's group other people need a

deadline

now i talk about this a lot in my own

work

i talk a lot about how

deep cognitively demanding efforts are

unnatural

it uses a lot of energy

more ancient parts of our brain cannot

immediately see what benefit they're

going to get from this energy what's the

threat we're escaping

where's the food or mate source that

this thinking is going to give us right

away and it doesn't have an answer for

that

you try to convince your brain for

example that your 460 000 word

epic

fantasy novel is going to help you in

mate selection

your brain's not going to buy it

it's going to see that you're talking a

lot about wizards with names like

gargamel who are passing

wind spells on elves and it's going to

say this is not going to get us

children this is not going to get us

food

why are we doing this and this is

generally true when it comes to doing

cogly demanding work it's unnatural

so a lot of effort is required to trick

yourself into doing it so i like what

sanderson talked about i would also add

scheduling philosophy and ritual that's

why this plays such a big role

get rid of any decision your mind has

about when you're going to do this work

instead you have a philosophy it's

always these days at these times or at

the beginning of the week i put it on my

calendar and it's right there in the

same color

as meetings i know i can't skip that

time is protected

i don't always feel like i want to go to

a meeting but it's on my calendar i go i

don't always feel like i want to

write but it's there on my calendar

that's what i'm doing next

this is also why ritual matters

writers will build out these spaces that

seem over the top or go to weird places

like i wrote about in my my new yorker

piece last summer about working from

near home

where riders will leave perfectly nice

and good homes to go to weird

eccentric locations to write just

because they associate that transit they

associate that new environment just with

writing

that's why peter benchley left his

bucolic carriage home

on east welling avenue there actually

he's on curless avenue carlos avenue

there in pennington new jersey to work

in the back room of a furnace factory so

steinbeck would balance a

legal pad on a boat

in sag harbor it's why maya angelou

would go to hotel rooms

and take everything off the walls so

there was zero distraction and wright

laying down on the bed propped up on an

arm doing this so often that she built

up deep calluses on that arm that she

was supporting herself because it's hard

to do this work you gotta figure out how

to get your mind into there so

scheduling philosophies and rituals

especially over the top rituals

play a big role

and i'll say when it comes to writing

there's a quote

i i've said a few times has bounced

around a few times which is basically

what some people call writer's block by

some people i mean amateurs is actually

just the physiological feeling of what

it writing the writing experience is

that feeling of i don't know what to say

i don't wanna i i don't feel inspired i

don't know what to say i'm stuck it's

like great now you've started writing

that's what it feels like

all right sanderson's third tip break it

down

maybe it's most prosaic tip out of the

three but basically if you have a big

goal break it into manageable pieces so

you have something to go after he noted

that the book he was writing at that

time

was

longer than the entire hunger games

series put together

so he's saying that's such a big

hairy epic goal because he'll write 400

000 word plus books which is crazy

by comparison my books are usually

70 to 90 000.

so it's like five deep works

uh he said you gotta break that down

that can't be your goal i'm writing this

book it's no no i'm trying to

finish the chapter cycle

that establishes the back story

for

the wizard gargamel that passes the win

spells on the elves or whatever it is i

obviously know a lot about fantasy books

so i think that's good work um

i think the key part about this final

tip is that he says in figuring out what

those goals are

that's where all the that's where all

the uh magic happens is that we don't

give people enough training especially

in creative fields to figure out what

those smaller goals are he said this is

a particular problem in writing where if

you talk to a professional writer and

say look i really want to do what you do

what's your advice they'll just look at

you and say well you gotta write

is that's too vague no no what you need

to tell me is it's gonna take about six

manuscripts

before you get your chops down and those

manuscripts have to be successfully

harder in this way and here is the level

type and source of feedback you need on

each to make sure that you're gaining

particular skills you do one on your own

you do one with two with a writing group

for the fourth maybe you want to hire an

editor

a day of their time to like come back

and give you harsher the fifth you want

to submit and get notes from the the

publisher that you submit to we need

that type of detailed roadmap it's

non-trivial and it's not obvious you

don't just tell people if you want to

write write if you want to be a musician

play music you want to be an artist

paint no these are big hairy goals that

you need to break down and it's not

obvious how they break down

the thing i talk about a lot on this

show in particular

is that if you're going to get this

information you have to go get it and by

what i mean by that is you have to go to

people who know what they're doing and

don't just say what's your advice

because they'll just say write they'll

just say paint

say i want to hear your story

how did you get there what was the first

thing then what was the next thing oh

oh sanderson you wrote 13 manuscripts oh

i didn't realize that so you mean i

can't just do national novel writing

month

and have the name of the win be the book

that comes out of it oh okay now i get

that i don't like that that's reality

but that's really okay i have to write

13 manuscripts how long is that going to

take you know maybe i'm going to need

much more time on this and i think you

get the reality not what you want to be

true you get the reality of what

actually matters for the endeavor you

want to do you get that reality from

people who came before not by asking for

advice but asking for their story

you look at that and you find out what

really matters i talked about this if

you want to see a more

extensive conversation about this when i

was on the tim ferriss podcast

earlier

in whatever this was january i guess i

was on his podcast we get into how i got

started in writing

and they go into detail the story about

how

through connections with my family i got

in touch with an agent a literary agent

who i promised i'm not going to try to

sell you a book

and i had that agent walk me through

step by step

what exactly would a 20 year old need to

do to get a book deal with a major

publisher and she walked me through

here's what matters here's what doesn't

here's the process here's the steps

it was not at all what i would have

guessed and it's not at all what most

young people have met who say i want to

write a book do

but it was the reality

and it took me two years but i followed

that plan

and sold that book

and wrote that book as a senior and

everything else unfolded from there so

that's my advice there is yes you need

to break down your goals the more

manageable goals it's not always obvious

how to do that

ask the experts but not for their advice

but for their story and you can extract

from their story the reality of what

matters

all right so sanderson

uh thank you for giving that talk

excuse me for my

my wizard elf jokes

uh obviously you're very good at what

you do and i am of great awe but that's

good advice

don't just follow your dreams

focus on doing hard things for the the

meaning of doing hard things and treat

doing hard things like a complicated

endeavor that requires a lot of nuanced

nuanced feedback

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