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Leitura de 12 min

Friday Refill - One Thing at a Time

Summary

The episode opens by acknowledging that the advice shared is not new but bears repeating, as it’s easy to forget fundamental principles. The host frames the episode as a mantra he needs to hear himself, suggesting that when he gives himself advice, others often need it too.

The core advice is simple: when trying to improve, do it in one area at a time. This aligns with the human brain’s functioning and increases effectiveness. The host explains that trying to optimize for multiple aspects of personality or life simultaneously leads to internal conflict, as decisions that benefit one area may hinder another. He introduces the concept of cycling through areas of improvement, like virtues, one at a time.

To illustrate this, the host revisits Ben Franklin’s 13 virtues from his autobiography. He reads an excerpt from a Farnham Street blog post where Franklin explains his method: not to attempt acquiring all virtues at once, but to focus on mastering one before proceeding to the next. Franklin arranged them so that acquiring one would facilitate the acquisition of others, starting with temperance to achieve ‘coolness and clearness of head.’ The host connects this to the idea of skill stacking, where learning one skill cascades into making other skills more valuable or easier to learn.

The host encourages listeners to apply this principle by examining all the things they are trying to improve or be at once. He shares a personal reflection: when trying to practice multiple things or be multiple things to multiple people, he struggles to rest and quiet his mind. By consciously choosing to focus on one area at a time and letting go of the others, he finds that his rest and overall well-being improve. The episode concludes with a practical homework assignment: choose one area to focus on for improvement and consciously let go of the rest, especially as listeners move into their weekend.

Recommendations

Articles

  • Farnham Street blog post on Ben Franklin’s virtues — Cited by the host, who reads an excerpt from it. The post goes into more detail about each of Franklin’s 13 virtues. The host encourages listeners to go read the full blog post.

Books

  • The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin — Recommended by the host as ‘quite long, but it’s worth the read’ for its detailed exploration of Franklin’s 13 virtues and his method for self-improvement.

Topic Timeline

  • 00:00:00 — Introduction and the value of repeating advice — The host welcomes listeners to the Friday Refill episode. He states that the advice given on the show is not new, often drawn from ancient philosophy, but bears repeating because it’s easy to forget. He frames the episode as a mantra he needs to hear himself, suggesting that giving himself advice often resonates with others who need it too.
  • 00:01:32 — The core advice: improve one area at a time — The host presents the simple, core advice: when you are trying to improve, do it in one area at a time. He explains that this aligns with the theme of focus discussed on the show and is more effective given how the human brain works. Trying to improve in every area at once leads to conundrums where optimizing for one aspect conflicts with optimizing for another.
  • 00:03:11 — Ben Franklin’s 13 virtues as a framework — The host introduces Ben Franklin’s 13 necessary virtues (temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, humility) from his autobiography. He reads an excerpt from a Farnham Street blog post where Franklin explains his method: he did not attempt to acquire all virtues at once but focused on one at a time, mastering it before moving to the next. Franklin arranged them so that acquiring one would facilitate acquiring others.
  • 00:05:09 — Connecting virtues to skill stacking and focus — The host connects Franklin’s virtue practice to the concept of skill stacking, where learning one skill makes learning others more valuable or easier. He emphasizes Franklin’s point about not wanting to be distracted by attempting everything at once. The practice for one virtue bleeds into the next, allowing for focused improvement. The host recommends reading Franklin’s autobiography for more depth.
  • 00:06:51 — Practical application and personal reflection — The host gives listeners ‘homework’: to look at all the things they are trying to improve or be at once. He shares that when he tries to practice multiple things or be multiple things to multiple people, he cannot rest well and his mind races. By focusing on one thing at a time and being okay with not improving in every area, he finds his rest and weekends improve. He urges listeners to choose one area to focus on and consciously let go of the others.

Episode Info

  • Podcast: Developer Tea
  • Author: Jonathan Cutrell
  • Category: Technology Business Careers Society & Culture
  • Published: 2021-05-14T07:00:00Z
  • Duration: 00:09:08

References

Podcast Info

Transcript

[00:00:00] Happy Friday everybody, you’re listening to another Friday Refill episode of Developer

[00:00:06] T.

[00:00:17] Nothing that we say on this show is particularly new.

[00:00:23] A lot of what we’re talking about is discussed in books, in philosophy, hundreds of years

[00:00:31] gone by most of the time.

[00:00:34] And so it should come as no surprise to you that when we talk about this stuff on Fridays,

[00:00:41] when I try to give you something to think about, it’s probably something you’ve heard

[00:00:45] before.

[00:00:48] It bears repeating, it’s worth repeating some of the things that are so easy to forget.

[00:00:57] And I find that a lot of the time when I’m recording these episodes, I’m doing it as

[00:01:02] much as repeating a mantra back to myself as I am to you.

[00:01:07] And this is something in today’s episode, this is something that I need to hear.

[00:01:13] And I’m trying to take that outside perspective and give myself some advice.

[00:01:18] Very often I find that when I do this, other people, they tend to need the advice too.

[00:01:24] Maybe not everybody who’s listening to this, but some of you will.

[00:01:28] And that advice is very simple today.

[00:01:32] When you are trying to improve, do it in one area at a time.

[00:01:41] When you are trying to improve, which is pretty much all of us, most of the time we’re

[00:01:46] probably trying to improve on something, when you’re trying to improve, do it in one area

[00:01:52] at a time.

[00:01:55] Now why is this?

[00:01:56] Well, it’s pretty clear, we’ve talked about focus on this show as an overarching theme

[00:02:03] for the vast majority of episodes.

[00:02:06] Focus will come up, and limiting our focus to fewer things is more kind of in line with

[00:02:16] the way that the human brain works, and we’re going to be more effective if we try to improve

[00:02:22] in one area at a time.

[00:02:25] And realistically, if we were to try to improve in every area at all times, it’s most likely

[00:02:35] that we will run into a few conundrums.

[00:02:38] We’ll run into a situation where if we’re trying to optimize for one particular aspect

[00:02:43] of our personality, for example, well, making one decision is going to be better than another

[00:02:49] decision which might be optimizing for a different aspect of our personality.

[00:02:55] And so it makes sense to kind of play this game of roulette, to cycle through the various

[00:03:07] kind of virtues, for example, that we want to practice.

[00:03:11] And I choose that word virtues because I want to revisit something that I’m fairly certain

[00:03:15] we’ve already talked about, but we’ll talk about it again today because it is relevant.

[00:03:19] Ben Franklin’s virtues.

[00:03:21] He had 13 necessary virtues that can be found in his autobiography, and I’m going to read

[00:03:28] them out.

[00:03:29] They’re temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation,

[00:03:36] cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility.

[00:03:39] And I am reading, by the way, from a blog post on Farnham Street, and I’m going to read

[00:03:44] just the excerpt, a little bit of the excerpt, and I encourage you to go read the blog post

[00:03:49] that goes a little bit more into detail about each of those virtues that Franklin listed out.

[00:03:56] Franklin advised, this is straight from the blog post,

[00:04:00] My intention being to acquire the

[00:04:03] habitude of all these virtues, I judged it would be well not to distract my attention

[00:04:10] by attempting the whole at once, but to fix it on one of them at a time, and when I should

[00:04:14] be the master of that, then to proceed to another, and so on, till I should have gone

[00:04:18] through the thirteen, and as the previous acquisition of some might facilitate the acquisition

[00:04:23] of certain others, I arranged them with that view as they stand above, temperance first

[00:04:28] as it tends to procure that coolness and clearness of head, which is so necessary where constant

[00:04:34] vigilance was to be kept up, and guard maintained against the unremitting attraction of ancient

[00:04:42] habits and the force of perpetual temptations, this being acquired and established, silence

[00:04:47] would be more easy, and my desire being to gain knowledge at the same time that I improved

[00:04:52] in virtue, and he goes on to say essentially that all of these are kind of stacked on purpose,

[00:04:59] we’re starting with temperance because temperance kind of feeds into the others, we talked about

[00:05:03] something very similar to this on the show, which is the idea of stacking your skills,

[00:05:09] you can do this in virtues, the way that Franklin has laid out here, but you can also do this

[00:05:15] with your hard skills, you can learn something that kind of cascades into learning other

[00:05:20] things that makes learning other things either more valuable or easier, so why are we talking

[00:05:26] about this with reference to focus or focusing on one thing, well you notice that Franklin

[00:05:32] pointed out that he’s going to kind of cycle through these thirteen virtues and start back

[00:05:37] at the beginning whenever he’s gone through all thirteen, and the idea here is that you’re

[00:05:42] practicing one at a time, and the practice that you’re doing for one bleeds into the

[00:05:48] next, and that you’re able to focus, he specifically calls out the idea that he didn’t want to

[00:05:55] be distracted, so there’s so much in this, and I highly recommend by the way that you

[00:06:01] read his autobiography, it’s quite long, but it’s worth the read, so there’s a lot here

[00:06:08] to unpack, and it’s not just Franklin that does this, but when we’re trying to improve

[00:06:13] in an area, whether it’s technical or virtuous, soft skills or values that we want to practice,

[00:06:23] it helps us to be able to focus in one area, and to evaluate ourselves on that area, so

[00:06:29] there are certain times for example in your career, there’s certain times in your life,

[00:06:33] even certain times of the year, various seasons where practicing a particular thing might

[00:06:39] be better suited to that time period, to that phase of your life than another thing, so

[00:06:46] this is the kind of the basic homework that I want you to take home here, look at the

[00:06:51] things that you’ve been trying to do all together, look at the things that you’ve been trying

[00:06:56] to be, the variety of virtues that you’re trying to practice. What I find is that when

[00:07:05] I’m trying to practice multiple things, when I’m trying to be multiple things to multiple

[00:07:09] people, I also can’t seem to rest well, I can’t seem to turn off my monkey brain, if

[00:07:15] you want to call it that, I can’t turn off the racing thoughts and sit down and simply

[00:07:21] let the day go, and so once I start practicing this idea of focusing on one thing at a time

[00:07:27] and being okay, not improving in every possible area of my life, but instead choosing, choosing

[00:07:33] to be exclusively focused on one thing at a time and being okay, not improving in every

[00:07:39] possible area of my life, but instead choosing, choosing to be exclusive to one area, giving

[00:07:47] everything that I have, all of my attention to that person, to that moment. I find that

[00:07:54] my rest, my weekends, you know, all of these things that we talk about on Fridays, all

[00:07:59] of them tend to improve, so as you move into your weekend, think about those things, all

[00:08:06] those things that you’ve been trying to be, what are the things that are distracting or

[00:08:09] pulling one thing from the other? I want you to choose one of those things and consciously

[00:08:17] let go of the other one, consciously let go of the rest if there’s multiples, and instead

[00:08:24] focus on how you can improve in that one area. Thanks so much for listening to this Friday

[00:08:29] Refill episode of Developer Tea. I hope you enjoyed this week’s episodes. We did have

[00:08:34] a little bit of an audio hiccup on that first part of the interview with Katie Milkman,

[00:08:39] but hopefully you all got the corrected version of that episode. Of course we will have three

[00:08:47] more episodes of this show next week. Thank you so much for listening, and until next

[00:08:52] time, enjoy your tea.

[00:09:04] Thank you.

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