How to turn that dirty indulgent feeling into effortless productivity

That “flow state” feeling is addictive. I feel it when I write and when I play a casual game on my phone, like Candy Crush or Bejewelled.

The thing is that when I stop playing these games, there’s always a crash, a feeling of letdown because I know that there’s nothing to show for those hours of pleasure. It’s empty pleasure. So I decided – not to uninstall Bejewelled from my phone, but to re-install Duolingo instead. And whenever I feel like getting that quick fix, to open Duolingo. I get that same high from playing it throughout the day, but when I’ve completed the game, instead of that sinking feeling and the shameful thought of “what tf am I doing with my life?!” I get thatglorious feeling of accomplishment, and am conversant in an additional language. (你对语言有兴趣吗? )

All for the initial cost of the discipline of “I’ll get my jollies from this app, not that app,” which I think is a pretty good trade-off in my book.

How I’ve effortlessly published one Kindle title a week for the past three weeks

Speaking of books, another activity that gives me a serious high is writing in my bullet journal. Yet when I finish, there’s always that nagging feeling of, “So what? Whom does this benefit other than yourself?” So I’ve taken to working on one manuscript for publishing on Kindle at a time.

What I do is this: I open a Google Doc on my phone, pick a topic that people seek answers for, and just indulge my writing habit by expanding the manuscript first thing every morning, even before I get out of bed. There’s a reason why this peculiarity is important, and maybe I’ll write about it someday. Or you can watch this video by Rian Doris

that the algodrithm* showed me, and maybe you won’t have to wait to read my piece on it:

(*Not a misspelling; I believe God works through the algorithm. False gods, too, so be wise and vigilant!)

Anyway, back to my indulgent writing habit: I keep expanding the manuscript every day until it's past 5,000 words in length, the unspoken lower limit for a Kindle ebook. Then I edit it the next day and publish it as a Kindle title. In this way, I’ve effortlessly written and published one Kindle title a week for the past 3 weeks. Not only is this effortless, I get my jollies from it. It feels almost dirty to enjoy myself this much.

You can’t change by destroying bad habits

By the way, notice I didn’t ceremoniously delete Candy Crush and Bejeweled in a haughty huff.

Nature abhors a vacuum, so you can’t change by subtraction; you change by addition if you want to make it last.

“Take my yoke upon you,” Jesus said. A “yoke” is the crossbar that is placed upon an ox’s shoulders to harness its strength and pull a plough or turn a grain mill. You likely have a pair of shoulders. If you don’t like the yoke you’re wearing, put on Jesus’s yoke that’s light and easy, and you’ll have no room for any other yoke, such as the kind of yoke that’s heavy and difficult.

“Nature abhors a vacuum” is a cliché because it’s true. “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop” is another cliché that’s true. If you try and throw off whatever yoke you’re wearing on your shoulders, it will reappear again, just like that cursed remote control in the Adam Sandler movie Click. Your shoulders are made for a yoke. The only question is, which yoke are you wearing? More importantly, whose yoke are you wearing?