Hey all,

Quick Update: I'm feeling very productive this week in college, and I think it's because I've hit a difficulty sweet spot in my life.

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Things aren't too easy that I'm bored, but not too hard that I feel demoralized. It's nice.

This is a really important lesson to remember when planning where to work, what classes to take, or what activities you want to do in your life. It's way easier to learn concepts and feel motivated when you feel like you're accomplishing something, but not too stressed you lose all ability to do anything else.

However, an important trick here is to expect you can do more than you think and cut back on activities you can't handle. This is because one of our other priorities is to increase our capacity for complex thinking/work. Don't fall into the trap of averting challenges just because you want a "manageable schedule."

That doesn't mean you should torture yourself with boring, unstimulating work or tasks out of your league, but you need to believe that by working hard, you'll get better at working hard. (Hopefully, along the way you'll also start to find fulfilling work as well.)

It's like the mastery curve Austin Kleon talks about in Atomic Habits - you create a lifestyle that is just a bit harder than you're used to, and you get used to it. You create better habits for studying, sleeping, reading, and consuming information, and you master that level of production. The next quarter, season, or year, you ratchet up again, challenging yourself and expanding your brain again. It'll seem like you're only pushing yourself a little, but you'll have grown more than you'd ever imagined.

And if it is too hard, just cut back. The worst thing you can do is burn out and lose the love for learning and improvement you've been developing. It's alright to take a break for a quarter or even a year as long as your trajectory stays aiming for the stars.

So go out there and find that difficulty sweet spot for yourself. You can do it! And remember your goal isn't to outpace your competition in a year or even four but to keep improving while they're burnt out. That's how you get where you want to be.

At least, that's what I think.

Thanks for reading, and have a great week!

-Ethan

Things I'm Enjoying:

📚 Books - Both Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon and How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens were driving influences on this blog post. Specifically, they've both helped me change how I read from a slow, careful style to a quicker one that helps me find and analyze the best, most unique ideas more often. If that sounds like an intriguing idea to you, I suggest you check them out!

👨‍💻 Tech - This is a very college-focused buy, but I think a portable speaker is a must-buy for movie/YouTube nights with friends. For one, it makes all the media you're consuming sound so much better, and it also helps remedy those feelings of exclusion people can sometimes feel when they can neither hear nor see what's playing on the tiny laptops you use as TV screens.

💻 Website - Chess.com - I like chess a bit, so I've found Chess.com's puzzles a great way of taking a small brain break while keeping my brain in that critical thinking mode. Funnily enough, the fact that I don't pay for the premium version of the site is also a blessing because I can only play so many puzzles before the site tells me I have to pay (which is my signal to get back to work).