My Vision Quest

Hey y’all, I'm writing this email from a little AirBnB in East Texas. I gotta check out in a few minutes, but wanted to send this before I go.  I've been here since Wednesday afternoon, and weirdly, haven't looked at Twitter once since I've been here. To be honest, I've done next to nothing for the past 2 days. I just sat on the back porch and looked at the trees. For like hours at a time. Went for a few walks through the woods. Saw a deer, scared both of us. Did a lot of thinking, a bit of writing, a bit of voice memo'ing. This was my Vision Quest. I'd been planning this for a little while. I felt like I needed some time and space away from almost everything to think deeply about my work and life. And it totally delivered. I'm still processing through some of it, but the big takeaway for me is that I need to change how I work and how I interact with Twitter. The number one thing that kept bubbling up as I stared at the trees was the need for more focus in my day to day life. More deep work, less scrolling, fewer distractions. It's become clear to me that my ability to focus and work deeply for hours at a time is basically gone. I think it's eroded over the past five or so years. It's now to the point where it's difficult to complete tasks without feeling the urge to check my phone or switch to another activity. I've been telling myself a comforting little lie that that's what society is like these days, and if I want to keep up with the discourse then I gotta be plugged in. And that may well be true! But that's not what I want for my life and my work. I need to focus in the day to day, and I need to focus in a bigger sense as well. Do fewer projects. Complete more projects. I have this sense of despair that I'll never get to do all the projects I want to do. But I think the bigger despair is having lots of good things going and not completing them to their fullest. I can't do everything, but I can do a few things really well. I've been prone to attempting big, dramatic changes in the past. Sometimes they stick, but most of the time they don't. So my immediate plan moving forward is pretty simple: no social media or podcasts before noon. That's it! Maybe I'll make more rules in the future, but for now I'm going to train my brain that morning is focused, deep work time. Research, reading, writing, scripting, etc. No inputs before I produce some outputs. There is a lot more to unpack, but alas, I've yet to unpack it all myself! Here's what I will say: this was perhaps the most profitable two days in the past several years. Not from a money perspective, but from a fulfilment and disentangling perspective. I feel like my thoughts started to flow and coalesce around a few main ideas. It's amazing what can happen when you turn everything off and just let your brain find all the disparate threads and put them together. Highly recommended. I hope you can find some space to do the same.  No tweets this week, but my talk from last week is on YouTube now! It's called "Timeless strategies for success," and I think it's really good. I'd love for you to watch it. {{ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=727&v=pLyWLx0LGPA&feature=youtu.be" | hyperlink: "youtube.com/watch?t=727&v=pLyWLx0LGPA" }} I'd also highly recommend this podcast from Cal Newport, the Deep Work guy. It's all about social media and how it may be time to leave it: . The whole podcast is great, but I'd start with that episode. We'll talk soon! Hope y'all have a great weekend. --- If you’ve been enjoying the newsletter and think a friend may enjoy reading it each week too, please forward it to them! They can sign up to receive it weekly here: . That’s it for this week! I enjoy reading all of your replies, so if you see something interesting or just have a thought you want to share, please hit reply and let me know. Talk soon, Aaron {{ ENV.unsubscribe\_personal | default: visitor.unsubscribe\_url | hyperlink: "Click here to unsubscribe." }}