Moderation
Welcome
Recently on The Productivity Lab’s second year in review I ranked our decaf challenge as one of my least favorite challenges we did in the past year, and then the next week after we recorded that episode I cut back my caffeine intake to half caff for one week and no caffeine the next week. Why would I partially redo the same challenge I didn’t like nearly a year ago again, especially without any incentive? Moderation.
Moderation is key to living a balanced life, and without it it can spiral out of control. From what you eat and drink to the apps you use on a daily basis I believe it’s useful to be mindful of the things in our lives and how they affect us. About once a year ago I’ll purge my phone of all distracting apps when I feel like it’s getting out of hand then slowly add them back on and set up limitations with apps like Freedom or FocueMe. Once or twice a year I’ll cut out alcohol from my life for two to four weeks, and I’ll operate on specific rules for those as well. And finally, last year I quite my melatonin dependency for sleep I relied on for way longer than I’d like to admit. Keeping these things in check is important to know just how valuable they are for your life and to know if they’ve gone too far. After that Productivity Lab challenge I decided to add no caffeine and half caffeine weeks into my life just to see how involved it had become in my daily life.
Moderation is not a revolutionary concept, and we all practice it to some extent. But I do think it’s important to set scheduled breaks from things in your life that might have grown out of control from their original use. You never know just how much you need or don’t need something until it’s gone for a bit. If you have the time pick something that you’re concerned you’ve grown too dependent on and cut it out of your life for a week and see how its absence affects you.
Project Updates
From the Webb
Short Stories
Jack and the Girl -Originally written as a seven minute audio play for a script writing course I took, I decided to adapt it into a short story. “Jack and the Girl” is an action comedy about a young man down on his luck after beat down after beat down who encounters Emily, a young woman who isn’t quite who she appears to be. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I had fun writing it.
Flash Fiction
The Last Voyage of the Sea King - A storm’s a coming and the colossals won’t stand much longer. The captain of the Sea King takes his small fishing vessel out to sea for its last time.
The Lonely Grave - Somewhere within the Neighborhood of Wonder lies a lonely grave within the untouched lot.
From the Lab
Scary Fast Book Review [Rebroadcast] - Mark and I are busy with life right now and weren’t able to record a new episode on schedule so we’ve rebroadcasted one of our favorite book reviews in the past year. We’ll be back in two weeks with a new review. In the mean time listen to our review of our favorite indie productivity book we’ve read so far.
Recommendations
Books
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir - Andy Weir writes what I call “popcorn hard scifi books” his books are like action films but where the action is the science and the hero is a pencil pushing nerd. This isn’t a bad thing. As a fan of both action movies and science it makes nerds like me the perfect audience for his stories. Project Hail Mary is a novel about an astronaut sent far away from Earth in order to save it from a dying sun. If I were to share any more it’d be considered a spoiler. Highly recommend for those looking for page turner hard scifi in their life (which there isn’t enough of IMO).
Random Quote 
YouTube
Kyle Hill - Speaking of science, I’ve been binging Kyle Hill’s YouTube channel lately. Hill takes a Sagan like approach to science by placing the audience in the fictional “facility” (a la Sagan’s Spaceship of the Imagination) a high tech lab where Hill explains various scientific principals and explains them in interesting ways. The fact that we also share the same name and both have engineering degrees might also have something to do with the fact that I’m hooked on his channel.
Recommended Jumping off Points
-
Will Black Holes Power the Future? - Because black holes will never not be interesting.
-
How to Read a Scientific Paper - Scientific papers are long and confusing to those not familiar with the topic or prior research. In this video Hill describes the best way to check sources from clickbait headlines and how to tell just how valid the claims really are.
-
The Fukushima Disaster - Epidemic of Ghosts - A part of his Half Life Histories series, Hill takes a serious and macabre look at the Fukushima Disaster. Unlike his more light hearted videos this one and the rest of the Half Life Histories series are pretty heavy.