How I'm Organizing My Life (Schemas)

[mikecarlooch]

Happy Saturday everyone!

I'm writing this thread because I noticed that when I tell other people about things, the more I tend to stick with them.. But more importantly, I think what I've got here can help a few people who may be feeling lost.

The truth is - out of desperation, I had to figure out how to simplify my life and not constantly get distracted. I used to want to be this jack of all trades kinda guy who knows a little bit about everything.. But the problem is, when you do this you don't get deep domain expertise in anything..

I realized that if I kept going down this distracted path, it would probably waste years of life.

However ironically, I found my way of ridding myself of this problem through.. more research..

But I would say that the time put into this research was very, very worth it.

There are two things I'm talking about.

#1 - Schemas

#2 - Mental Models

I'm going to mainly talk about schemas because they've helped me immensely.

First off, we all have schemas. If you don't know what schemas are, it's kinda like your own personal decision about what something is and how to do it, and ignoring everything else. Yes, these can be bad and keep us limited, but - if used correctly, they can bring great clarity to our lives.

For example, CENTS is a schema created by @MJ DeMarco. Many people may come around and say "what about this, this and this?". The point of a schema is to ignore those other things, because they just make everything more complicated than it needs to be for a particular individual.

Does that mean the other things those people are trying to add are wrong? No. They just are operating under a different schema, and if that schema works for them, then that's amazing!

There's so much great advice out there, but it's absolutely impossible to take all of it, so just take what resonates with you on specific topics.. And treat those things like there is nothing more to them.

Of course, this is not to say that your schemas should not change.. Keep them documented and when you get a gut feeling that something on it needs to be replaced or changed, then change it and start operating under the revised schema.

I have a sheet of paper that holds my schemas.. Here's a few examples:

Career:

Learn to sell, Learn to build, Learn industries/problems/users, and apply leverage.

Business Startup Order Of Operations:

Identify a problem in the world
Do an evaluation of the idea/research the industry (based on Josh Kaufman's Microconf talk)
Find customers who would pay, ask them for commitment (use growth-scrapping as described in the unfair advantage)
Decide whether or not it is worth pursuing
Build MVP & learn necessary skills as you go
Put MVP in front of committed prospects, see if they give you $$
Assess & Adjust

Business Goals

Pick a problem
Create multiple hypothesis
Execute most likely solutions first + seek necessary info
Measure results

Productivity

Timeblocking
Priority (The One Thing)
Deep Work
Repetition Of The Ordinary
Aggregation Of Marginal Gains
Controllable Goals

My "Mount Rushmore" Of Books

Business:

The Millionaire Fastlane
The Unfair Advantage
The Almanack Of Naval Ravikant
Unscripted

Productivity:

Deep Work
The One Thing
etc...
etc..

I think you get the point.

Now for mental models - I haven't dove deep enough to really understand them, but I can see the power of them. It seems the most famous advocate of mental models is none other than Charlie Munger. The farnam street newsletter/blog has a great list of mental models, often quoting Charlie Munger.

Quotes that have helped me:

Results + Math are the languages of the universe

An easy way to know if you are deluding yourself in your actions is if your actions aren't producing any results or numbers, whether those numbers are good or bad. If you are stagnant and not moving, but still feel confident about what you're doing, you should be very suspicious.

"The problem is we don't listen to the world. Instead, we let others tell us what's right and wrong, what works, and what doesn't. Instead, let results guide behavior" - quote from farnam street blog

"Impatience with actions, patience with results" - Naval Ravikant

Hope this was as helpful to you as it was to me.

-Mike

 

Dislike ads? Become a Fastlane member: Subscribe today and surround yourself with winners and millionaire mentors, not those broke friends who only want to drink beer and play video games. :-)