Learn From My Mistakes

Short story of how I break life chaos into small, solvable problems - 2 min read.

I’m not sure if you can relate, but whenever I need to come up with a creative solution - trying to think hard never brings any good ideas.

Roughly 5% of what comes to mind is obvious.

The other 95%? Absolute trash.

Take this.

A few years ago, my wife decided to install one of those Christmas light-walls - you know, the kind you hang over a curtain for that cozy, blinky Instagram glow?

We got the lights. We got excited. We were ready to add ambiance to our lives.

What we didn’t get was an easy way to install them.

The curtain was a single piece of lightweight fabric threaded over a rod - no gaps, no hooks, no mercy. When we tried hanging the lights horizontally, the line sagged like a sad spaghetti noodle.

Cutting holes in the curtain every 15 inches to “stabilize it” was… frowned upon. (Apparently, one of my wife’s limiting beliefs. Personally, I wasn’t emotionally attached to that curtain. Or any curtain, really.)

Anchoring the lights on top of the curtain? Not bad in theory. But my wife didn’t share my deep appreciation for gorgeous silver duct tape appearance in the design.

Thread and needle? Too permanent. Too damaging. Too much work for something we’ll take down eventually. (As I later discovered: never.)

The harder we thought, the worse it got. It felt like trying not to think about an orange elephant.

(My orange elephant is not photorealistic, by the way. It’s a cartoon. Probably wears sunglasses.)

So - before doing something stupid (and possibly irreversible) - I made the only logical move: brewed some caffeine-free chamomile tea. Meanwhile, my wife vanished into some other dimension.

I stood there with my mug, staring at the curtain rod like it had insulted my ancestors. I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t problem-solving. I was just… vibing.

And then - suddenly! (Sorry. I had to.)

I noticed that the curtain rod was mounted to the wall with long, flat brackets. Brackets long enough… to hold another rod.

So instead of fighting with the existing rod, we grabbed a second one (thank you, garage of forgotten treasures), zip-tied the lights to it, and slid it right behind the curtain rod.

Clean, simple, no curtain surgery required.

And that’s exactly why I try to put my workouts in the middle of the day.

Wait, what?

Here’s the connection:

Ever notice how your brain becomes brilliant the moment you stop trying?

You're stuck on a problem, so you do something else (reorganize spices, take a walk, sip tea, get your heart rate up) and boom, the answer appears like it was hiding in plain sight the whole time.

That’s not magic. That’s a real thing called the Incubation Effect.

Psychologists have been exploring it since the 1920s. The idea is simple: when you stop hammering away at a tough problem, your brain shifts into a looser, more creative mode - and that’s when insights sneak in.

Try too hard, and you fixate on the obvious (read: bad) ideas.

Step away, and your subconscious keeps working - quietly, with no updates, no status bar - and eventually hands you the answer when you least expect it.

That's why during a run or a bike ride, my brain wanders while I focus on survival. And after I've suffered enough, it often rewards me with a good idea.

So next time you’re stuck, don’t double down. Step back. Do dishes. Pet a dog. Go do literally anything else.

You’re not procrastinating.

You’re incubating.

(It just sounds fancier.)

Basically: the less effort you put in, the smarter you get.

Finally, a system that makes sense.

Till next time.

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It's a smart, actionable guide for anyone aiming to solve issues once and for all, not just patch them. The author Doug Hall's powerful three-step process: define the real issue, co-create solutions with your team, then run quick, safe experiments to eliminate risks before they spiral.

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Cool Facts About Cal Newport

Hand-Drawn Time Blocks: Each night Cal grabs a sheet of paper and sketches out the next day in half-hour chunks so “every minute has a job.”

“Schedule Shutdown Complete” Ritual: When work’s done, he updates his task lists, scans tomorrow’s calendar, says that phrase aloud, and refuses to think about work again till morning.

Morning Deep-Work Sprints: He protects 90- to 120-minute focus blocks (usually before lunch) where no meetings, email, or pings are allowed.

Social-Media Blackout: Cal has never had a Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram account, arguing that quitting these apps frees huge reserves of focus.

Invented His Own Planner: Because no notebook matched his system, he published the spiral-bound Time-Block Planner to guide 90 days of scheduling.

Fixed-Schedule Productivity: He works a strict 9-to-5. Anything that can’t fit inside that window is dropped or delayed - forcing ruthless prioritization.

Weekly Plan Panorama: Every Monday he lays the whole week on one sheet, batching similar tasks and hunting for empty chunks to fill with deep work.

Inbox Once-a-Week: Inspired by A World Without Email, he now checks email only once or twice a week, proving most messages can wait.

Watch-worthy clips

One video that got us thinking, and we think you'll like it too

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