Learn From My Mistakes

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

Those who’ve been here a while know I’m always optimizing something - efficiency, time, budget. (Confession: every month I email my wife a spreadsheet of our expenses. She’s begged me to stop - apparently those numbers trigger her heart palpitations).

Until now, I steered by gut feel, doing whatever felt right.

Then I stumbled on a Hormozi quote - and suddenly everything snapped into focus.

Status check

Stuff buyer – guilty.

These days I mostly print the stuff myself - endless rolls of filament feeding my 3D printer like pasta to a hungry toddler. Jakub is convinced I’m on a mission to cover the Earth’s surface with a layer of plastic. Nice to have a buddy whose sarcasm is fully biodegradable.

Time buyer – not yet.

I still cook, mow the lawn, and scrub bathrooms. Meanwhile my wife “does laundry” (presses start on the washer) and “cleans the house” (fills the Roborock’s tank and empties its dustbin). DEI in action.

Skills buyer – meh.

Semi-ambitious at best. Employers have showered me with MasterClass, Coursera, Udemy access… Strip the fluffy intros, outros, and recaps - and there’s not much pure meth left.

So I hacked a cheaper pipeline:

1. Find a podcast or an educational long watch on YouTube.

2. Drop the link into NotebookLM.

3. Prompt for an actionable summary and takeaways.

4. Prompt again: “shorten.” (Do not skip this important step!)

Setup: one minute. 

Reading: three. 

Total listening time saved: hours.

Bonus: no 1.5x chipmunk voices required.

My entire skills budget: one YouTube Premium subscription (includes YouTube Music, which I really should open more often).

Distraction buyer – reformed.

I sold my beloved PlayStation. Twice (the 4th and the 5th generations when they were hits). 

Mental picture that helped: me staring at flashing diodes, drooling, jerking the controller like a caffeinated raccoon.

Works every time.

So, am I rich, poor, ambitious, or lazy?

I ran the numbers and discovered I'm actually something worse: a chronic "break-even" buyer. Everything I snag gives me just enough dopamine to offset the headache it creates. Fun!

This epiphany sent me down a rabbit hole I now call Project Net Time Worth:

• Robot vacuum: +90 minutes per week.

• Playstation: -960 minutes per weekend.

• A book: -240 minutes, but I’m betting on a positive ROI.  Beyond blind faith in compounding smarts, I've got zero proof. 

• ChatGPT: +60 minutes per newsletter edition (thumbnail artwork duty).

Verdict: the robot's winning, the console's sidelined, and the book is… hopefully aging like fine wine.

Till next time.

Our favorite digital finds

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Short & Sweet

Short articles worth your attention

Lessons I Learned the Hard Way - 4 min read.

Ever wish someone would hand you life's cheat sheet before you face-plant again? Darius just packs 22 "learned the hard way" truths into a 4-minute read so you can level-up without the bruises.

The awkwardness principle - 3 min read.

Burkeman says awkwardness is your growth GPS - if a new habit feels weird, you're on track. In a two-minute read he turns that "ugh" feeling into a green light, so next time self-improvement stings, you'll know it's working.

A System Is What A System Does - 3 min read.

From school scores to tip jars, Foxley shows design always beats good intentions. He hands you clear tools (think Meadows leverage points) to bend stubborn systems before the kettle boils.

Add this to your shelf

If you're looking for something to read, this book's worth considering

Think of Indistractable as a focus playbook: Nir Eyal shows how phones, apps, and random urges hijack your brain, then gives simple tools (like time-boxing and blocking triggers) to keep you locked in and build the life you actually want. Must read for students, creators, and anyone tired of doom-scrolling when they should be doing.

A Workspace I Envy

A handpicked desk setup that caught my eye this week

Black and orange is my new favorite combo, and the author even snuck the desk color in perfectly. One question though - what's going on with the keyboards? Are they drying out after a flood?

Behind the Persona

A deep dive into the quirks, habits, and backstories that shape icons

Cool Facts About Jerry Seinfeld

Calendar Chain Discipline. Seinfeld marks a big red X on a wall calendar every day he writes a new joke, turning streaks into motivation and making missed days feel painful. 

One-Hour Time-Box Rule. He tells fellow writers (and his own daughter) to “just do an hour”; the hard stop is the reward that keeps burnout at bay. 

Accordion-Folder Archive. Every finished joke goes onto an index card and into brown accordion folders; laid end-to-end, the folders from 45 years of work can cover a city block. 

Blue Bic + Yellow Pad Ritual. He writes longhand with a blue Bic Cristal on yellow legal pads to avoid tech distractions and keep the process “monkishly habitual.” 

24-Hour Cooling Rule. New material rests for a full day before revision or sharing, giving him just enough distance to judge it cold. 

Twice-Daily Transcendental Meditation. Seinfeld credits TM for sharper focus, better sleep, and more sustained energy on stage and at the desk. 

Consistency Over Magnitude. Seinfeld believes tiny daily reps beat heroic marathons; writing one joke a day for years built his career’s uncanny steadiness. 

Analog-Only Workspace. He keeps his desk sparse, avoids computers while drafting, and swears by physical tools to “free the brain” from fiddly tech choices.  

Watch-worthy clips

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

Permission to procrastinate: in this 15-minute TED hit, psychologist Adam Grant flips procrastination into a creativity booster, revealing how stalling cost him a slice of billion-dollar Warby Parker and why your half-baked ideas can spark breakthroughs after a little simmer time.

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