[TT 002] Lifespans & healthspans, study of the mind, prioritized time blocking
Howdy folks,
Newsletter is coming out a little late today because it’s been a big week.
First, I’ve been writing a bunch.
I wrote a foundational piece on my take on the framing of God (spoiler: I found something better for me - Life).
I also published my wrap from the goal-setting (actually, I prefer value-based forest) workshops I did in January. My version is a walk through my 18 value trees including my top 10 projects for Q1 and Q2 this year.
The reason I stop at Q2 is because this week I accepted the offer to matriculate at Stanford’s Executive MBA program called MSx. It’s a full-time, on-site program for one year and I look forward to the intensity and growth. And I know I won't have time for big projects when that program begins.
On to this week’s Thriving finds.
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On the joy of cited sources
📚📝 Last week I grumbled a bit about Eat Smarter’s lack of a bibliography. Well, their team did get back to me and they actually have very well-linked references.
It’s strange that this page is not linked anywhere from the main site, nor is it mentioned anywhere in the book, but I’m glad they actually have it!
On lifespan and healthspan
⏳ 🥼 I appreciate well-crafted frameworks and I like Dr. Peter Attia’s model for longevity.
Longevity is a balance of lifespan (living longer) and healthspan (living better).
Lifespan is all about delaying death by reducing the most common causes (cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease, cancer, and accidents).
Healthspan is all about improving the quality of life by delaying cognitive, physical, and emotional decline.
He goes on to talk about valuable concepts like nutritional biochemistry, exercise physiology, sleep physiology, and exogenous molecules (molecules, drugs, hormones).
I really appreciate that Dr. Attia does not dumb down his material and speaks specifically and with precision regarding biomarkers and testing limits for most things he cites.
The biggest thing limitation I see in this framework is the “relational” component. It seems focused exclusively on the individual, and there is value in that awareness but does not speak to the importance of relating to the human and non-human world for our longevity. Still, plenty to learn for my UTT from the depth of Dr. Attia’s research and his great synthesis of medical academic literature.
On poking and studying our minds
🧠 🔬 Anne-Laure Le Cunff just published a really awesome article on the 40 major fields of psychology and neuroscience. She starts with a fundamental distinction
Psychology studies the human mind through observation of behavioral and mental processes, including cognition, perception, attention, and emotion.
Neuroscience studies the human brain through observation (and simulation) of the structure and function of the nervous system. Sometimes—but not always—neuroscience may look at the biological processes underpinning the behavioral and mental processes studied in psychology.
If, like me, you’ve ever been befuddled by all the different psych and neuro labels, this is a wonderful cheat sheet explaining who does what, when, and why.
I’ll be digging deeper into some of these fields in Year 2 of my UTT research - psychological health.
On prioritization and time-blocked efficiency
📆 ✅ I recently stumbled on Taylor Pearson and he is a master of well organized and diligently documented frameworks. His Business Strategy Framework resonates with my 10+ years running my own businesses and consulting for other larger companies.
I especially enjoyed his detailed deep dive on how to prioritize. He offers a distilled list of tried and true entrepreneur heuristics to delineate how to think about prioritization. It’s all very cerebral in that Silicon Valley tech bro kind of way, but everything he shares is thoughtful and well communicated.
My favorite new concept was the Marshall Matrix that underscores the concept of $10,000 / hour work. I know some of my work is more valuable than other work, but I’ve never thought about it in that framing and it feels much more accessible to prioritize the $10k / hr work up front.
My favorite practical tidbit was how Taylor stacks out his time blocking in his calendar:
I’m not (yet) great at stacking sleep / rest + exercise as the top priorities, even though I know they are productive in the long run. I’m going to try starting there for my weekly review for next week.
On teaching an old snake new tricks
🤯 🐍 OK, this is just downright amazing. This snake taught itself to climb trees by lassoing around its own body to shimmy up. Dang that’s cool.
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I'm headed off to do a dreamscaping weekend retreat for Best Marriage Year with my wife. Looking forward to ducking away to a mountain cabin to dream big, then make it happen.
With warm regard from a cold, snowy town,
~Henry