Chup! The Illusion of Productivity! Casey Neistat...
weekly recommendations + learnings + featured blog posts + reviews
You plan out your day, you have slotted your tasks in different slots and alongside you have your daily habits/ rituals set for different times of the day… does that make you productive?
When those things are happening by design, what’s happening is the time which is being managed. If you’re in control of how you’re spending your time, to break it down… no one can steal your time, and you know what has to be done when, and the right time plus understanding to move on to the next thing; that means you’re good at time management.
But being good at time management doesn’t make you productive, it only gives you the illusion of productivity.
Productivity is described by how much you’re able to accomplish with what you had set out to do, not merely doing it/ initiating it. For example, if you had set out 10 Individual tasks for the day, on top of which you have another six daily rituals, all of us have set timings during the day, from which you’re able to accomplish four of those rituals on time, and complete 6 of those set tasks, that would give you a 60-70% productivity rate.
Now, here’s the difference. A day before, you sat and scheduled everything for the next day; you had your slots ready, and you had a picturesque vision of how the day would look like with the execution of your habits and your tasks, thus being able to manage your day and your time in advance. But, only by measuring your returns on your time and your planning are you able to determine your productivity rate/ how productive you are.
Many a time, the managing part gives us false confidence in how productive we are and how much we can accomplish. But the reality check is brought on by the latter part of measurement/ understanding how much are you able to accomplish. Doing that then breaks the illusion of productivity and should give us a glimpse of what can we do better and how can we improve (i.e. if we want to improve our productivity).
Edition 141 of The Last 7 Days (14.11 - 20.11)
my weekly recommendations of What To Read, What To Listen to, and What To Watch.
What To Read:
The Science Behind Why We Follow Influencers — And How It Leads To Overconsumption. Check it out here.
The World Hits 8 Billion In Population. But There's More To It. Read more here.
Harvard researcher says there are 8 types of ‘difficult’ people—and passive-aggressive is the ‘absolute worst’. Read here.
The Amazonification of Uber. Check it out here.
It’s Really Expensive to Be a Star. Read more here.
What To Listen:
On the Rich Roll podcast, YouTube legend Casey Neistat joins Rich to talk about his unique creative process, the dangers of a society that values influence over creativity, and his new documentary 'Under The Influence'. Listen to it here.
In a final in-depth interview with Tom Clarkson, Sebastian Vettel looks back at his entire F1 career: how he dealt with winning and losing, his rivalries and friendships with champions and teammates, and the races and moments that shaped him. Check it out here.
In conversation with science journalist Nadia Drake, astronomer Heidi Hammel discusses the latest in astronomy and the breakthrough innovations behind her work with NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. Listen here.
Recode’s Peter Kafka talks to Bloomberg’s Mark Bergen about changes to YouTube’s recommendation algorithm, its various attempts to make original premium content, the rise of TikTok, and FЯED. Plus, how the entirety of YouTube almost got filed under a tab on Google’s failed social network. Listen to it here.
Director and co-writer Ryan Coogler, composer Lugwig Görannson, supervising sound editor and re-recording mixer Steve Boeddeker, supervising sound editor Benjamin Burtt, and re-recording mixer Brandon Proctor join the Sound + Image Lab podcast to discuss the making of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Check it out here.
What To Watch:
In an exclusive with Piers Morgan, Cristiano Ronaldo opens up on the lack of progress at Old Trafford since the days of Sir Alex Ferguson, his character portrayal by the media, his sense of disrespect from the club, his comparison with Messi and also, his retirement. Check it out here.
A spoiler-filled breakdown of Monica O My Darling, including all the easter eggs and homages, with the director Vasan Bala and Sucharita Tyagi. Watch it here.
How Brooklyn’s Barclays Center serves 18,000 People During an NBA Game? Watch here.
TV Show Recommendation of the Week: Save Our Squad with David Beckham (Following David Beckham as he returns to the East London football pitches where he played as a child. He will mentor a young grassroots side, struggling to survive in the league.) Now streaming on Hotstar here.
Movie Recommendation of the Week: Sardar (An espionage agent who is branded a traitor returns from exile to take down a dubious water project and safeguard the country.) Now streaming on Aha here.
You can check out the previous editions of The Last 7 Days – here.
Edition 86 (13.11 - 19.11)
The concept of ‘My Weekly Learnings’ is to share highlights and/or content pieces that caught my eye this week and provided more value than I could imagine.
1. The positive is attained through the negative:
1) The pain of exercise leads to health
2) Failures in business lead to wisdom
3) Openness about insecurities leads to confidence
4) Honest confrontations lead to trust & respect
5) Suffering through fear leads to courage [Mark Manson]
2. “I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don’t know the other side’s argument better than they do.” – Charlie Munger
Rule of thumb: Opinions are earned.
If you can’t state the opposition’s argument clearly, it’s ok to say you haven’t earned an opinion. [Sahil Bloom]
3. Everybody wants to start where they are. Nobody wants to go back down the mountain to find a path to the top. Everybody wants to stay on the path they’re on. The hard part is not the learning, it’s the unlearning. It’s not the climbing up the mountain, it’s the going back down to the bottom of the mountain. It’s the beginner’s mind that every great artist or business person has. You have to be willing to start from scratch. [Naval Ravikant]
4. We don’t choose our earliest habits, we imitate them. We follow the script handed down by our friends and family, our church or school, our local community and society at large. Each of these cultures and groups comes with its own set of expectations and standards – when and whether to get married, how many children to have, which holidays to celebrate, and how much money to spend on your child’s birthday party. In many ways, these social norms are the invisible rules that guide your behaviour each day.
Most of the time, going along with the group does not feel like a burden. Everyone wants to belong. If you grow up in a family that rewards you for your chess skills, playing chess will seem like a very attractive thing to do. If you work in a job where everyone wears expensive suits, then you’ll be inclined to splurge on one as well. If all of your friends are sharing an inside joke or using a new phrase, you’ll want to do it, too, so they know that you “get it.” Behaviours are attractive when they help us fit in. [James Clear]
5. Sugar stimulates a relaxing effect in the stomach, which reduces the sensation of being full, explaining why you can consume dessert even after eating to your stomach’s content.
All this information goes to the brainstem through particular nerves. A message is sent out again from the core of the brainstem which oversees the relaxation of muscles in the stomach wall.
And so to dessert: Glucose – or sugar if you will – stimulates this relaxation reflex.
In this way, it can decrease the pressure on the stomach and reduce the sensation of being full. A sweet dessert allows the stomach to make room for more food.
The optimal use of dessert is really a question of moderation, according to the researchers. [Source: Deakin University]
What I Wrote This Week:
1. Knowing which information to avoid
Out of all the information that we consume, much of it is something that we know of and are consuming more of it, and then some eventually become a part of our knowledge reservoir.
Sometimes consciously, and sometimes unknowingly, you pave a path to know more and thus consume more. The path, when consciously taken, is even better. You pick out people, podcasts, books, and channels, picked with choice, from whom you’d like to learn more.
Herein comes a challenge, and the reason why the path should be consciously taken.
2. The battle between Consuming Thoughts and Fleeting Thoughts
While these thoughts aren’t the only ones you can have, and there are positive thoughts, ideas, and conversations as well… it’s an excellent move to understand these fleeting vs consuming thoughts we have, to understand how our brain is being functioned, and how our time is being spent.
RTHReviews:
1. Kantara
If there’s one film I’ve been hearing about for the past few weeks/ months, it was Kantara, and since I wanted to watch it in the original language with subtitles, I awaited its OTT release with bated breath and now that I’ve watched it, it’s quite an experience.
One of the biggest plus points of the film is its lore and the authenticity with which they have showcased the deep roots of Indian culture. There are quite a few scenes that are downright brilliant and make you spellbound, an example of the beauty of cinema. The credit here should go to the cinematographer, Arvind Kashyap, the crew and of course the director.
Speaking of whom, the writer/ director/ actor Rishab Shetty has done a phenomenal job in all three categories, but especially more in the magnanimous role, he’s playing - one that cannot be re-portrayed by anyone else - right from the start to the end, the look that has captured and how he has portrayed it is a performance beyond anything else.
A couple of drawbacks that were quite noticeable was the unnecessarily long duration, and it’s correlation with a bunch of generic scenes in the middle that probably add some depth to the storyline, but at times it becomes quite tedious to wait for the scene to play out.
Overall, Kantara is quite an experience to watch, and the touch of authenticity and how true the storyline plays out with reality is quite remarkable, mix to it the incredible background score that adds suspense to the scenes and keeps you on your toes, Kantara is a brilliant watch which one should probably see in one go, without any pauses.
2. Chup: Revenge of the Artist
I could probably count the number of good Hindi films this year on one hand and Chup: Revenge of the Artist makes the cut for it. Right from the first frame, till the last, the film is gripping and thrilling, the way it keeps you engaged throughout is a great hallmark of it.
Amongst the list of things to appreciate, starting with the storyline, its flow, and progress is appreciative in itself, there are some things that the story says directly and some indirectly, but each of those topics surely makes a mark while watching it. To top it off, with R Balki’s direction, the film has quite a lovely vibe to it, along with some scenes that are captured so beautifully.
Two of the favourites in the film, and with an unbiased opinion are fabulous in the film. Amongst his many great roles, this one will stay as Dulquer Salmaan’s brilliantly portrayed roles, simply in love with his performance. Equally the role of Shreya Dhanwanthary is incredible to watch, her energy brought to each frame can be felt across her performance. It’s been a while since I’ve watched Sunny Deol’s work and what a role this was, glad to see him on the screen again.
Does all of this feel too appreciative? Maybe. But when you watch this film, and especially if you’re a film buff and also love reviewing films, you’ll notice why it’s one of the best things I’ve seen this year. It checks off the box in every department and is going to stay on my mind for a while. Absolutely recommended!