Happy Saturday, friend!

We’re back again with another edition of Productivity + Habits + Fun

😃 Fun Fact of the Week

Supermarket apples can be up to a year old. But don’t worry!

Apples are picked in the Fall. Farmers then cover them in wax, dry them with hot air, and then put them in cold storage! This preserves them for 6 - 12 months.

🐦 Tweet of the Week

I talk a lot about habits on social media. (X and IG)

We have opportunities every single day to add another brick to the houses we’re building.

If the brick is good, the house will be good.

If the brick is bad, well…

Let’s take an easy example: health.

Person 1 is careful with what they eat. They do not go overboard by counting ever single calorie, and they do let themselves relax on the weekends: maybe they have pizza and beers with friends. However, at least 80% of the time they eat real food and the maintain their gym schedule. Week by week, they add a solid brick to a healthy house.

Person 2 has no real plan. They don’t care about sticking to any kind of routine: they eat what they want, when they want, and as much as they want. They may play some sports with friends on the weekends, but they do not work out routinely. Week by week, they also add a brick to the house they’re building.

All things being equal, which one do you think will be healthy as an old person?

Which one will likely spend their days back and forth from one doctor’s office to another?

These two people had different habits, and these habits shaped their futures.

Be careful how you structure your day.

Your future self is completely depending on you right now.

If you’d like to talk to me directly about this, just hit “reply” and let me know! 🙂 

💪 Featured Productivity Tip (part 2/3)

Here’s the promised list of positive dopamine sources!

• exercise

• cold showers

• meditation

• dance

• laugh

• learn something new

• intentionally experience boredom

• make progress on your goals

• work hard

• experience something new

• be present and enjoy this moment

• get a good night's sleep

Let me know which of these you’re already used to using.

And remember: next week will have part 3/3 of this series.

Make sure to check it out - we’ll wrap this up with some action items.

🤑 Double Your Money

It seems logical enough that you can build your money faster if the annual rate of return is higher, but this really puts it into perspective!

💵 The Billion Dollar O Gram

This is really interesting.

This infographic shows where money is going. (All figures are in billions of dollars.)

Defense budgets, company earnings and spending, personal wealth of individuals… It’s a lot.

If you click the photo, you’ll go to the source page.

There’s another infographic that allows you to shuffle the presentation on some of the data.

NOTE: At the time of writing this, the data above was last updated in January 2023.

🤔 Decision-making Idea

Curse of Knowledge: When we learn something new, we tend to assume that others know as well. We confuse our new knowledge with “common” knowledge.

Example: I have a degree in Building Construction and a background in Architecture.

I can read plans and “look through walls” pretty easily.

I have the education and the experience that allows me to do those things.

When I’m explaining something about a building to someone else, I realize I have to go fairly deep to explain what we’re discussing.

But at a certain point, it’s just too much and the whole thing can feel pointless.

• I go too far with the explanation, and they get bored

• I don’t get to go far enough with the explanation, and I feel unsatisfied

Finding the middle ground can be a whole task in itself.

This is not a warning to be careful what you learn!

Rather, understand that to effectively communicate with someone, you have to square your knowledge with theirs on a given topic.

🧠 Quote of the Week

What I think:

The world can be a very hard place.

We have a duty to help each other along the path.

Every interaction counts, and you have no idea how it will ripple through that person’s life and into the lives of others.

Make it a habit to be kind to all.

Thank you so much for spending some of you precious time with me. 🙂

I’m always looking to improve, so hit “reply” and let me know what you think!

Have an awesome week.

Sincerely,

Steven Sanders

PS - I hope to see you on Twitter and Instagram!