How to Become Exponential

This is ultimately a guide on how to become somebody else. It contains lots of bad advice, but even bad advice can be useful.

Feedback loops cause nonlinear gains. Becoming better faster makes you become better faster at becoming better faster.

To start personal feedback loops, you need to (1) do things and (2) notice them. Aim to notice important things about yourself quickly.

To notice important things about yourself:

• search for friction
• improve your recording/capture tooling
• be ruthless
• improve your analysis methods
• create falsifiable conditions
• give yourself space and time

To quickly act upon things you notice about yourself:

• focus on values
• avoid willpower
• stick to a system
• perform experiments
• depend on others

To notice more things about yourself…

…search for friction.

• Do not tolerate friction. What's wearing you out every day? What's grinding your gears? Hunt down all sources of friction and obliterate them. A few weeks of ruthless friction hunting can add hours of energy to each day thereafter.
• Never fight yourself -- you'll always lose. What are you pretending not to know? Are you afraid to admit some hard truths? Are you self-sabatoging? Embrace your weaknesses and strengths.
• If you are surrounded by lousy people, you're probably a lousy person. Do you have useless friends? Do you have dysfunctional relationships? If so, start your life over as quickly as possible. Move somewhere far away from your old social circles. Don't keep in touch, and don't try to "save" the people holding you back -- you are the one holding them back.
• Listen to others, and look for subtle cues. Do you make people laugh? Do you make people uncomfortable? Do people beg you to come to parties? Do people check their phones when you talk? Do people have trouble speaking when you're talking?
• Don't lie to yourself about b*llshit. Don't participate in others' charades if you don't want to. Most people are relieved to drop b*llshit. Say what you think. If hide your "true" thoughts because they would hurt others' feelings, then you need to change. Make your mind a garden of compassion and truth.
• Let everything happen. Embrace the universe. Reflect on times you resist the inevitable.

…improve your recording/capture tooling.

• Statistically, you will likely die of heart disease. Personal health gadgets can easily measure your VO₂ max, blood-pressure, and resting heart-rate. These 3 metrics correlate to many paramount dimensions of wellness: stress levels, healthspan, sleep quality, and overall happiness.
• Enable passive time-tracking with tools like RescueTime. I personally log lots of different behaviors to CSV files using Apple Shortcuts and IFTTT.
• Use an active time-tracking system like toggl. I built nowify to record everything I do during the day.
• Create a list of daily self-scoring metrics. The Theme System Journal makes it easy to track things. I highly recommend reading Triggers for tips on how to create good daily metrics for yourself.

…be ruthless.

• Ask others for suggestions on how to improve yourself. Accept advice gracefully; do not argue. Ask for clarification, but do not make judgements on their feelings. Quietly reflect on your problematic behaviors, and don't rush to solutions.
• Reject excuses. Pretend like you're responsible for everything. Blame yourself and move on.
• Forgive yourself for past mistakes, but never forgive yourself for future mistakes. Be prepared, but don't anticipate failure.
• Don't give yourself fake trophies. Don't celebrate half-wins and counterfactuals. Ignore "almosts" and "could-have-beens". Live in the real world. Earn your pride.
• Ask yourself if you like who you're becoming.

…improve your analysis methods.

• There are only two very important metrics: (1) how you're spending time and (2) your VO₂ max (blood pressure and resting heart-rate are acceptable substitues for VO₂ max). You are finite. Mind your time and health for a long/full/happy life.
• Avoid vanity metrics. For example, favor "number of meaningful words published" over "time spent writing".
• Minimize the number of metrics that you're viewing regularly. Don't overwhelm yourself. If you're trying to write a book, just focus on your total word count. If you're weight-training, just focus on progress of deadlifts, squats, and bench press (generally ignore your bodyfat and weight).
• Analyze your stats frequently. Create a daily routine or reminder to look at your past 90 days of progress.
• Don't break the chain! Daily metrics engage your sense of loss-aversion.

…create falsifiable conditions.

• Make quantifiable predictions about your life. How much money will you have in your bank account next month? How much time will you spend working? How much time will you spend on Netflix? Don't confuse lofty goals with cold predictions -- use your current trajectory. It's extremely valuable to find areas where expectations consistently diverge from reality.
• Give every long-term goal a metric. Track your goals daily. All metrics should be hard numbers, and all daily metrics should have clear failure conditions. For example, if your goal is to write a book, track your words written per day, and produce at least 100 words per day.
• Define clear success/failure conditions for all long-term goals. Before you commit to projects, decide when you should quit. Hardworking people without clear failure conditions limp along past expiration dates.
• Perform experiments with clear deadlines and objectives. Many people trap themselves in loops of searching and experimentation. It's easier to try things when you create clear boundaries for yourself.
• Don't revise rules while you're playing games. "I didn't see that coming" is not a valid excuse. Prepare for all failure modes and accept defeat gracefully.
• Limit your dreams. Decide when you're going to cut your losses before you fall into a sunk-cost spiral.
• Victory is hollow without risk of failure. Develop a taste for the thrill of winning. Explore your discomfort.

…give yourself space and time.

• Walk yourself daily.
• Schedule downtime on your calendar. If you don't set boundaries on your time, the world will take advantage of you.
• Let boredom happen. Don't compulsively fill your time. Try to catch your mind grasping for noise.
• If you don't like being alone with your thoughts, then your mind is probably an awful place to be. Learn to love yourself, or become someone worth loving.
• Evade involuntary input. Demolish distractions. Extinguish all notifications.

To quickly act upon things you notice about yourself…

…focus on values.

• Pick practical principles.
• Savor the stakes of your behavior. What will happen if you continue living as you are?
• Put your calendar where your mouth is. If you value something, allocate hours to it. If you aren't putting in time, you don't care. Aspirations aren't values.
• Risk is exponential. There is a huge difference between losing 95% of your assets and losing 100% of your assets. Being almost-dead sucks; being dead is something else entirely.
• Don't fret over marginal gains. Sustain modest amounts of money, muscle mass, beauty, etc. Clawing your way to the 99th-percentile is not worth the effort.
• Obsess over habits with compounding interest: listening to others, good health, frugal living, etc.
• Feel the full weight of your actions. You matter. Your decisions and indecisions matter. People thrive and suffer because of you. Never abdicate yourself.
• Make peace with bad memories. People repeat mistakes when they repress negative feedback.
• If you're frequently fighting against society or the universe, you may need a change of values. Figure out exactly what beliefs are causing you to struggle needlessly.
• Tell a story. Become a hero, villian, saint, trickster, etc. Encapsulate your values with a narrative. Yearly themes are an excellent way to form stories about who you want to become.

…avoid willpower.

• Treat your meat machine well. Check in with your corporeal form. Never needlessly fight sleep or hunger.
• Set up parental self-controls.
• Play games. Transform predicaments into puzzles. Find delights in everyday living. Exhausting activities become fun with a fresh set of eyes. Don't let the evils of the world take your spark of life!
• Decide once. If alcohol becomes a problem, quit forever. If video games become a problem, sell your game consoles. If shopping becomes a problem, cancel your credit card. Refuse to hike uphill.
• Stop fighting. Accept everything. Become a passive and nonjudgemental observer. Practice nothingness.
• Fail fast. Cut losses quickly. Don't limp indefinitely because you're afraid to admit you've failed. If your life is difficult, redesign it.
• Train your discipline, but avoid using it in daily living. Fighting friction with discipline is folly. Without a compass of values, discipline will expedite you to wrong destinations.
• Identify triggers and environmental cues that cause undesirable behavior.

…stick to a system.

• You are your system.
• Never trust your memory. Rely on physical or digital reminders.
• Design a truly lovable system. Don't force yourself to do dumb things because you think you should.
• Living via tinkerable system gives you a framework to upgrade yourself. But be careful not to change too many things at once.
• Good systems are antifragile. Your system should provide solace from life's hardships. Your system should not add complexity during difficult times. Systems that require willpower are unsustainable.
• Embrace systems with self-healing mechanisms. Dedicate time to reflect on your system's shortcomings.
• The map is not the territory.

…perform experiments.

• Always ask yourself, "what would it take to change my mind?"
• Use yearly themes to join experiments with a friendly narrative.
• Be unreasonable. What would it take to write a novel in 28 days? What would it take to double your income? Unleash your imagination!
• Quantify expectations. Create and test hypotheses. Minimize disappointment and cut losses.
• Try "negative" experiments. See what happens when you remove things from your life. Beware biases towards adding things.
• Most experiments will likely revert you to the mean. Avoid tinkering with systems that are working well for you. Choose nuclear options for undesirable parts of your life.
• Drop failing experiments quickly. If a new thing is making your life worse, stop doing the new thing.

…depend on others.

• Ask your friends to help you reach your goals.
• Mark tasks on your to-do list you've been avoiding. Create a daily or weekly routine to ask for help on those tasks.
• Use a now page to publicly organize your ongoing efforts.
• Collaborate on projects! Group dynamics are powerful.
• Schedule "ambient hangouts" for study sessions, workouts, and work hours. You can simulate the coffee shop effect over Slack huddle, Zoom, FaceTime, or phone call.