Hello, welcome to another Sunday Sesh, where I share tidbits I’ve found interesting over the past week.
This week’s photo is of me editing my first Youtube video (yep!) more details to come later.
🎵Music
Ed Sheeran’s new album is out and I’ve been loving it! It’s been playing on repeat and I don’t think there’s a single song on the album I don’t like.
These are my 3 favourite songs so far from the album:
- 2step
- Collide
- Shiver
🎧 Podcasts
“5 Seconds to Change Your Life with Mel Robbins” from The Chase Jarvis LIVE Show
Mel Robbins has popularised this technique to change your habits and the response that you have to difficult situations.
The moment you feel like you need to hit the snooze button, or calm your nerves before a speech, or honk at a driver for cutting you off (but really shouldn’t), just count 5-4-3-2-1. This is supposedly enough to short-circuit the thought loop that your brain may be going into and bring you back to the present. It can be used for any situation where you’re trying to change your habit.
It’s so simple and easy that that it seems like it wouldn’t work. I’m not really sure how she wrote a whole book on this, but I’ll have to give the technique a try.
📃Articles
How Does It Feel To Get Everything You Ever Wanted?
It feels like nothing.
This is a great reminder to enjoy the journey along the way, because once you reach the top you’ll find that there’s nothing else there.
You’ll still be yourself. You’ll still go through the world the same way. You’ll still need to eat, poop and sleep. This article is great advice to keep in mind for anyone pursuing a big goal, thinking that happiness, self-actualisation and meaning lie on the other side after achieving it.
Funny enough, the song First Times on Ed Sheeran’s new album also concurs with this perspective. In this first lines he sings about playing at Wembley to 80,000, everyone singing along with him. His dream. Everything he ever wanted.
“Ain’t it funny how the simplest things in life can make a man?
Little moments that pass us by” – Ed Sheeran
Although most of us may never experience worldwide fame, acclaim and the pinnacle of success in our field, we all get to experience these little moments that make our lives. Let’s not forget to appreciate them.
The Tried and True Five-Step Method of Filming a Scene
In Hollywood, filming a scene is a 5 step process: blocking, lighting, rehearsing, tweaking and filming.
This is a great bit of introductory knowledge for anyone out there with an interest in filmmaking – myself included. I’ve yet to actually be on a big production going through this process myself, but hope to one day soon.
But even on the smaller productions that I manage, these methods are still relevant and come into play.
Against 3X Speed
David gives an analogy of his hypothetical friend Mike, who we can probably relate to in one way or another. Mike listens to his audiobooks and podcasts at 3x speed in an effort to consume as much information as possible within the constraints of his day. The more he listens to, the more he can learn and therefore the more successful he can be, right?
Not so fast..
We have an obsession with consuming as much information as possible in a small amount of time. But it’s based on a flawed theory of knowledge that we all pick up in grade school. What we’re actually doing when listening to things this fast is forgetting most of the information and wasting our time.
Alternatively, David recommends to spend your time 1. Practicing space repetition and 2. Writing essays. This makes you interact with the information at a slower pace and actually remember it by giving yourself space to distill and express it.
What is underneath productivity?
Productivity isn’t just software, notebooks and to-do lists. Underneath it lies psychology. Underneath psychology is biology and neuroscience. To understand productivity is to also understand all of these layers, and more. By going deeper down, you gain more mastery over what comes further up.