“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” – Mark Twain
I’ve just finished reading The Power of Less by Leo Babauta, yet another book that promises greater productivity with less effort. His principles are sound, and reading the book takes very little time.
Putting those principles into practice and creating those life-changing habits… Yes, you still have months and years of hard work ahead of you, but Babauta packs this slim volume with oodles of tips to keep you motivated during that tedious reprogramming phase, as we train ourselves to focus on the things that really matter to us.
Reprogramming in action
For me, the timing was especially interesting because I’m living through the slow, frustrating process of creating a new habit. Specifically, I’m teaching myself to touch type with the Dvorak layout after two decades of Qwerty. (Why? Because of yet another productivity book, Bit Literacy by Mark Hurst.)
After several weeks of Dvorak practice, while typing in Qwerty for work because I couldn’t afford the drop in productivity, a switch in my brain flipped. Now, my fingers instinctively move to the Dvorak positions, although not with their former speed and accuracy. Switching to Qwerty no longer gives me a huge boost in speed because my fingers are caught betwixt and between the two layouts.
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