Carpe Diem

Fragments from imaginary dialogues

“What does carpe diem mean to you?”

“I like to express it in terms of density [link; short read].

For me, carpe diem means maximizing life-density.

Maximizing experiential-density.
Maximizing fun-density.
Maximizing creative-density.
Maximizing learning-density.
Maximizing movement-density.

It means ZERO wasted time, and maximizing productivity.

I love Ali Abdaal‘s [<link] definition of productivity:

Productivity = (Useful Output / Time) * FF

FF is what he calls the ‘Fun Factor’.

The goal is not to just be productive, but also to have fun in the process.

Carpe diem means creating a beautiful antifragile structure for the day. 

I’m constantly optimizing it.”

“What’s the latest optimization?”

“Viewed as a template [<link; medium read], I know I want the day to have three parts: beginning, middle, and end. The beginning and end – the AM and PM bookends, as someone called them – are fixed, because those are the parts you have most control over. The middle is variable.

My previous structure looked like this:

AM Bookend
Activation [warming-up, preparing for the day]

Deep Work
Deep Work 1 [deep-work-blocks]
Deep Work 2
Deep Work 3
…

PM Bookend
De-Activation [warming-down, preparing for sleep]

The first deep-work-block is always dedicated to writing.
The second is always dedicated to learning.

This is my most important work. Since these are so important to me and I want to do them every single day, I asked myself:

What if I made them part of the AM bookend?

This is exactly what I did.

The optimized structure looks like this:

AM Bookend
Activation
Writing 1
Deliberate Learning 1

Deep Work
Deep Work 1 [MIT (Most Important Thing)]
Deep Work 2
Deep Work 3
…

PM Bookend
Writing 2
De-Activation

Thus, even if ‘life happens’ and I can get no deep work done in a day, I always do my most important work.”

Advertisement