• ODR 013 - Should, Must, & Won't
    Nov 25 2023
    13 mins
  • ODR 012 - Arete, Ancient Wisdom, and Flourishing with Brian Johnson
    Nov 12 2023
    46 mins
  • ODR 009 - Pardon Me, I Couldn't Help but Overhear or How to go from being an Ass-hole to an AYS-hole on Twitter
    May 1 2023
    25 mins
  • ODR 008 – Philosophical & Psychological Diversions Part II - Naive Reality and the Fundamental Attribution Error
    Apr 1 2023
    27 mins
  • ODR 007 – Liberterian Free Will, Blame and Shame
    Mar 1 2023
    This Article is a Must Read if you Found this Episode on Free Will Interesting

    The Lucretian Swerve

    Attributions

    While 1% of this episode may be independent thinking, the rest was surely based on influences too countless to cite. Some that clearly remain foremost as inspiration are the article above, Dan Dennett’s work, Sam Harris’ book, the book, Four Views on Free Will, and all by poor undergrad professors that had to put up with the utter annoyance of my stubbornness.


    One of the Most Critical Articles to Read on the Topic

    • Chun SS et al. Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain. Nat Neurosci. 2008 May;11(5):543-5. PMID: 18408715


    Image by Narcournus


    Now on to the ‘cast

     

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    22 mins
  • ODR 006 – Email Part 2 – Tactics & Logistics [Email Part 2/X]
    Feb 1 2023
    More on Last Episode

    Email Part 1 – Email is Not the Problem, You Are!

    The Joybox


    Deep Work


    No Email You Don’t Want to See


    Turn off email notifications!


     


     Receiving



    • Touch Once (listen to prior episode)


    • Filter Relentlessly

    • One Email Address but many! Add the dots! Then you can filter based on this


    • Amazon filters to Deliveries App


    • Filter all messages with the word “unsubscribe” into a separate mailbox



    • Do not mark emails as spam UNLESS THEY ARE SPAM


    • Mark Spam Messages as Spam


    • Your Piss Poor Planning is not my Emergency


    • Do not let your email inbox be someone else’s To Do List — Tiago Forte




     


    Processing



    • Stop Filing/Foldering

    • Can Actually Link Emails to Your Task Manager


    • Task Management on Calendar will have the link


    • Better Yet, Create a Email Forward to Your Task Manager Inbox



    • Future Homer/Ikigai


    • Avoid the Snooze Button


    • Triage 2 App on IOS




    Sending

    • Is this the right mode of communication





    • Craft a good, useful subject line


    • BLUF-allows contexual understanding


    • CTA upfront if you are making a pitch,


    • Lose the Steps of Back & Forth


    • Use Autofill and Templates


    • Send Later (Boomerang)


    • Emojis / Emoticons b/c tone is tough to relay


    • Compose Better Emails


    • Use Scheduling Programs


    • Send Less emails if you want less emails


    • One idea per email


    • Short is Better


    • BLUF or TLDR


    • Write email like you speak


    • No Reply Necessary


    • If it is important, do not put in the sender until ready to send

    • Enable undo send in gmail



    • Do not CC unless you need to

    • Don’t Reply All and Take it Off Default

    • If you don’t want the staff to respond to all, put them in as BCC





    • Prune Forwards and Replies


    • When the Subject Changes–Change the...
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    38 mins
  • ODR 005 – NonViolent Communication
    Jan 5 2023


    This episode is based on one of the most important books I have ever read: NonViolent Communication – A Language of Life by Marshall Rosenberg




    Nonviolent Communication is one of the most powerful ways of speaking with people that I have ever come across. It eliminates useless strategies like judgment and proving yourself right and instead gives you absolutely tactical techniques to get the things you need for happiness for yourself and your interlocutor.


    NVC is not a new, gimmicky set of dictum. It boils down the philosophies of Stoicism, the psychological approaches of CBT and cognitive psychology.


    Marshall Rosenberg was a psychologist trained in the classical analytic, but found it unsatisfying and for the most part, unhelpful.


    Speaking Giraffe vs. Speaking Jackal

    NVC is not really a theory or a guide to behavior–it is a language!!!


    Giraffes only hear feelings & needs, never thoughts


    Jackal language is about judging, criticizing, analyzing, moralizing and accusing. When we feel unfairly treated, accused or when we want to impose our wishes, we tend to use the language of the jackal. Jackal language is separating. Giraffe language is unifying.


     


    The System

    There are essentially two major parts–The four component speech creation and emergency empathy


    The Four Components1. Observation without EvaluationThere’s nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.
    Shakespeare in Hamlet

    Avoid generalization, only

    specifics

    (generally good to avoid the past as well)


    Separate the observation from the evaluation or better yet, eliminate the evaluation


    You are the most inconsiderate person–you are always late


    J Krishnamurti: “observing without evaluating is the highest form of human intelligence”


    See page 30 for more on pitfalls in observing


    2. Feeling

    Internal emotional states vs. thoughts/judgment


    If you can replace I feel with I think–then it is not a feeling


    If I feel is followed by: that, like, or as if then it is not a feeling


    If I feel is followed by a name or pronoun (whether he, you, or I), then it is not a feeling


    Eliminate the feel–and see if it still works I feel sad to I’m sad works. I feel


    Could you feel it alone on a desert island–Ignored is not a feeling, unimportant is not a feeling, resentment is not a feeling b/c they require another to judge/act. It is a thought about how someone else is judging us




    p.45 has a list of positive and negative feelings



    Stoicism/CBT–We are the only ones responsible for our feelings


    We are responsible for everything we do (Replace I have to with I choose to)


    Do not connect the feelings to the observations through cause and effect. They relate–they are not caused by.


    When I observe X, I feel Y


    Even break it down to good/bad


    People are disturbed not by things, but by the view they take of them –Epictetus














    “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so” from

    “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare





    3. Needs

    Rosenberg identifies human needs as safety, understanding, respect, warmth,


    autonomy, etc. When needs are expressed indirectly through assessments


    and...

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    36 mins
  • ODR 004 – Email is Not the Problem, You Are! [Email Part 1/X]
    Dec 10 2022
    The ODR Podcast

    On Deeper Reflection is a podcast on making our lives as happy and productive as possible! Today’s episode deals with the bugbear of many in medicine–email.

    Part II is now Up as Well


    1. Understand the Technology

    • Email is an amazing Technology!

    • Async-Mail


    • Sync-Phone, Telegraph, Text, Chatapps,


    • Email-Asynchronous with instant delivery–but this should not mean instant viewing



    • Philosophy is wrong, not tactics


    • Bad Solutions

    • An article on just keeping emails in inbox misses the entire point. There are only two acceptable solutions and ignoring email is definitely one of them, but inbox zero is the better version of that.



    • Inbox Zero

    • Arrival Rate vs. Departure Rate


    • Every inbox item costs you decision dollars


    • We don’t want to make decisions



    • Too Much Email-No!!!!! Too Much Stuff


    • I Just Check Once Per Day

    • Vs. I set aside time to do Deep Work


    • Analogous to I took Facebook off my phone…




    2. Email Should Spark Joy

    • Used to have combined work and home


    • Never, ever do this!!!! Separate Work and Email


    • Work Check Once, while at work or every day depending on your job


    • Horrible human being would email on Friday afternoon with something horrible


    3. Don’t treat an async tech as sync

    • Don’t expect or encourage real-time use


    • It is fine to reply right away, but dissuade the belief that you will consistently


    • Pacing


    4. Your Email Inbox cannot be your ToDo system5. Just 1 Touch

    • DoIt


    • SystemIt


    • DelegateIt


    • SaveIt


    • UnsubIt-goes back to brings joy, true joy–not dopamine hit


    • FilterIt


    • Trashit (actually archive)


    • SpamIt


    • Maybe-Bringit Back Services


    6. Archive, Don’t Delete7. Search, Don’t File8. Inbox Elimination to Keep You Honest

    • Too Many Inboxes


    • Gmail Mailboxes


    9. Cut out Back & Forth Steps10. For Some Use cases, Are Slack/Basecamp/Teams the Solution?Books to Read

    • You need to prune down to what is important!!!


    • Life Changing! We’ll do a book
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    34 mins