Productivity Thoughts

The point of life isn’t productivity, said all unproductive people.

I am the most productive person that I know. How do I do it? Some techniques and strategies:

Intermittent fasting: no breakfast, no lunch, only one massive dinner. And for dinner, beef ribs, top sirloin, bone marrow, beef heart, beef liver, etc. 100% carnivore diet. How is intermittent fasting so good for productivity? First and foremost, you save an insane amount of time. Secondly, you don’t get food coma. Third, you stay mean and lean. When you are in the fasted stage, you are far more focused, and have a keener awareness of things.
No music, no headphones, no AirPods: I think in modern day life, podcasts music etc are the ultimate distraction. Just think yourself; is the purpose of your life to glorify the works of others, or for you to just be focused on your own self and work?
No Reddit. It is hilarious that all these new modern day Silicon Valley folks praise the virtues of XYZ, yet they are all still addicted to Reddit. Quit Reddit. I actually think that Reddit is worse than porn. In fact, my funny thought is in order to become more productive, whenever you have a temptation to look at Reddit, just watch porn instead. Porn might actually be a better motivator than Reddit, which is essentially a bunch of random distractions. At least porn is motivating.
Just do it while walking outdoors. One of the most successful guys I ever met in Singapore, I still remember, he attended my workshop that I hosted with Leica Singapore, and had an M9 titanium, a $30,000 camera, and a .95 Noctilux lens, another $20,000 lens. I asked him how he was so successful, and he told me that he walked around 12 hours a day, doing all of his business meetings on his phones while walking. This stuck with me. I can corroborate with his theory in so far much as when I walk around a lot, I think more, I think better and I am also more productive. My strong feeling is that the future of productivity is iPad Pro, and iPhone. No laptop, no desktop. Laptops and desktops promote for nonmovement. Even if you do a standing desk, it is not good. Standing is better than sitting, but walking is better than standing.
Produce much, publish much. Productivity isn’t becoming an email inbox zero ninja. No. Being really good with email is not productive. When you send an email, you produce nothing. If you check your email for no reason you are a slave. Let us consider, productivity comes from the notion of producing. To produce music, produce beats, produce videos, produce blogs, produce photos, produce vlogs, any form of media.
Think digital and the internet: The path to the greatest productivity is digital and the Internet. With digital creations, your works are infinitely scalable and also, infinitely distributable around the globe. Instantly. Isn’t this amazing?

Arguments against productivity

You are not your productivity, said all unproductive people.

Why are some individuals so unproductive, yet care about their productivity so much? My theories:

First and foremost, I don’t know if they really like to do what they are actually doing. Maybe they do the work out of a sense of obligation, or self flagellating virtuosity. They believe that their self-worth and their virtue comes from how productive they are.

Second, I think these individuals are just unwell, sick, or physiologically depressed. Poor health, not enough natural light exposure, they don’t have a tan, they don’t go to the gym, they don’t do yoga, etc. I really do believe that if scholars or thinkers or academics or other creators want to become more productive, they should go to the gym at least once every single day, preferably twice. Even for myself, experimenting with going to the gym every single day, it has actually made me more productive and stronger. Also a new innovation is experimenting with working out twice a day, at noon going to the gym and doing weightlifting, and in the evenings doing CorePower yoga with Cindy. This has been actually surprisingly a very effective strategy, I sleep better at night, I have a more voracious meat appetite, and the next day I am even more productive.

Third, constraints of the system. They are still reliant on a sort of external system which requires editors, publishers, peer review, etc. This is not freedom.

Productivity experiments

Uninstall email from your phone, uninstall Gmail from your phone, or your mail app. Instead, whenever you need to use email, just do it on your laptop or desktop.
Charge your phone in a different room at night.
Every day, uninstall at least one app.
When you go home after work or whatever in the evening — turn off your phone completely. If you need an alarm to wake up in the morning, buy a standalone alarm clock on Amazon and put it next to your bed.
If your passion is to create, but you have to spend a lot of time every day in the car, commuting to work or stuck in traffic, just get a GoPro and vlog yourself and your thoughts while driving, just mount it where you put your smart phone.
Don’t own a car or own a home: Hidden with every single type of ownership is some sort of maintenance. The more maintenance you got, the less productive you will be. Why? I would far prefer to make something meaningful, rather than wasting time trying to fix my water heater or plumbing.

Produce what?

Truth be told, I don’t think people care for productivity. What people care for instead is money, wealth, fame, legitimacy, recognition, respect, “meaningful contributions” etc. They don’t care to be productive.

Let us consider, if you want to be productive and produce much, what does it mean? It means that you make a lot of stuff, you publish a lot.

For example, it is my personal aspiration that whenever you visit the ERIC KIM BLOG, or refresh it, or check the bookmark, you’ll always see and discover and experience something new and fresh.

Don’t optimize for views, comments, likes etc.

I am the most prolific YouTuber that I personally know. I think I’m the only YouTuber who uploads several videos every single day, not just one. Certainly the more you upload, the fewer views and exposure you will get per video. Yet, if your real goal is productivity, why do you care how many views you get? I think if you care about views, it is a sign that you are insecure and you are hungry for external recognition and affirmation.

My personal ambition with videos is to create a video or a vlog which is insanely motivational and helpful to other people, irregardless of who they are. Also, I am not going for numbers. I am going for impact. I would rather radically change the worldview, thoughts, or life of one individual, than create a video which is only mildly interesting to a large base of people. I am seeking my elite spartan 300s, not trying to enlist millions of Persian slaves.

How many views is enough? 2. Why? If you watch your own video it may count as a single view. If you have two views on the video, it means that at least one other human being has watched and experienced the video.

What is the point of productivity?

We praise the avocado tree when it produces many avocados. We praise musicians when they produce much music, and we also praise chickens when they lay many eggs.

For myself personally, I am the happiest when I am the most productive. That is, I am the happiest when I am producing much, publishing much, etc.

Therefore my simple formula: in order to become happier, become more productive.

ERIC

Productive Photography

Some thoughts on how to become a more productive photographer:

Shoot small JPEG or extra small JPEG. This will give you less paralysis by analysis when shooting street photography, or any type of every day photography.
Strive to shoot 1000 “bad“ photos in a single day. There is no such thing as good or bad photos, all photos are equal.
When in doubt, just shoot it.
Shoot in P, program mode, and just use auto focus. Even if your photo is out of focus, or blurry, it could actually be accidentally beautiful.
Use an in camera JPEG processing setting, like the high contrast black and white mode on the Ricoh GR3X. Other good options include the cross filter process on the Ricoh GR camera, or the classic chrome settings on the Fujifilm cameras.
Strive to walk at least 30,000 steps a day. And just bring your camera along. If you walk 30,000 steps a day and just shoot whatever you see, how can you not be inspired to make photos?
Get inspired in the HAPTIC SHOP. HAPTIC PRESS books, and resources. All open source.
ERIC KIM EXPERIENCES or just attend anybody’s photography workshop, photography tour experience etc. Anything which involves traveling, a foreign place, a workshop experience will always be a productive one. Why? You will step outside of your comfort zone, you will learn new things, you will shoot more.

Travel

What is a good method in life? Never stop traveling.

EK WORKSHOPS

More ideas

What does it mean to level yourself up?
Yoga and weightlifting
The biggest flex in regards to a car is to NOT own a car! Also instead of getting a bright green, yellow, black, pink, orange, magenta Lamborghini, better to just buy an insanely brightly colored Lululemon tshirt, shorts or tanktop instead.

Just blog it.

When in doubt, just blog it!
ERIC KIM

Fun books

The will to power by Nietzsche
Skin in the game by Nassim Taleb
Invent and Wander by Jeff Bezos

Also free books by KIM

Design thoughts

Placing my 11 inch iPad Pro on top of Cindy’s 13’’ MacBook Pro Touchbar I realized — it seems that the 11 inch iPad Pro is the spiritual successor to my old beloved 11 inch MacBook Air which was stolen with my whole backpack in Paris many years ago. It seems with design matters, having a smaller surface area or a smaller footprint is supreme. Just do it. Place your 11 inch iPad Pro on top of your 13 inch MacBook Pro, and see how more beautifully sublime and smaller the 11 inch iPad Pro is compared to the otherwise bigger and higher surface area 13 inch MacBook Pro. Also, the flat design of the iPad Pro, is far more sublime. And no no no do not get that stupid Apple keyboard for the iPad, the most horrendous thing to have been introduced to the iPad.
The Apple Pencil, a.k.a. the Apple stylus, is a huge scam. I truly believe that the only reason Apple introduced it was to sell more accessories. We know that the most primal way to paint is with your finger, just like how a child does fingerpainting. Having to add an additional accessory is a design shame.

Gifting ideas?

I think the best gifts are aspirational. For example, buying somebody some Lululemon workout clothes seems like a really good idea, if it could actually help inspire or aspire them to working out more, and becoming more fit.

Clothing ideas?

Also, the more I wear my MUJI down vest, the more I like it. I like how minimalistic the design is, no hood, even no neck collar. When I wear it it is practically invisible. The best clothes are invisible.

MUJI USA >

Barefoot thoughts

Perhaps in order to become stronger, more inspired, when should go barefoot more often?

A thought; and a theory, there is as much intelligence and sensors in our feet, at the bottom of our feet, equivalent to our hands and our fingertips.

For example, remember the last time you were gloves, weather cotton gloves, or thick winter gloves, and tried to send a text message on your phone? I believe that wearing shoes, especially thick shoes, even thinly padded choose dolls the sensors in our feet. In fact, there might be more intelligence in the bottom of your feet than in our fingertips.

At the gym, I’ve actually found that my workouts are much more thrilling, fun, productive, and I could also lift a lot more when I am doing it barefoot. For example, during my squat atlas hold/lift of seven plates and a five on each side, 685 pounds — barefoot is supreme.

In fact, maybe if you want to inspire yourself more, motivate yourself more, or gain more interesting thoughts, do more stuff barefoot outside. Go on barefoot walks in nature, or even while hiking. Just don’t text while walking, look at the ground, and you’ll be fine.

Even when I leave the house, and I just hang in the front yard or the backyard, even if it is a little cold, doing it barefoot, without shoes or slippers is really good.

Car thoughts?

The other day I was in downtown Orange, at the Orange Circle, and I saw a red Lamborghini Huracan, the cheaper one without the scissor doors, drive by. It was actually really boring.

The first thought with cars is this; if you’re going to buy a Lamborghini, it must have the scissor doors. A Lamborghini without the scissor doors is not a Lamborghini. Thus, the Huracan, the Urus are not Lamborghinis. The Lamborghini Huracan is like an Audi R8 with a body kit, and the Lamborghini Urus is like an Audi Q8 with different colors.

Therefore the only Lamborghini is probably the Aventador. But even the Aventador is dated, and is going to be replaced soon.

It seems from a pragmatic perspective, the most interesting car to have is the one with unique doors. Think about the butterfly doors on a McLaren, or, even the falcon wings on the Tesla model X. Even for myself, I would probably prefer to have a Tesla model X plaid in red, with the white interior instead of a Lamborghini Aventador.

But even the Tesla model X plaid, seeing it in real life, looks and feels really cheap. I really do not like the front end on the Tesla model S and the model X, I think the little buck nose is really ugly, and not streamlined. The front end on the Tesla model three or the model Y is far more sublime.

Also, the critical flaw of the Tesla model X is that there’s too much plastic, especially around the rims and the wheel wells. The same thing goes with the model Y, way too much plastic, which is really ugly.

At least the new model S plaid, the rear end is more painted gloss black, rather than plastic. However even the downside of the Tesla model S plaid is that having the Tesla lettering embedded in the rear trunk area disrupts the seamless design.

Another critique, I think for the next generation Tesla model 3, they should get rid of the ugly fake brown wooden Dash stuff. Just make it straight black.

Therefore, currently speaking, don’t buy any Tesla model, irregardless of the trim, the color, the design, the plaid, etc.

Once again, the ultimate flex is to own any car. Just Uber everywhere. This is the ultimate billionaire lifestyle.

Cool stuff

GoPro hero Mini
Vibram ELX new knitted shoes

EK SUPPLY

I’m the number one photo supplier:

Dominate the streets >

More thoughts to munch on

What does it mean to go demigod?
You’re going to die. So not why not just attempt the insanely epic?
Atlas lift hold for the gym.
What does it mean to level yourself up?

Never stop thinking

Are you feeling a little more thoughtful? Full of thoughts? Feeling a little bit more turbo and energized? Feel free to share these productive thoughts with a friend!

EK NEWS

“Life is short, art is long.” – SENECA

This means, while you’re alive, focus your life force energy to make art!

ERIC