Think of other options
I love the framing of this 2020 blog post of things you’re allowed to do. It’s not quite that everything that’s not explicitly prohibited is implicitly permitted, because it’s not. It’s more that there are unusual things you can do to make yourself much more effective, that most people don’t think to do because they’re never made clear. Like lifehacks, but for life.
More generally stated, try to come up with other options. It’s easy to get stuck in the mindset of needing to do either X or Y. There are dozens of other things you could do that would also achieve your goals that have nothing to do with X or Y.
Do something incompatible instead
It’s really difficult to get yourself to not do something. For most people, “don’t” is a modifier that has to get applied to “do something”, which takes mental effort. Pathologically, if you’re busy or distracted, the “don’t” can get elided out and actually make you more likely to do the thing you’re trying to avoid. Even if you ignore this edge case, it just takes more mental effort to try not to do something than to try to do something.
One way to avoid this problem is instead trying to do something that’s incompatible with the thing you want to avoid. For example, if you’re trying not to snack, you can instead chew gum, which is incompatible with snacking. If you’re trying to avoid doomscrolling, you can instead go for a walk without your phone.
cardinal
The bird cardinal was named in the late 1600s for its distinctive bright red color, which resembled the bright red robes Catholic cardinals wear. The name given to Catholic cardinals predates the English language, first appearing in print in the 700s. It was based on Latin cardinālis (root word cardō), originally meaning “pivot” or “hinge”, but by the 500s being used more to mean “principal” or “eminent”, so a natural metaphor for the most important priests.
I assumed on learning this that cardō was also the root for cardiac, but that’s Greek καρδία (kardía) meaning simply “heart” instead.
You can also see how the “principal” meaning gave rise to other uses of the adjective cardinal, like cardinal numbers and cardinal sins. Courtesy of wikipedia, here are some bonus facts I learned about the cardinal directions while researching. I actually had never noticed before that even in Romance languages, the direction names are Germanic.
Restrictions breed creativity
Restrictions breed creativity. If you’re faced with a thing that isn’t quite what you want it to be, it’s much easier to figure out where and how to start, than if you had just a blank page. Prompts are one way people work around this problem. Through restricting the problem space with a prompt, you subtly cue up new ideas and unexpected solutions. Many people who work in creative areas have a prompt deck they’ll draw from for inspiration if they’re feeling stuck. Much like flipping a coin to make a trivial decision, you don’t even have to follow the prompt that comes up, as long as it successfully gives you a direction to explore.
Give the same talk more than once
You can give the same talk more than once! Most people who give talks give the same talk more than once. It would take much more effort to create a new talk every time you give a talk.
I resisted this insight for years! It felt dishonest somehow, or like cheating. Like I’d learned this stuff already, so it’s unfair to pretend I’d just learned it a second time. But that’s thinking from the speaker’s perspective, not the audience’s. If your audience enjoyed the talk the first time, a completely different audience who’s never seen your talk or heard of you before is likely to enjoy the talk a second time. Even more likely, actually, since you’ll have more practice, know what to emphasize and what to gloss over, and just generally deliver a better talk. And in the unlikely event that the same person is at both events, they can tell from the title of your talk that it’s one they’ve heard before and decide not to go. And they won’t think it’s weird or cringe that you’re giving the same talk again.
I gave my first conference talk earlier this year. It was a talk that I’ve given in smaller venues at least five times before. No one complained.