Thread by @kylejohnmorris

Here's my life philosophy...

I think it got me from being a poor, sad, unhealthy kid to a rich, happy, healthy adult

TL;DR of 200+ private notes, >1000 hours of journaling, over 15+ years

if its useful lmk and I can expand on any of it

https://twitter.com/kylejohnmorris/status/1852418087209070925

I think I'm having a good life if I know what I want + pursuing it the best i can

This is my purpose

No one goal; but an ongoing process of discovery, improvement, pursuit.

How do I find what I want in life? A few ways

I trust my intuition, and have a way to build my intuition so it’s better to trust

If I don’t trust myself I overthink & don't act

But if I don't have a wide perspective - my intuition is bad.

How I build my Intuition

1. Goal Factoring -

2. Develop critical thinking skills + a wide foundation of knowledge

3. Make myself change my mind, and then try to change it back. I often learn.lesswrong.com/tag/goal-facto…

Finally, be ok being weird, if it means you're doing what you truly want

Being weird or cringe or uncomfortable can be scary but others care far more if you're useful to them - they overlook weird if you're useful.

And while a loud vocal minority may hate, most successful people are weird in their own way and don't mind.

Once I know what I want how do I pursue it?

I treat life as a game, and my strategy has 4 steps

1. feeling good
2. know the rules of the game
3. prioritize ruthlessly
4. play the game well

I'll elaborate on each

1. Feeling good: I experiment a lot

First, sleep: Used to sleep ~5hrs/night in Uni, that hurt over time.

I do way better on 8+ hours with consistent schedule, no interruptions, natural wake-up. I use earplugs. Room is cold. I use red light glasses 1-3 hours before bed.

hydration - i fill a 1 gallon jug of water in the morning with electrolyte mix in morning * drink it all day. I stop 4 hours before bed so I don’t wake up.

I don't drink alcohol. I've actually never drank alcohol.

I drink soda a couple times per year.

food - I fast 12-16hr, aim for <3g salt in a day, no processed sugar

I eat whole food: primarily dark leafy greens and 2-3 pounds of meat per day: fish (salmon and cod), chicken and steak.

I stop eating 4 hours before bed so I sleep well.

fitness - My goal is top 10% in top 90% of fitness metrics.

I often miss my target but I try for 3hrs light cardio (~60% max HR), 30m heavy cardio (80% max), 4hrs strength, 2hrs mobility. Almost all bodyweight. I take a ~25-50% lighter week every 6 weeks or so.

medication -

daily mix of supplements that help me work are acetyl carotine, omega3, multivitamin, rhodiola, creatine, Lipsomal NAD+, Sam-e

for 2+hrs of deep work I take ritalin, stopped concerta as it hurts sleep

i plan carefully when to take stimulants & time withdrawals

emotional health

The book "Unwinding Anxiety" by Judson Brewer helped me so much

It treats anxiety as an addiction and emotions as habits - basically meditation but not spiritual - a great entry point for atheists & type-A personalities

I also use an ice helmet to stay cool and calm down

https://x.com/kylejohnmorris/status/1841664438421880978

Ok now let's talk about "knowing the rules of the game"

Feeling good is like having my hardware working. After the hardware works I think about making the software work and loading all the rules into my brain so I can play a good strategy.

Here's how...

I made my own player manual for myself as if I'm a complex chess piece

It's a doc with my strengths, weaknesses, limiting beliefs, default behaviors, habits, values - whatever defines the main parts of me.

The act of writing this is probably half the value

My way, their way, new way

If I want to do a thing I ask how do I do this?

e.g., grow a company, handle ADHD

I get my own unbiased ideas.

Then I study how others do it, to not reinvent the wheel.

Then I decide if I need to invent some new way, or can use the prev ones.

A more recent thing: I study a lot of fundamental knowledge

Like, reading the top 50k wiki articles & making study cards.

This would take decades in school. With AI it's ~1 hr/day for 3 years.

With it I have way more aha moments, can connect with more ppl.

The more ambitious I get the more useful this seems to become.

https://x.com/kylejohnmorris/status/1841945035065196988

I write down all my little "idea seeds", even if they seem dumb.

I take time regularly to nurture them in private to see if they grow.

Some grow into companies, papers, major life decisions.

I keep list of critical assumptions I'm making

Assumptions that if I'm wrong on, would change my life a lot

Then I set time to try and disprove them or change my mind on them

For math nerds, it's kinda like finding orthonormal basis vectors ()en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gram%E2%8…

Ok now onto part 3: Prioritizing Ruthlessly

Assume I know what I want, feel good, know how life works better than most

Now it's about prioritizing the path there

~100s of times a day I ask myself "is this the most important thing"

I mean it in general, or in whatever talk context I'm in

Often doing the top thing can get you to a goal 10x faster

I set 1-5 goals per day, week, month, quarter, year, decade, and century.

While working I like cutting it down even into minutes.

The long term ones break down into the shorter term ones.

The time horizon has varied. Typically I think in at least 10 years.

The top goal I set 10 years ago I exceeded. It remains a classic system.

x.com/kylejohnmorris…

I make an “ideal time buckets” for ares of my life

The week has 168 hours

So I'll spend "70 sleeping, 15 at the gym, 5 eating..."

I get a much more real sense of how and where I want to put time

When I deviate, the distractions become more obvious

I prioritize what gives me energy, if it doesn’t, I try to not do it.

Sure sometimes eat the frog; but positive energy compounds more

When poor I had to do whatever it took - it hurt - it wasn't efficient

But I used to tell myself I rather die than stay poor - so I persisted

As I got more rich it became far easier to delegate what I don't like

The hard part was relearning to give myself permission to enjoy things.

Ok lastly, "how to play well"

Assume I know what I want. I feel good. I know the rules of the game. I know my goals, have broken them down, have prioritized

How do I do things well?

I track my energy, creativity, mood, focus, and plan around it

I imagine these are at any time on a scale between 0-100.

I journal how much sleep, stimulants, supplements etc affect them

Then I plan when to do these things as if they are potions in game

Like: I'm powering up to handle quests in my life: gym, date, meeting, work

I journal a lot: 1-2 hours per day for ~15 years.

Now I tag notes and have AI summarize across years & find patterns.

For example
#insight - any spark of creativity
#alpha - unique information most people don’t have
#agencylog - thoughts about how to best know what i want and pursue it
#thought - generic thought
#feedback-from feedback from others
#assumption - a belief I have
#crux - a belief that if wrong could change my life a lot

Be with inspiring people - then become inspiring to them

This is how I went from failing high-school to top of class to Uni to CS President to Research at CMU to Harvard etc

For any game there are groups playing way better than average

I do everything I can to be in these groups - usually by hard work & energy to compensate for lack of skill or track record

Then I study everything I can about how the group plays the game & obsess on how to become the best in it. Then you earn your place in the group.

Learn to replace jealousy with respect

I believe if I'm jealous of people I won't understand them truthfully

e.g., in Junior high I envied kids who came in and studied math 7am

It reminded me I had a lame life.

I learned to respect them, joined them in math, grinded 10+hrs/day. Graduated top 1%.

Earn the right to say I suck

It's easy when I see others better than me to say "I suck at this"

But, often they put in way more work behind the scenes

So I reframe it as

"I need to work harder than X% of people and yet STILL be worse than Y%

e.g., I need to study math more than 80% of the global population & still be in the bottom 20% - then I've earned the right to say I suck

If I haven't put in the work, I haven't earned the right to say I suck I opt out.

go fast

big picture > nitty details
if big make it smaller
if later make it sooner
if in doubt just go and learn if its a mistake

faster makes you prioritize better & learn sooner, it compounds, and you’re more unique as most people operate in months not minutes.

even for things like autonomous cars you can still go faster by defining what you need to be at: like 99.99% uptime, 10x better than humans -> now go for it as fast as you can. the cost of going slow is higher if you're innovating.

lastly, structure

I default to being explosive & creative

To be consistent & reliable I have many little lists & algorithms for myself that I follow when I don't want to have to rethink.

e.g., gtd, pre-travel planning lists, where and how I store things, how to have various types of meetings

It also makes it easier to delegate & forces me to think through steps at least once.

I could have a whole thread on this... many, examples.

Ok, well that's all for now!

lmk if useful and if you have any questions happy to elaborate.

https://x.com/kylejohnmorris/status/1858935708159013150