Productivity, Boredom, Anxiety & Everything in-between

Eating bland chicken in silence and doing the darn thing!

Apr 11, 2024

Welcome back!

Wow, okay. You’re actually back and reading my newsletter? Thank you <3

It’s been a while but if you’re new here, this was an impulsive decision that I’ve come to realize was meant to be.

Either way, I’m back with a bunch of stuff from my wandering mind - a literal wondering mind this time. Everything from Productivity (doing the darn thing!) to boredom, Anxiety, and everything in between.

Let’s get into it.

Learning & Self-Development

Clarity

Crystal clear thinking.

man holding eyeglasses — Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

I’ve been digging deeper into thinking clearly to better express my thoughts and knowledge in writing and speaking both for my career and life at large.

I really envy articulate people like my best friend Charles (great guy!), because I sometimes struggle with articulation.

What I've come to realize is that my mind is the bottleneck.

Although I produce a lot of content, I also consume a lot of content, and even though I generally produce more than I consume, I still consume a vast amount of information.

There are so many things I have watched or read but never processed just because I scrolled on to the next piece of content, whether a blog, video, or social media post.

So I did a little exercise - an unintentionally forced one.

After a very long and productive workday, while I was having a late lunch, I was watching some easy content (think cartoons/animations), and suddenly my phone died.

I had forgotten to charge it all day.

So rather than grab my iPad or Mac or sit in front of the TV, I sat there and ate the rest of my meal in silence.

Now, mind you, at this time, I was bulking....so basically, I'm eating more…more chicken (chicken is bland to eat after a while if you've done this before). So the content I was consuming while eating was meant to distract me from the tedious nature of the meal.

But this time, I let my boredom OCCUPY me.

Yeah, weird, right? But yeah I was actually occupied by my boredom.

I let my mind wander (randomly) to various piano/musical arrangements I'd heard in some videos but never analyzed (I'm also a musician, if you didn't know). I also thought about some other random things I hadn't processed in a while.

I was literally lost in thought.

But it was good.

Giving your brain the space to wander allows it to analyze all the information bottlenecked in your mind.

It's your central processing unit, so it needs to be able to analyze everything you consume.

This is not a new concept. As a matter of fact, now thinking about it, I realize I've read about it from various productivity experts and others who write about focus - think Cal Newport's Deep Work, Johan Harri's Stolen focus, or Nir Eyal's Indistrictable - highly recommend reading all three. I’ve learned much about focus and productivity by reading & re-reading these books over the years.

So here I am, writing this post - with so much clarity. Much more than I've had in a while.

Enjoy boredom.

Anxiety

Sometimes it’s not real.

man standing in front of the window — Photo by Sasha Freemind on Unsplash

As someone who's previously battled severe anxiety up to the point of panic attacks (yep, real ones), boredom is a hard skill to build up. You know what I mean if you've struggled with or still struggle with anxiety.

First, pls go through therapy. It works.

Next, as soon as you have a grasp over your anxiety (yes, this is possible - I learned to gain full control over mine through therapy), practice boredom occasionally.

Your mind may wander and sometimes overthink and attempt to trigger your anxiety but you'll learn how to maintain that balance that keeps you from tipping over the edge into an anxiety episode or full-on panic attack.

Eventually, you'll realize boredom is not so bad after all.

Productivity

Do the darn thing!

I recently watched this video snippet of Chris Williamson (seen above) and Steven Bartlett (Host of The Diary Of A CEO). Chris starts with an essay from Strangest Loop (unknown source) and I quote below, the list:

Preparing to do the thing isn’t doing the thing
Scheduling time to do the thing isn’t doing the thing
Making a to-do list for the thing isn’t doing the thing
Telling people you’re going to do the thing isn’t doing the thing
Messaging friends who may or may not be doing the thing isn’t doing the thing
Writing a banger tweet (or linkedin post! - added by me lol) about how you’re going to do the thing isn’t doing the thing
Hating on yourself for not doing the thing isn’t doing the thing
Hating on other people who have done the thing isn’t doing the thing
Hating on the obstacles in the way of doing the thing isn’t doing the thing
Fantasising about all of the adoration you’ll receive once you do the thing isn’t doing the thing
Reading about how to do the thing isn’t doing the thing
Reading about how other people did the things isn’t doing the thing
Reading this essay (or newsletter! - added by me again lol) is not doing the thing
The only thing that is doing the thing is doing the thing

No truer words were ever said.

We rely (I RELY) on several productivity crutches when it comes to getting things done. Even at my level of productivity, of which I consider myself considerably good, I still get caught up on all the productivity things like lists, schedules, and everything else but getting work done.

Not to say that those things are not necessary. They’re good and they matter but ultimately….

Just do the thing!

Technical Studies

I am currently working towards my Splunk Power User mainly because my Splunk Core User Certification is soon to expire, and I don’t want it to. Oh, and also, I’ve been using Splunk a lot more recently, as you can see in some recent videos.

Engineering Musings

🔗 Threat Hunting is to Blue Teaming as Adversary Simulation is to Red Teaming

As you probably noticed in my previous newsletter, I was consuming a lot of threat-hunting content and have consumed more since then.

As a Threat Analyst / SOC Analyst in my past life, I used to see analysts as the blue counterparts of red teamers, but that’s entirely false, as I’ve realized. More accurately, analysts would be the blue counterparts of penetration testers, while threat hunters would be the blue counterparts of red teamers.

Okay, before I go on, make sure you understand what the difference between a red teamer and a penetration tester is. They’re actually different. Well, in more mature organizations.

The reason for threat hunting is that attackers are getting better at their tradecraft, so we defenders equally have to be proactive—and that’s kinda mostly what threat hunting is about.

The same way a red teamer goes about their offensive engagement with targets and scope in mind, a threat hunter will go about their hunting expedition with a hypothesis and scope in mind.

SOC Analysts don’t have analysis “scopes”…you see what I’m saying?

As a red teamer, you’re anticipating the unknown. You don’t know what weakness you’ll find. So is the precedence of a threat hunter.

I see threat hunting as an offensive act of defense. You’re going on the offense by attempting to identify undetected threats or ongoing attacks. This is not about waiting for an attack to happen - this is about seeking them out. This is hunting.

Books

🧍🏾‍♂️ Book #2 - Ikigai

In case you didn’t know, for the last 2 years, I’ve made it a point of duty to read at least 1 book a month and this is my #2 for this year and #38 book since I started.

I’ve had my eyes on this book for a while, as I tend to search for meaning in everything, especially work and how it pertains to life.

This book is about the intersection between Passion, Mission, Profession, and vocation. The authors' thesis is based on a concept popular in Japanese culture that basically embodies the intersectionality of these four things.

According to the authors and publicly available research, Okinawa, Japan has the largest concentration of centenarians (people over the age of 100), and one of the main reasons for their longevity is their practice of Ikigai.

Essentially, they’re able to combine their mission, passion, profession, and vocation all into one thing, and this plays a huge role in their longevity. The diagram below visualizes the intersection of these things.