Being smart in deciding what to do
#98 - officially an adult (still a child at heart)
Hi there,
(Nearly went ‘Good evening everyone’ there)
Birthday weekends are always nice - you feel special for a couple of days*. I wasn’t expecting much from my birthday, so all the gifts and celebrations were a welcome surprise; I capped it off with a lovely dinner at an Italian place (my first time there) with 6 close friends; beautiful atmosphere, convivial conversations and all gave me something to work on in 2024 (upon request). There was certainly a theme running through most of them…
Highlight of the week: the Sixth Form Open Evening on Thursday. Deciding to stay in school, I had a nice chat with a friend I haven’t spoken to loads on the way to getting a German Doner Kebab meal. It was nice to give 2 speeches as well, practising a bit of improv on stage as well. There was also a lovely feeling of plastering a beaming smile and saying “Good evening, welcome to Bishop Vesey’s” to guests as I made the rounds, ensuring all was good (13k steps 😅).
*One might argue we should be feeling special all the time, having the pure gift that is life.
There was a mini-rift at home last Saturday. After spending a LOT of time in the week on our school’s Diwali celebrations, I made the choice to go down to the fields in the afternoon to watch the rugby, as well as help out with the tea. Parents weren’t impressed at how much time I was giving to the school; however, what transpired was worth it.
It was great to watch the rugby, speak to one of the teachers there about how I was handling busy Year 13, throw a ball around with her kids and speak to a couple of parents as well. At the end of one of the games, I thought to myself, “What would a good School Captain do?” “He would go and shake the players’ hands and help them pack away”. That’s exactly what I did: I put away one of the things they’d used in the match and then found the player of the match’s name and shook his hand.
It was a small thing for me to do, but it clearly meant a lot to the kid. I had a couple of teachers tell me about an email his dad sent to the rugby coach, about how he was very impressed by my thoughtfulness. A ✅ for me and a ✅ for ‘being a good ambassador to the school’.
It got me thinking about how the size of an action is not directly linked to how impactful it is, and the concept of leverage (which I’ve written about before, pretty much a year ago!). We should be choosing (or optimising for) actions where we will make the most progress or create the most impact.
The good example above can be contrasted by the time I along with Esther (my fellow school captain) trying to sort out who was doing what job at the open evening. It ended up being a lot of work trying to sort out people’s commitments, for the plan to only fail (as I later realised and consoled myself with a truth I reached last time).
It is this attitude of “is this the best place to put my scarce resources of time, energy and attention to ‘move the needle’ the most?” that has put us off making some changes to a Sixth Form initiative we’ve set up and may also be why we decide against a different event we’re thinking up.
Maybe a good rule then is where possible, your actions are wise if they create an equal or larger ‘impact’, where ‘impact’ depends on what the action is. It could be useful to think of this through the lens of costs and benefits and trying to break-even and make profit. This applies to small things like holding the door open for someone or letting an elderly person take your seat on the bus. It’s a small thing that makes a larger, if not huge, difference to the other person in their life.
A few final thoughts:
Looking back at my notes, this idea was initially planted by how pretty I found a flower at Ury Park (in Scotland, on holiday). My mum dismissed it as a weed, but I seemed to like it (perhaps because it was a good photo opportunity)
This can also be thought of with charity; I’ve been considering this when we see which charities we choose for our efforts in school. Reading the book ‘The Life You Can Save’ in the summer holiday showed me the dollar impact a certain donation can have on different charities, from buying medicine to being able to save lives.
Your most precious resource of time is limited. Therefore, when you can, take the easy wins where impact outweighs effort. And when you have the choice, pause to think about which effort makes more sense, in the longer term.1 For me in the next 2 weeks, it will be doing my very best for the Cambridge interview. What will it be for you?
Podcast of the week 🎙️
Today in Focus - He’s back: Sam Altman and the chaos at the heart of the AI industry
The AI world was front and centre of the news last week, not for the right reasons. Here’s a TV drama playing out live, entertaining, bemusing and quite a few unanswered mysteries.
Article of the week 📰
Questions politicians can't seem to answer on immigration
I haven’t recommended a political article before but I found this one to be clear in explaining the issue of migration in the UK and why it is certainly not an easy problem to solve.
Quote of the week 💬
The only job where you start at the top is digging a hole.
As you embark upon another week, trying to spend it wisely, be clever and think about how you can make the most difference.
Adi
This was the choice I recounted a few weeks ago - However, when you are about to start working and have the choice, it can be useful to consider where ‘one more’ will make more of an impact. It was the situation I found myself in on Thursday afternoon, sitting in school waiting for my parent-teacher meeting appointments. I could’ve chosen to do some maths test work or spent some time preparing for the Physics exam the day after. I chose the latter, which prompted a question of “Why?” from a friend sat next to me.”
“The better use of my time now is doing my first hour of Physics revision (I know, didn’t end up doing loads for this one) instead of the hundredth hour of MAT work. It is where I’ll make more progress and what will ‘move the needle’ more”. More here