Thoughts on willpower, blood sugar and learning too fast

A few random thoughts:

• Willpower - is it a depletable resource? Or maybe it isn't? The article suggests it's probably a dead end. Based on my small experiments with diet changes, changing habits in my case requires environment control, self-education, self-awareness and planning. No moment-to-moment willpower necessary, and in fact if it comes down to that, I usually fail and eat that delicious but unhealthy treat/cookie/pizza.
• I've bought & tried a glucometer. Very cool device, allows you to test actual effects of food on your blood sugar. It's amazing to be able to perform an actual blood test yourself, at home, within less than a minute, using a device that costs around $20. Brilliant.
• I'm experimenting with eating food which has low glycemic index, and seeing how this affects my moment-to-moment energy level, focus, emotions and optimism. So far the results are very encouraging. If you don't know what it is, and you'd like to have more energy and focus on a typical workday, I recommend learning more about glycemic index. 
• There is a phenomenon I'd call "learning too fast". I've concluded that I was reading too many books, and analyzing various areas of my work and life too much, without acting. The way I evaluate it is by looking at the ratio of applied knowledge (change in a way I do things) to acquired knowledge (instructions on how to do things differently, taken from books, friends etc.). This ratio is appallingly low for me. I'd say that I apply maybe 5-10% of what I read in the last year, and that only includes advice that I decided to be meaningful and worthwhile. Rate of knowledge application is just as important as rate of knowledge acquisition. They don't need to be equal, but learning too fast compared to applying what you learn may lead to frustration ("I learned so much, but there are no improvements in my daily work/life") and is just waste if you dedicate lots of resources to it.

Comments

[Al]

In my opinion over 90% of people who reads a lot on personal development, self-improvement, etc. don't really act on advices they acquaired. I think that ratio of 5-10% is high enough to see substanial changes in your life, so congratulations! Could you tell me what kind of advice have you applied and how it affected your life?

Regards,
Al

PS. I like your blog, keep writing! :-)

[Jakub Petrykowski]

Hey Al,

You asked about advice I successfully implemented in my life. I'll mention some things below (in no particular order). They were all taken at least in part from non-fiction books and similar materials on the Internet (blogs, videos etc.). This includes both popular science books like Emotional Intelligence and more "hand waving" books by motivational experts, and also "productivity gurus' " books.

The list does not include tons of advice I ignored or tried but failed to apply with success.

Also the list below is not about the last year, rather 5+ years.

So, here's some things I did through self-education:

-- project thinking, elements of Getting Things Done: ever since I read the original book by David Allen I've been thinking about lists: lists of projects, actions, waiting-for etc. This was implemented in terms of my thought process, structuring days, structuring notes, even writing my own software for this and doing my own experimentation with improvements to the method.

-- Emotional Intelligence - I've read the book by Daniel Goleman when I was in need of instruction in the world of relationships and managing my own emotions, and I'd say I implemented at least two things: awareness of certain conditions in myself, and improving self-regulation (mood control, relieving stress). But this was a big effort spanning several years, including therapy, training at work and other activities, so it's hard to draw the line anywhere.

-- diet: based on several sources I pretty much stopped drinking sugar, limited coffee (which was causing lots of issues), this year I'm slowly transitioning to a much better diet overall; again there are many sources, I must have read hundreds of articles over the years, but a book by Tim Ferriss was a motivational hit, and a friend who's very knowledgable and whom I respect was also the trigger and great source of high quality information and motivation.

-- communication & relationships: lots of it through relationships and soaking in comm patterns while working at Google, also training there, but lots through reading countless business books and Polish Blog Alexa, by far the best source in the Polish Internet on the foundations of modern independent life etc. This includes learning how to set healthy boundaries, and some elements of assertiveness (though I could still improve here I'm sure ;P)

So there are some examples.

[Jakub Petrykowski]

Oh, there one more brilliant example. I've read some books by Paul Ekman on emotions and the expression of emotions, and even took virtual class on recognizing microexpressions that he makes available on his site. Thanks to these sources I am now better able to recognize how people I talk to are feeling. It's not foolproof and it doesn't tell me why they feel certain way, but it makes communication much deeper and smoother. it takes some effort though, and requires focused attention on my part. If I'm distracted or tired it doesn't help.