Airports, Islands, and the Joy of Being Constrained

I recently went on vacation to Astypalea, an island in the Aegean. There is something special about being on a small island. It's relaxing in a different way. You're there. Getting off it requires planning ahead and effort. This means that you don't even consider it, and you're limited to what the island offers. There is maybe only one town and if it's small enough you will be able to explore a most of it.

I find a similar sense of calm in airports. If you have enough time, there is no better place to relax than an airport lounge. It is because I am in the place I'm supposed to be. This makes it easier to read, listen to music or skim through that paper I've wanted to look into for months¹. At home or in the office, I struggle to achieve the same focus. Home is full of things I should've done yesterday and the office is full of distractions.

During a long layover a while back I had finished my book and I didn't have easy access to internet. I had been an emacs user for a few years, but hadn't really grasped elisp, so I was constanly copying snippets from other people's .emacs.d. The moment was ripe to work through the introduction to elisp and play around. Not only was introduction well-written, but I had lots of fun customizing Emacs. It's a fond memory. The sad part is that I would never have taken the time for this at home, but in the end it was both enjoyable and it has also been useful. If that layover had happened now I would have had access to internet and I'm pretty sure I would've wasted those hours mindlessly surfing if the same thing happened today.

So how can I create space for these kind of experiences more often? I like to think of it in terms of friction. If you're sitting at home with your phone next to you², a full laundry basket and internet easily available it can be a struggle to do something as simple as sit down and read for half an hour. This is because there is friction to start reading, but almost no friction to switch something else. In other words, you should increase friction to switch and reduce friction to start.

This all assumes you know what you want to do. If there's one thing many people struggle with today it's constantly being faced with too many choices³. Big choices such as where and what to study and small choices like which TV series to watch⁴ or just how to spend a weekday evening. It makes sense that many options could lead to less happy outcomes as the alternatives you didn't choose are not only more than the one you did choose, but they are also much more salient in your mind these days where you will literally get a highlight-reel of that event you didn't attend.

None of these concepts are new. Overchoice, satisficing or analysis-paralysis are concepts that have all been around since the 70s and earlier. The idea of analysis-paralysis dates back to at least ancient Greece, as the fable of The Fox and the Cat shows us. The term itself was first coined in 1956, but Herbert Simon already discussed it 10 years before.

Has it gotten worse since then? It feels like it, and maybe that's what matters. I still haven't found the solution I'm looking for, except for doing the obvious things. Put the phone away. Deal with the small stuff if you can: start laundry or clean the desk a bit. Write a todo list to put whatever else you have on your mind out of your mind. Even better, go somewhere else. Go to the park to read or go to a cafe to write or program. Another trick to help get started is the pomodoro or just time-boxing⁵. Just writing down what I'm trying to achieve also goes a long way. If I'm writing, am I aiming for a draft, am I editing or am I just seeing where my mind takes me? Taking some of this together with a tiny bit of willpower and you are one step closer to having some much-needed Sitzfleisch. At the same, remove friction to start doing those things. If you want to read Ulysses, put the book somewhere it's always within reach. If you want to write, make your computer default to things that trigger the process⁶. Before you know, it has become a habit.