In her very readable book Time Warped, science writer and broadcaster Claudia Hammond explained why we almost invariably overestimate how much time we will have to do things in the future. The tasks of the present loom overwhelmingly large in our minds, but when we look ahead, we can see fewer commitments and so we assume we won’t have as many then. But, of course, jobs accumulate and if we are busy now and have been for as long as we can remember, we should assume we will be continue to have as little free time as we do now. From memory (disclaimer: it’s unreliable) Hammond advised that if you are asked to make a commitment in the future, ask yourself if you would take it on now. If you wouldn’t, take that as a red flag and ask yourself why on earth you think your diary will miraculously open up months ahead.
I must be a slow learner because I am still trying to put Hammond’s sage advice into practice. In my last newsletter, way back in September, I explained why I hadn’t sent one for months and that the next one probably wouldn’t be until October. It’s now March. Stuff happened, but its always does, so that’s no excuse. In the meantime, I have continued to be shamed by the writers who manage to get their Substacks etc out with metronomic regularity. What gives these people the edge?
Before answering that, let me say a little more about why it is indeed an edge. People vary enormously in their aptitudes and abilities, and most of us will never be especially good at most things. However, there are many more people who are very good at any given thing than there are those that are excellent, and the differences between them are often very small. For example, I remember reading some time ago about the number of points won by professional tennis players. The difference between the top ranked and the rest was surprisingly small. For example, when Andy Murray was world number one in 2016, he only won 55% of points, not much more than half, a typical stat for the best player at any given time. But the serial winners have a knack of taking the crunch points that decide games and sets.
In creative work, the final one percent can also make a huge difference. You may not be a fan of Robert Palmer, but if you remember “Simply Irresistible” you’ll have to admit it was an infectious pop song. Palmer wrote that he had been sitting on that tune for three years because it was lacking a certain something. The song was only finished when he added a vocal pause and a percussive break after the line “but now I found her”. “A little thing like that makes the difference between an idea and the complete song,” he wrote. Similarly, Radiohead’s early hit, “Creep” was elevated by a couple of Jonny Greenwood’s guitar crunches just as the chorus comes in. As it happens, that was an accident, as lead singer Thom Yorke explained: “That’s just his way of checking that the guitar is working, that it’s loud enough, and he ended up doing it while we were recording. And while we were listening to it, it was like ‘Hey, what the fuck was that? Keep that! Do that!’”
The difference between being good and excellent, like the very different difference between being moderately and extremely successful, is often very slim indeed. With success, the difference is often a matter of luck. The right person with the right abilities at the right time can rise to the top, while someone who is better but whose timing is unfortunate may not. But among the factors we can control, what can make the difference?
In that last missive I talked about how productive people have focus and do not spread themselves too thinly. Focus can also require a certain ruthlessness. Historically, many successful men have neglected their families for their work, and today parents of both sexes are often willing to put family life second, rightly or wrongly.
A recent Economist column suggested that another important edge is energy. The most successful people just seem to have more of it. “High-achievers have done their email and a full workout before the sun rises,” writes the pseudonymous Bartleby. “They are less likely to nod off in the middle of the afternoon. They get off the red-eye and work a normal day.”
I think there is a lot of truth in this and I have certainly seen people who make me exhausted just by thinking about all that they do. (I’m constantly tired and I don’t even have kids!) But Bartleby reassures those of who can’t rely our genes alone for oomph can still take steps to maximise our energy levels. “You can still work out what reinvigorates and what enervates,” he says. Comfortingly, he reports that Jeff Bezos slept eight hours a night and never scheduled a meeting before 10am when he was running Amazon.
I’m not going to pretend to know how to find that extra one percent that can elevate the quality of your work, your sports playing, or the level of your achievement. It’s useful enough to remember that the difference is so often just that one percent. So if you want to do better, never settle for how you currently do things. Always ask yourself what you can do to give yourself a little extra edge. It will take trial and error to find what works for you, but knowing that an edge is often all you need can keep you motivated to continue looking for it.
As for me, my latest strategy for upping my game is bathetically mundane: the Google Tasks app. One task I have added to it is a reminder to write this newsletter once a month. Weekly proved impossible, fortnightly unsustainable, but surely even I can managed twelve times a year?
Is that Claudia Hammond I hear chuckling, or you, dear reader?
News
A lot has happened since September. Several articles have come out in publications that have paywalls, but I put these pieces behind my own, so if you are a supporter (from just £5 a month, thank you!) you can read my long pieces for the Telegraph about neuroscience and why collectors pay so much for art, my chapter for a book on the ethics of cultured meat, my article for The Author on why writing is always a collaboration, an article for Index on Censorship questioning the authority of lived experience, a review of Ravenous by Henry Dimbleby and Jemima Lewis for the TLS, and more.
Some other pieces are freely available or viewable with free sign up. For the Guardian, I wrote about why we should be worried that we got so angry about the Post Office scandal, when we fail to get angry about so much else. I was delighted to interview Daniel Dennett for Prospect, for which I also wrote about why philosophy matters, without, I hope, claiming it matters more than it does. My final philosopher-at-large column for the same magazine considered the purpose(s) of education.
I was also a disembodied talking head on the BBC Radio Four Archive Hour programme The Hundred Year Ego.
I have a couple of events coming up at St Georges Bristol: a regular Philosophical Times discussion (March 16) and a salon on philosophy and fiction (March 27) with the gifted writers Joanna Kavenna and Samantha Harvey. Supporters also get to attend regular online discussions.
The paperback of How to Think Like a Philosopher has come out as well as a new and expanded edition of The Pig that Wants to be Eaten, which now has ten new thought experiments. I also have three Lithuanian editions of How the World Thinks which need a home, if anyone knows of a good one!
I did the Wye Valley Mighty Hike in September and we raised £603 for Macmillan Cancer Support, so thanks to everyone who sponsored me.
On my radar
I almost chose to write about Wim Wenders’ new film Perfect Days for this newsletter and might well do so in the future. It is a slow burner, but by the end I was totally won over. The final scene contains some of the best acting I’ve ever scene, in the service of making a very profound point. (By the way, it was my first cinema visit since Covid hit.)
Late to the party as ever, I also caught up with the BBC comedy series Motherland, currently available on Netflix. Like a lot of great comedy, it both totally exaggerates and captures reality at the same time. If you’re a parent, it may be too close to the bone. Even better was Carol and the End of the World, a totally one-off animated series about what we would do if we knew the world was ending. On the wireless, Jon Ronson’s Things Fell Apart lifts the lid on the culture wars, to reveal an unpleasant can of worms.
I can’t say I’ve read any really stand-out books recently and I don’t see the point of just telling you about the quite good ones. However, if you are looking for some interesting reading, while researching my next book I read Nutritionism by Gyorgy Scrinis and can highly recommend it. Scrinis argues that health policy and science has mistakenly come to be based on the idea that the nutritional value of food can be assessed by analysing the contents of foodstuffs, rather than by looking at dietary patterns. This is very relevant to the current ultra-processed foods debate. I accidentally ordered it twice so if you’d like a copy, let me know and you can have my spare for a knock-down price.
That’s all for now. As ever, this newsletter is one my website so feel free to share it. If I were you, I would not be holding my breath for next month’s but I honestly, sincerely believe I will send one, if nothing prevents!