Happiness
Happy (Derren Brown) - Book Summary, Notes & Highlights
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My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Read more on Amazon This is an enormous book, but it's one of my favourites of all time. It's my most highlighted book on Kindle (by a very long way) and while I was reading it, I found myself nodding my head like a lunatic on almost every
How would you spend your time if you knew you'd die in 2 years?
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This week we tackle the conundrum of "how would you spend your time if you knew you'd die in 2 years?".
Book Discussion: The Courage to be Disliked
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In this episode, we summarise "The Courage to be Disliked" by Fumitake Koga and Ichiro Kishimi.
Inner Rings: The Desire to Fit In - Podcast Highlights
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In this episode, we discuss our desire to fit in, to be part of the 'cool kids' group, to be part of what CS Lewis calls "The Inner Ring".
Treating Your Personal Life like a Business - Podcast Highlights
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In this episode we talk about a new theory of Taimur's — that we should treat our personal lives more like businesses and treat our businesses more personally...
Pay Yourself First
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I was thinking today about the phrase ‘pay yourself first’. It’s one of the most important rules of personal finance. The idea is that whenever we get money coming in (eg: our salary), we immediately put aside some percentage (eg: 10-20%) for our savings / investments. Only when we’ve
The Value of Delight
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In my tech review videos, I sometimes talk about The Value of Delight. It’s the idea that spending extra money to get an more delightful experience can be ‘worth it’ if it encourages us to do more of the thing we want to do. I’ve noticed the concept
Invisible Shackles & Life Scripts - Podcast Highlights
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As we grow, we're subconsciously exposed to various 'life scripts' that can have a profound effect on the way we lead our lives, without any conscious control on our own part. In this episode, we discuss some of the invisible shackles that bind us, and how to 'break free' from
Is being negative ever acceptable? - Podcast Highlights
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In this episode, we discuss whether negativity is ever okay...
Boring is Fun
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Occasionally I come across a blog post, book chapter or podcast episode that makes something click in my brain and I think ‘damn that’s really good’. This week, I stumbled across such a post by James Stuber called ’Master Boring Fundamentals - Boring is Fun’. There were two key
Chance encounters
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I’ve been on an ‘anaesthetics taster week’ this week. That means I get to spend 5 days shadowing doctors within the anaesthetics department, getting involved, trying to get an idea of what the speciality is like. On each day, I’ve had chance encounters with other doctors that have
Is ambition a virtue? - Podcast Highlights
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In this episode, we tackle the issue of ambition. What does it mean to be ambitious?
What does it mean to be authentic? - Podcast Highlights
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In this episode, we talk about authenticity and analyse what it means to be your authentic self.
Our own worst critics
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A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about The Reitoff Principle for Productivity. At the time, I thought the post was a load of shite - I had to come up with something for that week, and couldn’t think of anything, so I pulled a few paragraphs out
How much of our behaviour is status-seeking? - Podcast Highlights
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In this episode, we discuss the concept of social status, and wonder to what extent the signalling of status contributes to our own behaviours.
Changing our perspective to make life more pleasant
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You know that feeling when you come across something on the Internet and it immediately resonates with you and you think of 100 different applications for it? Well I had that feeling after reading one of Seth Godin’s daily blog posts this week. Here’s what he says: Deadlines
Why do we love our jobs? - Podcast Highlights
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This is the first episode that features a guest! Paul Tern, a Cambridge-grad junior doctor who works in London, joins the discussion about why we love our jobs.
A small dose of positivity
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In this post I want to tell you how it looks like to work as a surgical FY1 (junior doctor) in the Emergency Department. This involves fielding phone calls from GPs (general practitioners) who think their patients might have a surgical issue and need urgent assessment. I’m often the
Why should you invest in a good kitchen bin? - Podcast Highlights
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In this episode, we explore "Measure" — a mental model for spending time and money more effectively. Based on this framework, we conclude that everyone should get a good kitchen bin and a voice coach, and that Ali probably shouldn't get a Tesla.
Why do we hate networking events? - Podcast Highlights
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In this episode, we discuss why we hate networking events but love group holidays, and we try and figure out how to better connect with our fellow human beings.
Why do we like to be correct?
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In this pilot episode of Not Overthinking, we discuss our reasons for starting the podcast, and then have a chat about why we feel the urge to be correct in everyday conversation.
The £5 item that made my student life much happier
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One of the best purchases I made at the start of my university days was a doorstopper. Whenever I was in my room during waking hours, I’d leave the door propped open and occasionally, when people would walk past on their way down the hallway, they’d pop in
How to be Excellent
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On the flight home from Sudan this week, I read an absolutely wonderful paper from 1989 called The Mundanity of Excellence - An ethnographic report on stratification and Olympic swimmers. The author breaks down (in a very readable but rigorous fashion) the differences in daily habits, practices and mindsets between
A rule to follow in new situations
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I’m writing this post from a small town in Sudan where some other doctors and I are helping out with a medical mission running pop-up clinics in local villages (PS: check out the pics on Instagram). When I’m in new situations like this, my default state is to
A piece of advice given to kids with serious illnesses
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This week’s ‘how to do life’ post comes from my friend and housemate Dr Molly Hunt. She volunteers each year at Over the Wall, a summer activities camp for children with serious illnesses and their families. One of the things Over The Wall speaks about in volunteer training is
What do I wish I’d been doing consistently for the past 3 years?
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A few things immediately come to mind. Firstly, music - I wish I had consistently and deliberately practised piano, guitar, singing and music theory over the past 3 years. If I had, I’d be a much better musician today. Secondly, I wish I had written mini book reviews of
How many sales will make you happy?
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Some friends and I recently launched an online Interview Crash Course that helps prepare medical school applicants for their interviews. A few days ago, one of my friends who helped create the course (Kenny) messaged me and asked: By the end of interview season, what number of online course sales
How to minimise regrets - WIN-WIN PRINCIPLE
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I got an email a few days ago from a high school student in the Philippines (let’s call him Matt) considering applying to medical school. He was worried because it’s such a competitive process - what if he spends years trying and failing to get in? If that
The Parable of the Mexican Fisherman
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I want to share this fun little story with you today. I stumbled across it a few years ago and it had an immediate impact on me, changing the way I view productivity and lifestyle design. I revisit it several times a year, so even if you’ve heard it
The Beginner's Mindset
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A couple weeks ago I sent an email asking you guys to send in snippets/quotes that have helped you in your own life. This week, I want to feature one of the responses from a guy called George who studied at Oxford for 3 years and is now applying
Journey before destination
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Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.This is one of the ideals of the Knights Radiant, as told in Brandon Sanderson’s incredible The Stormlight Archive (I’m halfway through book 2). It’s a little melodramatic for sure, but I’ve found myself repeating the last
Overthinking
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I want to share a story today. As some of you might know, I’ve recently started my first job as a junior doctor (we’re now around a month into it). Naturally I’ve been trying to make friends with people, generally being nice and open and friendly etc.
Be content to be thought foolish
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Here’s a quote from one of my favourite Stoic philosophers, Epictetus: If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.This fear of being thought foolish lies at the core of that age-old problem of ‘caring what other people think’. We all know that ideally,
"It's busy, but really fun"
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We had a housewarming party last night - lots of our friends came over and we had lots of chats and snacks, and played around 3 hours of Avalon. Paul, one of my closest friends from university and one of the smartest people I know, came up to Cambridge for
The Trichotomy of Control
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Let’s talk about control. In a recent video (Life Advice - 50k subscribers Q&A), I alluded to the Stoic idea of how there are only two things we can control - namely our own thoughts and our own actions. I said that everything else falls in the
Don't believe the hype
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Black Wednesday is nearly here. It’s the first Wednesday of August when doctors throughout the UK start their new jobs. Supposedly, this influx of inexperienced doctors leads to a 6% increase in patient deaths in August… This past week, most of us incoming FY1 junior doctors have had various
Dealing with Bad Grades
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I've had a few messages from students who were disappointed by their exam results and wanted some of my wannabe-life-guru advice on how to deal with the sadness they were feeling. Let's tackle the symptom first, and then the disease.
Hustle vs Chill
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I'm writing this post from a lovely cafe in Heidelberg, Germany. I'm here with some friends on a bank holiday mini-break - we're trying to take full advantage of our 3 weeks left as medical students before doctor-life starts and we become slaves to our rota. I'm having a bit
Diminishing Returns
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I went to a ball last night. In classic Cambridge style, it started at 9pm and was due to finish at 5am. We arrived an hour early, did a photo shoot (it's on my Instagram story highlights if you want to see) and enjoyed the food, drink and festivities at
The Antidote to Fear
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Fear and anxiety are elements that grip us at various points in our lives both in formal and informal situations. In many respects, there is nott a 'right' answer to overcome either fear or anxiety; nor is there a silver bullet that will dissolve all your worries for ever more.
Future-Self Thinking
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You know that feeling when you have a reasonably fixed opinion on a topic that you haven’t really thought about extensively? And then when that opinion gets shattered and it makes you think a lot about it? I had that this week after watching 2 videos by CGP Gray.
Hedonic Adaptation
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Hedonic adaptation is (according to Wikipedia) as follows: Hedonic adaptation is the observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes. I think hedonic adaptation is probably the single most important (and somewhat unintuitive) part of
The secret to success
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The secret to success is to pick something, and work on it for 10 years. I came across this quote in a Y Combinator interview with Courtland Allen, who made an amazing website/community called Indie Hackers. I think he attributed the quote to ‘some guy on Twitter’, and that’
Seventy excuses
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I was having dinner with a friend recently (let’s call her Annie), when conversation turned briefly to a mutual acquaintance (let’s call her Jane). Annie voiced an issue she had with Jane, paraphrased loosely as: I don’t like Jane. I saw her in the corridor the other
