Tim Ferriss: How to Learn Better & Create Your Best Future

I do think we suffer from awe deficiency disorder—a bit of 'ADD' when we're trapped in the mundane for too long with too much distraction with too many to-dos with too many relationships ... Awe isn't, from my perspective, generally, a quick hit that you get in the 30 seconds between using two apps. There's more breathing room required for genuine, transcendent experience of awe.

For people who have the option to be in nature and just exercise several hours a day to exhaustion, see how many of your problems seem to just go away. Just try that.

I do think that, a lot of the time, we like to imagine because we're driven, smart, accomplished people that our problems are very complex. At the end of the day, you just need some time in nature and a cold shower and some fucking macadamia nuts, and you'll be fine.

Rather than looking for areas to optimize, I am looking where I can very deliberately de-optimize certain areas to increase sense of well-being. Where can I de-optimize? Where can I stop measuring? Where can I stop reading books? Which areas can I ignore completely? What types of information can I just excise from my life all together for a period of time?

All these companies are very smart. They have very good data scientists. They have very good UI specialists ... You're bringing a knife to a gunfight if you think you can use your self-control to keep your use of Instagram to, say, 10 minutes...

I find that my ability to be still and calm is eroded if I am too easily able to escape boredom. If you cease to have the ability to be bored for 5 to 10 minutes, I think that makes you very fragile and makes you very easy to manipulate, also.

Take the pain, and make it part of your medicine ... We all experience pain. We all experience suffering. Many of us have experienced trauma of one type or another ... It can consume you, but it's like fire—it can consume you, but you can also harness it and use it for different things.

If you are in full-growth hyperdrive mode, and you are trying to build both yourself and your capabilities in a very concentrated way... I think many people should consider moving to an area of high-density for a period of time.

Unless you schedule these things that you claim are important, they're gonna get crowded out by bullshit—and maybe not bullshit but just less important things. The urgent will crush the important.

As someone who has hyper-analyzed and meticulously planned most of my life for decades, I think it's helpful to have an improv component. So, if you are a hyper-planner, if you're a hyper-measurer, if you like that degree of control, maybe you should try something that's a little less controlled...

If anyone says always/never/should, I pay attention and take note of that. They may very well be right, but if anything is set in absolutes, I like to stress test.

What are rich people doing now that everyone or tens or hundreds of millions of people might be doing 10 years from now?

If you are a human who's going to be making decisions about diet, health, exercise; if you want any consensus, you're doomed. You're not going to get any answers before you die.

It's very important if you are going to do some experimentation or experimentation in small groups... you should really make every effort to not fool yourself.

I think there's a tendency among people who want to develop their networks or their relationships to be star-fuckers ... They want to tell other people they are friends with someone more than they want to develop skills or learn from someone.

I think judging people by their questions is also a shortcut to assessing and learning a lot about how someone functions and what makes them tick ... Judge a man by his questions, not his answers.

With whatever is really causing you consternation or stress at the moment.... What might this look like if it were easy? What might this look like? If it were easy, if it had to be easy, if that were possible, what might it look like?

For a long time, I've believed that you can learn something powerful from almost anyone—probably anyone you interact with. Could be an Uber driver, could be someone taking garbage out of a restaurant. If you really take the time to dig, you can find something.

Time on social media first thing in the morning is probably the most poisonous activity that I could take part in ... What is the amount of time it takes to get in a really good workout? It's going to be about an hour, but a lot can be done in 45 and for even 30 minutes.

The extremes inform the mean but not vice versa. So, you can actually learn a lot by stunning the edge cases.

One of the questions I ask myself with all sorts of things: If I could never talk about this, would I do it?

Part of the reason I do these 1 week or longer periods off the grid is because it forces me to put better systems in place.