A bias to action, a university by the sea, and being an adult.
😊 Welcome
This week we look a little deeper into the idea of having a bias to action, specifically when it comes to planning and deciding your future.
We go to the vault and dig out the article you have all been looking for.
We have a look at a very special and unique university by the sea.
And hear a tip on adulting from Naval Ravicant
✍️ Making big decisions with a bias to action
A few weeks ago I wrote a piece about five mindset changes that I’d learned about in ‘Design your Life’ by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. I described one of these mindsets as “try stuff”, but the term they use for it is having a "bias to action”. For me it’s been such a game changer in my life that I thought it worth exploring a bit more deeply.
What is a “bias to action”? What does it look like when making long term decisions? And how can I start to make it a part of my mindset?
What is a “bias to action”?
Well, in a nutshell, it's the opposite of procrastination. Instead of putting off tasks until tomorrow (or whenever!), we simply do them now.
But why do we procrastinate? Why is it sometimes so hard just to get up and do something?
Well, there are a few reasons; all of them a part of being human.
Perhaps we feel unprepared? Maybe we don’t feel we have all the information or skills to do the task. We fear failure, and so we tell ourselves that we need more thinking time, or more information.
Perhaps we just feel overwhelmed? There are simply too many competing important tasks to do, our brains feel scrambled, and so we end up doing none of them.
Perhaps you just don’t have the motivation, and just want to do something else instead? Humans aren’t particularly good at delaying gratification. We might know that the homework will ultimately lead to a better long term life than playing the latest game. But right here, right now, the game is more fun.
🗄 From the vault: The article you have all been looking for
Now that I’m getting thousands of hits on the website every month, I can easily see what are the most popular search terms for the type of articles I write. It turns out that over the past month, the BY FAR most common search term that resulted in people clicking through to my site was ‘ranking’.
And so, here it is, my article from last year all about university rankings:
📸 Snapshot: University of St Andrews
Became a university in: 1413
Student population: 12,160 (2022/23)
Location: Small university town on the Fife coast
Subject areas: Arts (a wide range), Science (also a wide range), Medicine and Divinity.
Admissions: Most subjects look for around AAA at A-level, AAAAB at Scottish Highers, though other factors will also impact offers made. They also publish minimum entry grades for those from widening participation backgrounds with clearly defined criteria applied. Interviews are not normally part of the process (except for Medicine).
Snapshot: Having grown up in Aberdeen, St Andrews was a regular day trip for us at weekends. It’s a stunning little coastal town, with an incredible sense of history, a ruined abbey and a beautiful beach. We are not talking about Costa del Sol style beach with sun umbrellas and watersports, we are talking about the type of beach where you take bracing walks in the cutting wind, while gazing out across stormy seas. Oh yes, and if you are a golfer you will already know about the Old Course. It's literally where the sport was invented (or at least where the rules were codified!)
So what of the university?
📢 Quote of the week
“There are no adults. Everyone is making it up as they go along. Figure it out yourself, and do it.”
Naval Ravikant
Entrepreneur and investor
That’s not to say that you shouldn’t learn from others. You should be learning from others all the time; from formal education, from coaches and mentors, from books and from YouTube videos. But at the end of the day, the only way to know whether you can actually do something, is to go out and do it!
Thanks for reading!
Jonathan
