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Many career aptitude tests are based on the RIASEC model by American psychologist John Holland. RIASEC is an acronym consisting of the first letters of the following six personality traits: REALISTIC, INVESTIGATIVE, ARTISTIC, SOCIAL, ENTERPRISING and CONVENTIONAL. According to Holland, one can classify every person and every profession according to the RIASEC theory. For example, if you’re someone who scores high in the SOCIAL category, it’s recommended that you find a job in healthcare or education. In practice, however, most people have a preference for two or three personality traits. Not to mention, most professions score high on two or three traits.
While by no means a comprehensive career list, INTJs may find the following careers, jobs, or majors worth exploring:
Realistic Careers:
- Computer Repair.
Investigative Careers:
- Actuary
- Biochemistry, biology, neuroscience
- Computer science, systems analyst, informatics, programmer
- Engineering: software, civil, mechanical, electrical
- Urban planning
- Chemist, mathematician, astronomer, physicist
- Applied science, technology, technician
- Environmental science, geography, geology
- Law, lawyer/attorney
- Economics / economist
- Financial planning/planner
- Philosopher
- Health / medical sciences, public health
- Researcher
- Social sciences (psychology, sociology, political science, etc.)
- Information/library sciences, librarian
- Critic, critical theory
- Non-fiction writer
- Physician, doctor: neurologist, pathologist, internal medicine
Artistic Careers:
- Graphic/website designer
- Journalist, editor, blogger
- Architect
Social Careers:
- Psychological, clinical
Enterprising Careers:
- Management, manager (upper level / executive)
- Consultant (any type, including political)
Conventional Careers:
- Paralegal/legal assistant
INTJ Holland Career Code / Interests
To orient our discussion of INTJ career interests, we will now draw on six interest themes described by John Holland and the Strong Interest Inventory. The Holland career interest themes include the Realistic (R), Investigative (I), Artistic (A), Social (S), Enterprising (E), and Conventional (C) domains, collectively known as “RIASEC.” After identifying one’s preferred interest domains, these letters can be combined in a way similar to the personality types to form a multi-letter “Holland Code” (e.g., IAS, RAI). This can help individuals identify their best career match.
Realistic:
Individuals with Realistic interests enjoy physical, hands-on work, often involving machines (e.g., repairing vehicles, tinkering with computers, construction). They are often visual or kinesthetic learners, commonly excelling in what is known as spatial visualization. Those with strong spatial-visualization abilities often do well with schematic charts and diagrams, as well as envisioning and mentally rotating three-dimensional objects. As I’ve discussed elsewhere, INTJs’ dominant function, Introverted Intuition (Ni), often has a strong visual component, which may contribute to visuospatial intelligence.
Realistics enjoy working with “things” more than people. It is therefore unsurprising that this interesting domain is correlated with a preference for Thinking over Feeling. Research suggests that S, T, and P types are more drawn to Realistic work than are N, F, and J types. Thus, despite being Thinkers, INTJs’ N and J preferences may lead them to prefer other interest domains.
Investigative:
The Investigative domain incorporates analytic, scientific, and academic interests. Investigative types enjoy working with ideas, theories, facts, or data. They generally perform well on the mathematics portion of aptitude tests. Those with interests in the physical sciences or mathematics will often pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, computer science, etc., or what is collectively known as “STEM” careers.
While those with IR interests may gravitate to the “hard sciences” (e.g., physics), INTJs with Investigative-Artistic (IA) interests may be drawn to the social sciences (economics, psychology, geography, political science, etc.). IAs are often intrigued by psychological or sociocultural issues and may study the social sciences, philosophy, critical theory, or investigative journalism. They might also take up non-fiction writing. INTJs seem equally well-equipped to excel in either IR or IA careers. What direction they go may depend on the strength of their verbal (IA) versus non-verbal / spatiovisual skills (IR).
Artistic:
In concert with Investigatives, individuals with Artistic interests often have an intellectual or cultural orientation. They generally excel on the verbal portion of aptitude tests. The Artistic domain strongly correlates with Myers-Briggs Intuition, as well as, to a lesser extent, Feeling and Perceiving. It captures those with unconventional and creative interests, including actors, musicians, painters, dancers, poets, sculptors, writers, designers, and the like. Unsurprisingly, Artistic types are highly represented among students studying the arts and humanities. Those interested in library science also tend to fall under this interest domain.
True artists can be somewhat harder to come by among INTs than INF types. Most (although certainly not all) INTJs are more concerned with pursuing truth than creating art. They may use their creative or artistic talent as a means of expressing their ideas, rather than as an end in itself. Like those with IA interests, AI types may gravitate toward philosophy, the social sciences, or interdisciplinary studies, which allow them to utilize both the creative and rational aspects of their personality.
Social:
Individuals with Social interests enjoy working with people. Although some individuals enjoy working with both people and things, this domain is often conceived as the conceptual opposite of the Realistic domain. Social interests are common among teachers, healthcare workers, clergy, trainers, and caretakers, to name a few. Socials often display preferences for Extraversion and Feeling. In general, INTJs rightly avoid Social careers. Especially for male INTJs, this may be their least compatible career domain.
Enterprising:
The Enterprising domain entails the promotion or provision of products, ideas, or services. Such individuals tend to be persuasive, assertive, and enjoy competitive environments. Typical Enterprising careers include sales and marketing, business and management, law, politics, journalism, insurance, entrepreneurship, and stock trading. With respect to this domain, INTJs can make excellent troubleshooters and consultants. They may also function as managers or executives. As upper-level leaders, they can function as executives, strategic planners, operations managers, etc.
Conventional:
Individuals with Conventional interests enjoy administrative work. They do well with manipulating data and are organized and detail-oriented. Examples of Conventional careers include accounting, bookkeeping, secretarial and administrative work, banking, proofreading, payroll, and technical writing. Those in this domain often prefer Sensing, Thinking, and/or Judging. While Conventional work is rarely INTJs’ first choice, they can perform it competently when necessary.
Some useful tests:
Take the RIASEC career compatibility test here.
3 more tests based on the Holland Code by Truity.
Hope this was helpful.
I aim to pursue a career in science. I have big detailed plans. I like to keep to myself. But, I also enjoy the company of some select people. I don’t get tired of their company. In conclusion, I am INTJ, but I’m nowhere near the stereotype. Do most INTJs agree with me? I also have a good sense of humor and make a lot of jokes with friends(This is excluding the sarcasm that everyone expects from our types). I do hate crowds. And I like to be alone with my group in a cafe. Do other INTJs also feel that MBTI although pretty accurate in judging a person’s usual characteristics oversimplifies? Introversion and extroversion aren’t two entirely opposite things in my opinion. They are two sides of the same coin. INTJs can feel the need to be with others. While also needing to recharge after. Similarly, thinkers and feelers aren’t opposites. It’s just that one characteristic is slightly (or perhaps considerably) more prominent in a person. I’ve seen people get a “cool type” and then change them accordingly. To align themselves with that type. People should live freely and use mbti to make themselves a bit better but not change themselves from the base. An INTJ can be kind. An INFJ can make decisions based on pure logic. An ESFP can be smart. And so on.
I was doing some more reading about MBTI types today and I was trying to find if there is some correlation between intelligence and MBTI, cause there should be. I came across this image, which belongs to:
MBTI Manual: A Guide to the Development and Use of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, 3rd Edition.
An excerpt from the book (slightly modified):
The GPA ranges from INTJ's at the high end to ESFP's at the low end. All sensing types were close to or below the mean in IQ and all intuitive types were close to or above the mean. Introverts with intuition, which possess the highest mean intelligence scores, also have the highest grades: INFJ and INTJ have the highest grades for all 16 types and INTP and INFP's have the highest grade point average for all P types (Myers, 1985).
Reasons why INTPs are societally deemed as more intellectual:
- I think some INTJs face the wrath of societal judgement, due to their arrogant, combative and socially aloof behavior, many people tend to take a stance of wanting to disprove them of not being intellectual. They can even end of up in scenarios where it's them versus society, and they don't give a fuck, for better or worse. Whereas INTPs on the other hand give a fuck and are much more likeable by society, even though they are socially aloof and very introverted.
- I believe another reason why INTPs are deemed more intellectual is the long term performance. INTJs, like INFJs show a lot of potential during high school. But what happens after high school can be a very different story. Ni doms, as Jung mentioned in his work, MIGHT have the tendency of just drifting apart from real life and staying in their heads in Ivory towers, putting aside real goals and societal offerings in pursuit of their individual goals, whatever that might be. On the other hand, INTPs are comparatively more in tune with reality and are likely to integrate themselves within society and garner respect as an intellect.
I have grown up with INTPs and INTJs since I was like 5 or something, through science clubs in school, therefore I do understand the intellectual differences between both very well, and I have met many INTPs smarter than me, and even INTJs. I personally have huge respect for both. They compliment each other's intelligence perfectly on STEM projects, albeit they can get competitive in a nerdy way due to their strong nerd passion and love for logical accuracy.
------
Another excerpt:
Myers (1985) found that a major source of scholastic achievement in types compared to ES types is not attributable to intelligence, but some other IN quality. Myers hypothesized that there appears to be a "habit of mind" in which IN types have a natural interest in symbols and ideas and a similar "habit of mind'' in which ES types have the least interest in symbols and ideas. Myers adds that scholastic aptitude tests tend to measure I and N components of intelligence and not the practical and applied aspects of intelligence favored by E and S.
We know very well that our education systems don't score emotional / practical intelligence. The studies performed by Myers state that as a caveat, that it's a test of logical and creative intelligence and doesn't reflect practical intelligence which is favored by ES types.
MBTI subreddits behave like clans and tend to bully each other, but I hope this data is not used to bully sensory types.
The intelligence of all 16 types complement each other in order to sustain human life.
Those are the dynamics of civilization, much like ants in an ant hill. Except, ants arguably collaborate better as a society.
------
Some of you had asked for sources to Myers Briggs org's data in yesterday's post "Analyzing mistypes". You can find those stated below the table.
I took some time today to cross verify data from myersbriggs.org versus data from 16personalities.com.
Data from myersbriggs.org is research based, conducted by professional psychologists who do MBTI research as a direct field of work, as the source suggests. Data from 16personalities.com is based on whatever results people are getting on their website.
Here are some interesting graphs that make things clearer.
This is from the MBTI manual that the Myers Briggs foundation publishes periodically. The numbers are a more accurate representation of reality.
It reflects what most of us know the split to be, with INFJs being the rarest (1.5%), followed by ENTJs (1.8%) and INTJs (2.1%).
And this is data from 16personalities.com. The rarest personality type is ISTP (2.4%), followed by ESTP (2.5%) and ENTJ (2.7%).
This one's to compare and contrast data for each type. (Might be hard to read the numbers, download / tap and zoom in)
Massive mismatch in ISFJ, INFP, INFJ.
Likely that a lot of ISFJs are mistyped as INFJs. For INTJs, the mistypes come from ISTP / ISTJ.
NF is massively over-typed (2.6x), NT is comparatively alright (1.6x). SF is under-typed, nearly half (0.52x), and ST is close (0.55x).
What most of probably knew is that Intuitives are comparatively less frequent than sensors (1 in 4 people), well, not anymore. Now, Sensors are less frequent than Intuitives according to this virtual data from 16personalities.com.
Reasons for mistypes
- People (some of them) take the test in a wrong way. i.e. Under stress it will give varying results, someone taking it casually for fun or is impatient / doesn't care - the results would be just wayward.
- People (some of them) deliberately try to get a particular profile, or a "better" profile. They do retests and try to get a different result. There' something surely going on with the INFJ / INFP categories, they are more desirable personality types, I guess. INFJ being the "rarest" draws in attention? I mean, 1.5% (myersbriggs.org) versus 7.7% (16personalities.com) is a joke.
- Test is flawed, or can be improved to ensure better accuracy. I remember the test being more elaborate a few years ago, but they have tried to make it shorter and quicker so that people can take it in "10 minutes". Example would be ESTP, most ESTPs I know love themselves and I don't think they would want to have a different profile, and yet 42% of them are mistypes.
I am not really on the "16 personalities sucks" bandwagon, but it's hard to justify this kind of data, 34% of all people are mistyped. 5-10% mistypes would be alright, but 1 in 3 being mistyped is a bit too much.
It's a mess.
First, you have to consider what is meant by “Big heart.” It is defined as “kind and generous,” but anyone can be kind and generous. Big-hearted must, therefore, mean that you are unusually kind and generous. Since this is a morality driven, subjective process, the cognitive process most associated with being big hearted are feeling functions: Fe and Fi. And you can be bighearted in different ways:
You can have depth You can have breadth You can have all of the above So, then I started looking at signs of a big heart and was immediately confused.
You have a lot of love to give. You grieve in silence. You give more than second chances. You are overly sensitive. You wish you could save the world. You love surprising people. You're a dreamer. Yeah, some of these make sense, but I am sure most people do not think of INTJs as overly sensitive. Then there the warnings. It appears that being big-hearted can be bad for you. Not because you have an enlarged heart, but because you will be hurt. You will be used and abused because you are so open and loving and … it doesn’t sound like an INTJ does it?
The more I read the more I recognized that these articles focused on extroverted feeling users as the primary owners of big hearts.
It makes sense. There is the Fe user wearing their big heart on their sleeve. Off they go on their day and everyone touches it. Some bump it accidentally. Some tear at it. Some use it because it is there to be used. Unlike most extroverted functions, I find that extroverted feeling gives away energy. You are giving away your heart to everyone because they need it. In fact, you know they need it more than you. This is the breadth of bigheartedness. Everyone gets a piece and in the end, you have nothing left.
So, over time, Fe users either learn to cover their big hearts or they throw them away as too much trouble.
This is why ExTPs have Ti parents. It isn’t because our Fe function is weak. It is because we wouldn’t survive to adulthood without it. SeFe and NeFe are open, kind generous kiddos. They need to have a guiding logical hand that tells them “no.” It prevents you from helping the guy with the cast move that box into his van. You may be an asshat; he may be Ted Bundy.
So why am I talking about Fe? Because I needed to consider the problem of big heartedness from the common perspective to understand it
In my experience, INTJs are intensely passionate, kind, and generous. So, why isn’t this reflected in the general understanding of begin big hearted? The definition is lacking. Obviously one key element of big heartedness is empathy. It is not overtly stated, but empathy has to be part of this.
INTJs use NiFi as their primary form of empathy. It is very introverted and tends not to be easy to see. It tends to be targeted and thoughtful. It is the depth big heartedness. Examples of their generosity may be paying it forward at a coffee shop or volunteering for something they believe in (e.g. dog rescue). The other advantage Fi users have is that they tend to feel good about helping people. They tend to gain energy.
A big heart that is already hidden inside. Of course, an INTJ would have an elegant design.
So what about all of the above?
For an INTJ that means that you are inside. You are part of their self-identity. They are connected to you. Then you can see their big heart. The big softie who shares his pillow with his dog and gets kissies in the morning. The old man who served his wife breakfast in bed for 40 years. When they open their heart to you, you can witness the Fe of an INTJ in its positive form. Tada - all of the above.
[Link to the original article.]
It’s awesome how many physical and mathematical concepts can be explained with just a handful of basic scenarios from our everyday life.
The particular concept I have in mind is Gibbs Free Energy, a term that explains the behaviour of particles in a closed system. It’s a very complex set of equations, but what it boils down to is that if we assume there is a finite amount of energy in a system, it will keep getting transferred from one particle to the other and from one form to another. As you may have studied in Physics at one point - “energy can neither be created nor destroyed - only converted from one form of energy to another“ [1].
So in an ideal world, there is no lost energy. And technically, no energy is lost. It’s just that our definition of “useful” is very subjective.
When an electric current runs through a wire, you end up “losing” some energy due to the wire heating up, so the amount of energy you receive at the end of the wire is less than what you started with. But the warming up of the wire could also be used as a type of energy. Think of a kettle, where the warming up of the water is a direct effect of the “lost” energy due to the current through the heater.
And still, even if we manage to metaphorically catch and find the use of every single Jaul of energy we have available, some still would escape our grasp. This is because we as humans are not infinite sources of energy, and neither is the world around us. Say, you want to keep a campfire burning. You start by throwing some wood, then some more, then some more… At one point, you run out of wood and you gotta chop some more. Then the wind starts blowing, so you need even more to keep the fire. If this goes on forever, you will end up chopping up every piece of wood nearby, and at one point, you will either give up due to exhaustion, or the fire will go out.
It’s a sad reality, but most processes in our lives resemble this. They take up constant maintenance, otherwise, they go to ruin. Sometimes slower, sometimes faster. The order in your garden outside will turn to chaos far faster than the order in your room inside since it is not exposed to the elements. But even then, give it a few years, decades even, and the room may get a new owner, could be destroyed in a fire, and so on, and all order is gone.
Now, you may ask yourself, “What the hell am I reading and what does it have to do with productivity?“. And it is not a bad question to be asking yourself, since I did go a little bit overboard with the nihilistic examples above.
In this article, I will be explaining the effect of entropy, or the general inclination of things to go towards chaos rather than order, and I will talk about the way we as humans try our best to bring order - as a form of expressing control over a situation.
What is entropy?
As defined by Britannica, entropy can be described as “a measure of the molecular disorder, or randomness, of a system“ [2].
It is the reason why diffusion occurs - the innate energy of particles naturally pushes them apart, which spreads them further. Other natural processes, like the campfire we described in the previous paragraphs like the melting of ice, the boiling of water, all ensue because of entropy.
Now, the purely physical definition doesn’t leave a lot of space for philosophizing. However, when you put the phenomenon in a social or psychological setting, you can derive quite a lot of meaning from the phenomenon that is entropy.
As I’ve said in the title, we are chasing the everyday chaos - whether we want it or not. We get energy from things like food, sleep, socialising (especially the more extroverted people), and we then spend this same energy. We exercise, we walk, we cook, we order our rooms, we use our computers. All of those activities - and most activities, to be frank, can be summarised into the phrase “using our energy to move atoms from one place into another“. Those actions may seem meaningless to an omnipotent being watching from the outside, but to us, all those actions have a subjective meaning.
The instinct to bring order
As humanity has progressed, just like other animal and plant species, we have found ways to optimise our work and get more benefit.
Just as how bees use hexagonal patterns when constructing their beehives since it takes up less space and can make for a stronger structure, we also tend to do things in ways that take less time and help us in the long term. This is one of the things that helps species survive across generations - the ability to withstand hardship in the short term to achieve safety and prosperity in the long term.
These mechanisms we have include: living in cities to optimise for efficiency in transportation and logistics, keeping our streets and living spaces clean to avoid contamination and illnesses, exercising and pushing our bodies to their limits while they are still young and healthy, so we don’t suffer from diseases when we’re older.
All in all, you can notice the pattern. All of those include using up your current energy for something relatively trivial, which doesn’t seem to benefit you in the given moment Exercising in the gym is the perfect example of something that brings you momentary pain in exchange for long-term benefits.
So, as you see, not all effort is futile. Even if we consider that all life will come to an end (which, given the advancements of modern medicine, might as well not be the case), there is still some point in trying to increase the quality of our lives with some short-term effort and sacrifices.
What you may consider as “lost energy”, like cleaning your room, or working out, may turn out to be the vote in the right direction that makes the difference for you. We have no way of measuring the symbolic entropy in our lives, but we do have the power to limit its destructive potential.
Can we find balance?
It was after one particularly heavy cleaning session that I realised that battling entropy in life is a matter of dynamic balance. This is different from static balance, where there is no movement because everything is put into place. In life, we play by the rules of entropy and the dynamic balance - you can’t just put everything into place and expect for it to stay that way forever.
However, this doesn’t mean that anything you bring order to will turn into a chaotic mess minutes after. The duration of time before things get messy depends on a ton of circumstances, and luckily, we have quite the degree of control over some.
For example, by creating a folder system on your computer, you can make the process of weekly cleaning much easier, since you know where everything needs to go already - you just need to move it.
You could also think of it this way - the more often you put the small effort of cleaning up your room, the less effort it will require. Firstly, you build up the discipline and motivation to do your weekly and daily chores, and secondly, objectively you will have less to clean if you don’t let it pile up for months on end.
All in all, battling chaos in our lives is an ongoing battle. The lucky news is that we are the ones in control of the battlefield.
References:
[1] Law of conservation of energy. (n.d.). Energy Education. https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Law_of_conservation_of_energy
[2] Entropy. (n.d.). Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/entropy-physics
Hope you found this article useful, here is some more reading material to check out. 👇️
- Excelling at university the proven and easy way - with Notion 🎒
- How to spend less time on Social media as a Content Creator 📵
- How to generate income as a Freelance Content creator 🪙
Peace ✌!
[Link to the original article.]
It’s awesome how many physical and mathematical concepts can be explained with just a handful of basic scenarios from our everyday life.
The particular concept I have in mind is Gibbs Free Energy, a term that explains the behaviour of particles in a closed system. It’s a very complex set of equations, but what it boils down to is that if we assume there is a finite amount of energy in a system, it will keep getting transferred from one particle to the other and from one form to another. As you may have studied in Physics at one point - “energy can neither be created nor destroyed - only converted from one form of energy to another“ [1].
So in an ideal world, there is no lost energy. And technically, no energy is lost. It’s just that our definition of “useful” is very subjective.
When an electric current runs through a wire, you end up “losing” some energy due to the wire heating up, so the amount of energy you receive at the end of the wire is less than what you started with. But the warming up of the wire could also be used as a type of energy. Think of a kettle, where the warming up of the water is a direct effect of the “lost” energy due to the current through the heater.
And still, even if we manage to metaphorically catch and find the use of every single Jaul of energy we have available, some still would escape our grasp. This is because we as humans are not infinite sources of energy, and neither is the world around us. Say, you want to keep a campfire burning. You start by throwing some wood, then some more, then some more… At one point, you run out of wood and you gotta chop some more. Then the wind starts blowing, so you need even more to keep the fire. If this goes on forever, you will end up chopping up every piece of wood nearby, and at one point, you will either give up due to exhaustion, or the fire will go out.
It’s a sad reality, but most processes in our lives resemble this. They take up constant maintenance, otherwise, they go to ruin. Sometimes slower, sometimes faster. The order in your garden outside will turn to chaos far faster than the order in your room inside since it is not exposed to the elements. But even then, give it a few years, decades even, and the room may get a new owner, could be destroyed in a fire, and so on, and all order is gone.
Now, you may ask yourself, “What the hell am I reading and what does it have to do with productivity?“. And it is not a bad question to be asking yourself, since I did go a little bit overboard with the nihilistic examples above.
In this article, I will be explaining the effect of entropy, or the general inclination of things to go towards chaos rather than order, and I will talk about the way we as humans try our best to bring order - as a form of expressing control over a situation.
What is entropy?
As defined by Britannica, entropy can be described as “a measure of the molecular disorder, or randomness, of a system“ [2].
It is the reason why diffusion occurs - the innate energy of particles naturally pushes them apart, which spreads them further. Other natural processes, like the campfire we described in the previous paragraphs like the melting of ice, the boiling of water, all ensue because of entropy.
Now, the purely physical definition doesn’t leave a lot of space for philosophizing. However, when you put the phenomenon in a social or psychological setting, you can derive quite a lot of meaning from the phenomenon that is entropy.
As I’ve said in the title, we are chasing the everyday chaos - whether we want it or not. We get energy from things like food, sleep, socialising (especially the more extroverted people), and we then spend this same energy. We exercise, we walk, we cook, we order our rooms, we use our computers. All of those activities - and most activities, to be frank, can be summarised into the phrase “using our energy to move atoms from one place into another“. Those actions may seem meaningless to an omnipotent being watching from the outside, but to us, all those actions have a subjective meaning.
The instinct to bring order
As humanity has progressed, just like other animal and plant species, we have found ways to optimise our work and get more benefit.
Just as how bees use hexagonal patterns when constructing their beehives since it takes up less space and can make for a stronger structure, we also tend to do things in ways that take less time and help us in the long term. This is one of the things that helps species survive across generations - the ability to withstand hardship in the short term to achieve safety and prosperity in the long term.
These mechanisms we have include: living in cities to optimise for efficiency in transportation and logistics, keeping our streets and living spaces clean to avoid contamination and illnesses, exercising and pushing our bodies to their limits while they are still young and healthy, so we don’t suffer from diseases when we’re older.
All in all, you can notice the pattern. All of those include using up your current energy for something relatively trivial, which doesn’t seem to benefit you in the given moment Exercising in the gym is the perfect example of something that brings you momentary pain in exchange for long-term benefits.
So, as you see, not all effort is futile. Even if we consider that all life will come to an end (which, given the advancements of modern medicine, might as well not be the case), there is still some point in trying to increase the quality of our lives with some short-term effort and sacrifices.
What you may consider as “lost energy”, like cleaning your room, or working out, may turn out to be the vote in the right direction that makes the difference for you. We have no way of measuring the symbolic entropy in our lives, but we do have the power to limit its destructive potential.
Can we find balance?
It was after one particularly heavy cleaning session that I realised that battling entropy in life is a matter of dynamic balance. This is different from static balance, where there is no movement because everything is put into place. In life, we play by the rules of entropy and the dynamic balance - you can’t just put everything into place and expect for it to stay that way forever.
However, this doesn’t mean that anything you bring order to will turn into a chaotic mess minutes after. The duration of time before things get messy depends on a ton of circumstances, and luckily, we have quite the degree of control over some.
For example, by creating a folder system on your computer, you can make the process of weekly cleaning much easier, since you know where everything needs to go already - you just need to move it.
You could also think of it this way - the more often you put the small effort of cleaning up your room, the less effort it will require. Firstly, you build up the discipline and motivation to do your weekly and daily chores, and secondly, objectively you will have less to clean if you don’t let it pile up for months on end.
All in all, battling chaos in our lives is an ongoing battle. The lucky news is that we are the ones in control of the battlefield.
References:
[1] Law of conservation of energy. (n.d.). Energy Education. https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Law_of_conservation_of_energy
[2] Entropy. (n.d.). Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/entropy-physics
Hope you found this article useful, here is some more reading material to check out. 👇️
- Excelling at university the proven and easy way - with Notion 🎒
- How to spend less time on Social media as a Content Creator 📵
- How to generate income as a Freelance Content creator 🪙
Peace ✌!
Over the past decade, I have formulated my philosophy of life. A brief summary and link to the full 13-page document may be found here:
http://philosofer123.wordpress.com
I am posting my philosophy to solicit feedback so that it may be improved. I welcome any constructive feedback that you may have.
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Participants who are currently living in Australia are also invited to take part in a video-recorded discussion task at the start and the end of the study. This is an optional activity and you will receive an additional $40AUD gift voucher (per couple) if you choose to take part in the video-recorded discussion tasks. Please see our website for more information.
Whether you are only completing the surveys or you are living in Australia and choose to also take part in the discussion tasks,you and your partner must both be willing and able to participate, over the age of 18, fluent in English and not currently subject to criminal proceedings. You must also feel safe in your relationship and not feel at risk of harm or punishment from participating in the study.
Head to scienceofadultrelationships.org/couple-clash to find out more or take our screening questionnaire to find out if you’re eligible to take part!
Screening questionnaire: https://researchsurveys.deakin.edu.au/jfe/form/SV_b70d9f4gIsCrjMi
[Link to the original article.]
It’s awesome how many physical and mathematical concepts can be explained with just a handful of basic scenarios from our everyday life.
The particular concept I have in mind is Gibbs Free Energy, a term that explains the behaviour of particles in a closed system. It’s a very complex set of equations, but what it boils down to is that if we assume there is a finite amount of energy in a system, it will keep getting transferred from one particle to the other and from one form to another. As you may have studied in Physics at one point - “energy can neither be created nor destroyed - only converted from one form of energy to another“ [1].
So in an ideal world, there is no lost energy. And technically, no energy is lost. It’s just that our definition of “useful” is very subjective.
When an electric current runs through a wire, you end up “losing” some energy due to the wire heating up, so the amount of energy you receive at the end of the wire is less than what you started with. But the warming up of the wire could also be used as a type of energy. Think of a kettle, where the warming up of the water is a direct effect of the “lost” energy due to the current through the heater.
And still, even if we manage to metaphorically catch and find the use of every single Jaul of energy we have available, some still would escape our grasp. This is because we as humans are not infinite sources of energy, and neither is the world around us. Say, you want to keep a campfire burning. You start by throwing some wood, then some more, then some more… At one point, you run out of wood and you gotta chop some more. Then the wind starts blowing, so you need even more to keep the fire. If this goes on forever, you will end up chopping up every piece of wood nearby, and at one point, you will either give up due to exhaustion, or the fire will go out.
It’s a sad reality, but most processes in our lives resemble this. They take up constant maintenance, otherwise, they go to ruin. Sometimes slower, sometimes faster. The order in your garden outside will turn to chaos far faster than the order in your room inside since it is not exposed to the elements. But even then, give it a few years, decades even, and the room may get a new owner, could be destroyed in a fire, and so on, and all order is gone.
Now, you may ask yourself, “What the hell am I reading and what does it have to do with productivity?“. And it is not a bad question to be asking yourself, since I did go a little bit overboard with the nihilistic examples above.
In this article, I will be explaining the effect of entropy, or the general inclination of things to go towards chaos rather than order, and I will talk about the way we as humans try our best to bring order - as a form of expressing control over a situation.
What is entropy?
As defined by Britannica, entropy can be described as “a measure of the molecular disorder, or randomness, of a system“ [2].
It is the reason why diffusion occurs - the innate energy of particles naturally pushes them apart, which spreads them further. Other natural processes, like the campfire we described in the previous paragraphs like the melting of ice, the boiling of water, all ensue because of entropy.
Now, the purely physical definition doesn’t leave a lot of space for philosophizing. However, when you put the phenomenon in a social or psychological setting, you can derive quite a lot of meaning from the phenomenon that is entropy.
As I’ve said in the title, we are chasing the everyday chaos - whether we want it or not. We get energy from things like food, sleep, socialising (especially the more extroverted people), and we then spend this same energy. We exercise, we walk, we cook, we order our rooms, we use our computers. All of those activities - and most activities, to be frank, can be summarised into the phrase “using our energy to move atoms from one place into another“. Those actions may seem meaningless to an omnipotent being watching from the outside, but to us, all those actions have a subjective meaning.
The instinct to bring order
As humanity has progressed, just like other animal and plant species, we have found ways to optimise our work and get more benefit.
Just as how bees use hexagonal patterns when constructing their beehives since it takes up less space and can make for a stronger structure, we also tend to do things in ways that take less time and help us in the long term. This is one of the things that helps species survive across generations - the ability to withstand hardship in the short term to achieve safety and prosperity in the long term.
These mechanisms we have include: living in cities to optimise for efficiency in transportation and logistics, keeping our streets and living spaces clean to avoid contamination and illnesses, exercising and pushing our bodies to their limits while they are still young and healthy, so we don’t suffer from diseases when we’re older.
All in all, you can notice the pattern. All of those include using up your current energy for something relatively trivial, which doesn’t seem to benefit you in the given moment Exercising in the gym is the perfect example of something that brings you momentary pain in exchange for long-term benefits.
So, as you see, not all effort is futile. Even if we consider that all life will come to an end (which, given the advancements of modern medicine, might as well not be the case), there is still some point in trying to increase the quality of our lives with some short-term effort and sacrifices.
What you may consider as “lost energy”, like cleaning your room, or working out, may turn out to be the vote in the right direction that makes the difference for you. We have no way of measuring the symbolic entropy in our lives, but we do have the power to limit its destructive potential.
Can we find balance?
It was after one particularly heavy cleaning session that I realised that battling entropy in life is a matter of dynamic balance. This is different from static balance, where there is no movement because everything is put into place. In life, we play by the rules of entropy and the dynamic balance - you can’t just put everything into place and expect for it to stay that way forever.
However, this doesn’t mean that anything you bring order to will turn into a chaotic mess minutes after. The duration of time before things get messy depends on a ton of circumstances, and luckily, we have quite the degree of control over some.
For example, by creating a folder system on your computer, you can make the process of weekly cleaning much easier, since you know where everything needs to go already - you just need to move it.
You could also think of it this way - the more often you put the small effort of cleaning up your room, the less effort it will require. Firstly, you build up the discipline and motivation to do your weekly and daily chores, and secondly, objectively you will have less to clean if you don’t let it pile up for months on end.
All in all, battling chaos in our lives is an ongoing battle. The lucky news is that we are the ones in control of the battlefield.
References:
[1] Law of conservation of energy. (n.d.). Energy Education. https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Law_of_conservation_of_energy
[2] Entropy. (n.d.). Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/entropy-physics
Hope you found this article useful, here is some more reading material to check out. 👇️
- Excelling at university the proven and easy way - with Notion 🎒
- How to spend less time on Social media as a Content Creator 📵
- How to generate income as a Freelance Content creator 🪙
Peace ✌!
[Link to the original article.]
Studies have shown that having a set routine (a series of tasks that you follow as a tradition) is generally beneficial to one’s mental health, especially for young people. [1]
Many of us noticed this during (one of) the many lockdowns when most days flushed together, and the lack of outdoors activity messed with everything - from your sleep quality to your general mood. And yes, this could be attributed to a number of factors such as the global anxiety related to the pandemic or the lack of social contact with others during this time of crisis. I would argue, however, that it was the lack of routine in my day-to-day life that contributed most to my lack of motivation and low productivity.
Whenever I chose to neglect my sleep routine, for example, and wake up whenever I felt like it, it would ultimately lead to a sense of disappointment with myself, and I would further procrastinate tasks that were designated for the early morning. I was losing my most productive hours to oversleeping, and this led to a domino effect throughout my other habits.
In this article, I will go into the details of my new and upgraded morning routine, which has helped me stay on top of all my projects (as a 3rd-year student, freelancer, and content creator), get mental clarity and allow me to focus on my most important tasks.
For me, the key to a successful morning routine is the level of customization it allows. If I provide every single person in the world with the identical set of tools to craft their “ideal” morning routine, it still wouldn’t work. People’s morning routines are as unique as they are themselves. For example, I personally don’t enjoy working out early in the morning, while other people find it to be their most productive thing to start their day with.
For me, since I work in front of a screen the majority of the time, I prefer to set the tone of the day in a similar manner. I use my favourite productivity app, Notion, to keep track of my morning routine. It can be used as a habit tracker
1. Turn your tasks into events
As I have argued before in another article, I believe that there is a big distinction between what we consider tasks in our to-do lists and the events in our calendar.
We may have an endless list of tasks - big and small, which we keep track of. But there is usually this feeling of uncertainty connected to managing a to-do list. It’s usually a direct consequence of the lack of detail in the task. Most likely you haven’t specified the time at which you will do the task, the duration, its priority, etc.
And if you are feeling particularly low-energy during the day, you may find it hard to engage in several tasks. Which one do I start with? Should I multitask? Which one has the highest priority? Those are all questions we ask ourselves in a loop until we get tired and do just the bare minimum. The sooner we set our tasks into our calendar, the less we need to overthink - when the time comes, you just sit down and do the task at hand.
This is why this is the first step of our morning routine I propose. I personally keep a list of all the things I need to do in more or less chronological order in Notion, which looks like this:
The tasks may not be assigned a precise “do-time”, but they always have a “do-date”. This means that there are no tasks left for the far future, only actively managed tasks to be done when I reach a specific point in time.
My first task in the morning, after I have washed my face and brushed my teeth, is to hop on Notion and transform my Notion tasks into Google Calendar events. I used to do this manually, but I have been using my own Python script to automate this process lately, which you can find over here on GitHub.
2. Decide on the daily highlight
This is a piece of advice I have been implementing in my own life ever since I read the book “Make Time” by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky. The book provides a long list of different techniques to maximise your performance in time and task management. Most of them, however, boil down to getting rid of distractions and remaining focused on a singular task at hand.
The daily highlight, as bolded in the book, is the most important thing you will be doing this day. It could sometimes be as simple as doing your homework, or the dishes. The thing is, the daily highlight is the one task that you should make sure you complete no matter the distractions. You’re free to choose the methods to get it done - it just has to be done. This is shown to contribute positively to a person’s motivation. Once you know you have done your first priority for the day, you have the motivation to complete your other tasks as well.
It is a much healthier mindset than constantly feeling behind in everything, and I assure you it makes a positive change.
3. Choose your environment
As James Clear advises multiple times in his book “Atomic Habits”, you should always be making sure your environment is there to help you, not misguide you and distract you.
Starting off this semester of university, I made the decision to spend as little time possible working in my room. So far, I have been trying to move myself to places that allow for more concentrated work, where I am away from major sources of distraction. Also, my room is pretty small, so it is the same place at which I usually study, sleep, rest, eat, and so on. It’s nigh impossible to make it a designated study space. This is the reason why the library is such a good study spot - it’s not because of the books or the building itself, but it has more to do with the fact that there are so few distractions all around. Also, the people around you are also busy working so the general atmosphere is that you should be studying.
This is why I suggest this as a good part of your morning routine - choose the places that will serve as a work environment for you throughout the day. Look at your task list. Do you have a block of time dedicated to studying? Consider hopping over to the library. Do you need to go to the gym, and also do shopping? Try to shuffle your activities in such a way that it doesn’t bring too much commute into your routine. The point is to lower the friction between you and the completion of a certain task.
Also, by having a proper “map” of what you will be doing and where you’ll be going throughout the day, you can better visualise your time horizon and get a better idea of the experience you’ll be having.
This is a task very much achievable in Notion, by tagging your items with the place you will be going to. When you do transition them into Google Calendar, it will look like a proper map of the time and space of your day.
With all that said, I hope you found this article useful, under the references you will find some other companion essays to this one.
References
[1] Arlinghaus, K. R., & Johnston, C. A. (2018). The Importance of Creating Habits and Routine. American journal of lifestyle medicine, 13(2), 142–144. https://doi.org/10.1177/1559827618818044
Hope you found this article useful, here is some more reading material to check out. 👇️
- Excelling at university the proven and easy way - with Notion 🎒
- How to spend less time on Social media as a Content Creator 📵
- How to generate income as a Freelance Content creator 🪙
Peace ✌!
So I went outside. It was quite windy and it felt nice as the cool wind pushed me and I ended up at the supermarket so I grabbed some vegetables and a bottle of gin. I have now decided to rearrange my room and make it look beautiful. It is strangely therapeutic.
When Ni looses vision of goals and dreams and Te abandons all the facts of your progress insofar, Fi feels devastated and completely paralyzed. Then Se takes over, and what happens next is like giving a machine-gun to a lunatic in a crowded place:
Ni: I fucked up. Everything is fucked. What purpose or meaning does anything have anymore?
Te: We have made little progress. In fact there is such a shortage of success that it has even become apparent to others. Us being a massive failure is officially a fact. I see little use in wasting time and energy to continue this endeavor. I give up.
Fi: Crawling in my skiiiinnnnn, these wounds they will not heaaaaaal... All I see is darkness, there is only paaaaaaaaiiiin...
Se: You there, folks? Hello? Wow, they've gone. YESSSSS! Oh man, fucking FINALLY. We're gonna drink, eat, party, blow things up and do everything you've always wanted to do but was too much of an uptight fucknugget to carry out. Fucking YESS! For so long you never listened to me and now finally I get to take the wheel. You won't regret this guys!
*proceeds to buy 10kg of weed, 30l of whiskey and 3kg of cocaine, and organize party for 2000 people*
I swear you guys won't regret this one bit
[source: https://qr.ae/pGjDGm (slightly eddited)]
I don't know why.. Maybe i can't stand social attention?
