Bird's Eye Overview
A good way to think about the structure of the ideas in this book is as a tree.
You can read most of the following chapters in whatever order you like. There are little connections here and there but for the most part, the recipes can be used independently.
There are, however, two main branches.
Roughly one-half of the recipes deal with what to focus on. We will talk about recipes that will help you decide what daily actions, what kind of goals, what habits, and what areas of your life and character to focus on.
The second half deals with how to frame things. As you’re moving through life, you’re confronted with millions of bits of new information every single day. That’s inevitable. But what’s entirely within your control is how you deal with the data coming in. All information is neutral. It’s only our little human brains that can’t help themselves but give it some sort of meaning.
There’s one big secret, however.
You have a ton of control over what meaning you give to different pieces of information.
Once you understand that, why not start giving things meaning in a way that serves you? That’s precisely the kind of thing our second set of recipes deals with.
So that covers how we humans operate in a nutshell. Information comes in, we digest it, and then decide what to focus on (e.g. taking certain actions, doing nothing, …).
All of the following human operating recipes are either about what you focus on or how you frame things. These are our two main branches.
In addition, there’s the trunk.
Unless you live intentionally, none of the remaining recipes matter.
It doesn’t matter how much you know about what to focus on and how to frame things if you’re living on autopilot. You actually have to use the recipes to get anything out of this book.
So that’s naturally where we’re going to start in the next chapter.