Marginal Decade, The Use of Knowledge, & More

Sharpening your thinking today:

• Makes-You-Think Tweet: Locks and laws
• Mind-Expanding Concept: Marginal Decade
• Cool Quote or Question: On having a process
• High-Signal Content: The use of knowledge in society

Makes-You-Think Tweet

Mind-Expanding Concept

Marginal Decade

"Marginal decade" is your last living decade, regardless if it's from 70 to 80 or from 95 to 105 years old. This concept from the longevity-focused MD Peter Attia is simple enough, its use that is interesting.

Peter argues that wanting to live a long and healthy life is not specific enough, so it's hard to take concrete steps to accomplish it. To increase our chances of having the ideal marginal decade, we should determine with (some) precision what we expect to be able to do then and backtrack from that. No one wants to spend her last years on the blue planet in a hospital bed, but what do you really want to be doing? Do you want to be able to carry your grandkids? Walk 2 miles/day? Be able to travel alone? Or live alone for that matter? Have sex?

The mix can be quite different for each person, but this exercise is fruitful for us all - it nudges us to think about "the end", which we tend to avoid, and highlights the importance of healthspan, as opposed only to lifespan. You wrote down your mix of activities. What's next?

Many of our capabilities decrease as we age: we lose muscle mass, cognitive speed, aerobic output, flexibility, etc. Based on your mix of activities and the knowledge of how fast and pronounced these declines occur, we can understand what types of exercises we should do and what level of fitness we should have NOW. And chances are, regardless of how your ideal marginal decade looks like, you need to be in better shape.

Cool Quote or Question

A lot of time could be saved and frustrations could be prevented if we could just discuss and define the process before “jumping right in”.

Take meetings, for example. Many meetings could be better run if people took 5 minutes to discuss the process: “Hi all, that’s the goal of the meeting, that’s the agenda, and that’s the structure and what I plan to show you. Joe will take notes and share them with the group by the end of the day. Does that make sense?”

Process is underrated because it’s not sexy. People’s reflex is to avoid processes because they think it would constrain them and would decrease their flexibility to play whatever game they play. But I think that’s wrong. A well-designed process automates and streamlines what should be, and saves energy and creativity for what it shouldn’t. In the long term, a well-oiled process will deliver greater output than a slightly less intentional one, without losing the personal touch.

High-Signal Content

“The peculiar character of the problem of a rational economic order is determined precisely by the fact that the knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess. (…) Or, to put it briefly, it is a problem of the utilization of knowledge which is not given to anyone in its totality.”

See you next week,

Filipe