Inversion - a tool for change

Jon

Administrator
Staff member
#1
I have started using a mind hack to assist in making personal change. It comes highly recommended as a favourite tool of Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's business partner and fellow billionaire.

Here is some brainstorming I did mid-December on an issue I was dealing with:

Problem

I can't get out of bed early. This is costing me dearly in my earnings and career. So, let's think about this using inversion, Charlie Munger style.

To get up late, I need to:
  • Get into bed late
  • Watch YouTube on my phone in bed
  • Take my phone to my bedroom
  • Eat late
  • Watch football late
  • Stay exposed to blue light from computer screens until just before bed
  • Give myself long snooze times, like 30 minutes.
  • Have my alarm easy to turn off
  • Be in my office until late, rather than in my bedroom
  • Start thinking about bed when it is after 11pm, instead of before then.
  • Clean my teeth late
  • Get my water later
  • Turn off the telly late
  • Have no defined time to go to bed
  • Not be changed for bed until just before getting into bed(?)
  • Take dirty plates, cans and drinks down to kitchen late
  • Making excuses that tonight is different, and so therefore it is ok to go to bed late tonight.
Ideas to transform this:
  • Target 11:15pm as time to get into bed.
  • Target 11:30pm as time to turn lights out
  • Leave phone in office
  • Get light for reading physical book in bed, rather than reading on my phone
  • Eat around 8pm
  • Limit my snooze to 10 mins if possible
  • At 10:45pm, take down drinks and plates to kitchen, get water, clean my teeth, change into dressing gown
I hope the above was a useful example of how to use inversion. If you have a go at using it yourself, let us know what you did!
 

Bee

Founding Member
#2
Useful.

As an aside, 'inversion' was one of the ways of describing homosexual relationships in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
 

Jon

Administrator
Staff member
#3
Sometimes seeing a specific example can give pointers to how to use it yourself.

e.g.

How to be lonely:
- Turn down opportunities to meet people
- Favour alone activities to group activities
- Don't go to religious meetings
- Don't search the internet for local interest groups
- Don't invite friends over
- Don't travel to meet other people
- Have little time left for socialising by working too hard
- Bath once a week!
- Irritate the hell out of people
- Bee really fussy about who you meet up with
- Be single

Just some ideas.

[By the way, I don't do ALL the above! :p]
 
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