{"id":1794,"date":"2023-09-19T14:24:37","date_gmt":"2023-09-19T14:24:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/uncategorized\/1794\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T21:29:53","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T21:29:53","slug":"stop-thinking-in-abstract-terms-and-do-something","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/uncategorized\/stop-thinking-in-abstract-terms-and-do-something\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop thinking in abstract terms, and do something.<\/a>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stop thinking in abstract terms, and do something.<\/p>\n

I was offering networking advice this morning, and realized that when I think of it as “networking”, it feels very daunting. What does it mean to network? How do I make sure I connect with the right people? Where do I even start?<\/p>\n

The advice I gave was to start with easy steps, like reaching out when you think of somebody you already know, say you were thinking of them, and offer to chat. I often do this after seeing an update from somebody I know on LinkedIn. That feels much more attainable to me than “networking” as an abstract concept.<\/p>\n

“Exercise” is another bugaboo for me. I used to think of exercise as something to be done intensely for two hours at a time, like climbing a mountain on my bike, or playing ultimate frisbee or volleyball. As a busy parent these days, that just isn’t realistic. I’ve gotten better at walking to run my errands as one way to get some physical activity in my day, but I have been struggling to do more strength training. I have a hard time even motivating to do the 7-minute NYTimes workout that I have printed out, even though I definitely waste more than 7 minutes over the course of the day. <\/p>\n

I realized this morning that if I stop thinking of it as “exercise”, I can just add in pushups and other body-weight exercises throughout my day whenever it occurs to me, rather than find the time and energy to do 3 sets of several exercises. Because I have this preconception of “exercise” as something I have to schedule and motivate myself for, it becomes a much bigger mental effort to get started. I wonder if I take out the abstract term, I can lower my activation energy around it.<\/p>\n

I feel like there’s a more general principle here about the perils of abstraction – when I put an abstract term on something, it becomes bigger and harder to do, whereas if I just think about “what can I do in the next 2 minutes?” it’s easier to motivate. <\/p>\n

What’s an abstraction you’ve been struggling with? And what’s a thing you can do in the next two minutes to get started?<\/p>\n

#productivity #gettingstarted #networking #exercise<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stop thinking in abstract terms, and do something. I was offering networking advice this morning, and realized that when I think of it as “networking”, it feels very daunting. What does it mean to network? How do I make sure I connect with the right people? Where do I even start? The advice I gave…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1794"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4471,"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1794\/revisions\/4471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}