My Theme for 2021 (per the Theme System from Myke Hurley and CGP Grey) is The Year of Just Ring The Bell Again. It’s a mouthful, but it doubles as a mantra and an answer to every question, doubt, or jam.

It is a simple repudiation of the patterns that have kept me stuck.

I’ve spent my adult life agonizing over making good things. This has caused me to not make lots of things. And since making lots of things is strongly correlated with making good things, this focus on making good things has ironically caused me to not make good things.

When COVID hit and my production company got sidelined for a few months, I fell into my old systems-obsessed patterns and started searching for the RIGHT WAY to FINALLY put all the stuff into the world that I’ve been holding on to for years.

Avoiding the vague, sickly feeling that I was treading familiar ground (going all in on systems/tools for doing great work as opposed to just doing it), I stumbled upon @fortelabs’s course via my honeymoon with Roam Research and my rekindled obsession with the Zettelkasten.

I recoiled from Building a Second Brain as from a hot flame. My answer could not be another course, another system. And I hate this marketing. And I hate Evernote. And I already know all this stuff. I’ve read/thought about it more than anyone, maybe more than Tiago—and yet…

So I read a bunch of Tiago’s writing. And it gave me pause. There was something undeniably different about his approach. It had all the trappings of the systems I was accustomed to getting buried in but it seemed to very intentionally not include any Cleanly Satisfaction™.

Cleanly Satisfaction™ is the cocaine drip included with every book/course/system in the Productivity Porn Industrial Complex. It’s a numbing, syrupy tincture that provides temporary satisfaction from the maintenance of a system even when one is getting nothing from that system.

Tiago’s non-stop focus appeared to be on designing systems that take as little effort as possible to maintain and that work especially well when you do nothing to maintain them. The point is simply to Press Publish as soon and as often as possible. Anything else is a distraction.

Since taking #BASB (and @david_perell’s sister course), I’ve sent a newsletter for 20 weeks in a row. It isn’t always good, but good isn’t the focus. It’s not that good doesn’t matter. Of course quality matters. But focusing on good produces the only thing worse than bad: nothing

To paraphrase James Clear, if there’s no regularity, no habit, no routine in place, then there’s nothing to optimize. I’ve been focused on the optimization of optimization for too long. It’s been fun. I’ve learned a lot. But I haven’t honored my innate desire to create and share.

And to quote someone very prolific (and very cancelled): 90% of life is just showing up.

Just Ring The Bell Again is a really simple idea. It turns a question like “Is this good enough yet?” into “What will it take to press publish in the next twenty minutes?”

The Year of Just Ring The Bell Again doesn’t only apply to work (focusing so much on Work is another of my unskillful tendencies). “Shoot, I don’t have an hour to do my full workout” becomes “Hit the bike for 20 minutes.” Just. Ring. The. Bell. Again.

I’ve already started The Year of Just Ring The Bell Again because waiting for an arbitrary date to Just Ring The Bell Again is not living in the spirit of Just Ring The Bell Again. I’m ringing the bell every day, gaining momentum…..

Followup: The most pleasant surprise: It’s not hard.