Episode 115 - A reminder to slow down
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Speaker: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Next Level Chess Podcast. As always, I'm Grandmaster Noël Studer, your host. And today, I just wanna share a little reminder for you and me to slow down

It is so logical for me, yet so hard to apply, to pace myself properly, to start small, to avoid cramming, to take my breaks. Even though I know it, I continuously catch myself over-pacing, slightly burning out, and many adult improvers, especially the ones successful in their career or the type A personalities, struggle with the same problem

And if you've been listening to this podcast and following my work for a while, you might think, "Ah, he is at this point again," because [00:01:00] this is a loop that I come back to, and I feel I learn a little bit more every time, but it's still the same pattern over and over again

And here's the core belief that gets me into that loop over and over again. It is something along the lines of I gotta get the most out of my time. I had this motto of getting the most out of my life in general, and I tried to let go of it, but there needs to be somewhere deep down still that belief of getting the most out of my time Because there's something weird that happens when I plan my week.

I always try to go for the absolute maximum. Like, not in a sense of working 60 hours a week, but if I say, "Hey, these are my X amount of hours," I am always extremely optimistic of how much I can get done. And I get this feeling of like, "No, hell no, I'm not going to plan less than that," you know? "Oh, I don't wanna not get done with these things."

It kind of [00:02:00] feels like somebody would rob me of something if I would plan less. And I see that same pattern in many students posting their training plans in the Simplified Chess Improvement System community, where, I look at the plan, I'm like, "Wow, this is very ambitious." And sometimes it's like they will be gone for two months, they didn't really plan well, and you come back and you're like, "Okay, week one, boom, let me recover everything.

What would be the perfect chess week?" And that's just ultimately not going to work. But when you point it out to someone else, when you're not in the right state of mind, what happens is this kind of feeling defensively of like, "Oh, hell no," like, "I'm not going to plan less. That would be a huge loss for me."

S- somehow, thinking about having a week where we do less as a type A personality is seen as a risk, as a shame, as like, "Oh, I'm lazy. That's not good. I'm not doing anything with my life." But when I think about it logically, when I get centered back, I'm like, "Uh, [00:03:00] that, that is very weird. That's a very weird belief to have."

Because a week enjoying my time working well, but not until I explode or, you know, at the very 101% I could do, getting maybe even a little bit bored sometimes and getting a little bit less done is not bad, and even more extremely, like, probably something that many would love to have in their life, especially if you have a very stressful job with, you know, an annoying boss and , you can't take, these moments to relax a little bit

For many of us, actually not having to be productive all the time is like a goal. There are whole movements pushing towards financial independence, right? The FIRE, movement so they can retire early But it's ironical that I have kind of part of that in me, but then when I have the chance of doing less, I feel like, "No, no, no, I can't, I can't plan less.

That is, that's impossible." And I really see that same thing in so many [00:04:00] students

And it reminds me of a famous parable of the American businessman and the Mexican fisherman. The very short version is that the Mexican fisherman catches enough fish for the day, then relaxes, drinks wine, plays guitar, and spends time with his loved ones. And an American businessman sees this on holidays in Mexico and goes crazy and makes a whole presentation about how to build a business out of this, how to hire people, make a fleet of boats,

catch so many fishes so that at some point he can sell the company and be able to relax, drink wine, play guitar, and spend time with loved ones

So yeah, I hate to admit it, but sometimes I still am the American businessman and not the Mexican fisherman

As I mentioned saying this at the beginning of the episode, I wrote this down mostly as a reminder for myself. But [00:05:00] I believe some of you, especially if you're still listening, will benefit from it. So let us all go back to the basics. Let's plan what we wanna do, but start with less than we believe we can do in an ideal week.

Doesn't have to be ideal, doesn't have to get the maximum out of it, just what we think is, yeah, we can do that even without feeling too stressed about it. Let's take our breaks. Let's enjoy what we're doing and decide to do it with good energy

And when the thing happens that we're looking and we're like, "Hey, I would have an extra hour," let's just try to enjoy it instead of cramming it full of chess improvement, or in my case, work. It's not like a free hour has to always be filled with something productive. Actually

The whole point of working for many of us is that we have time that we can then spend without worrying about finances or being [00:06:00] stressed or productive. So let's push ourselves less as a American businessman and be a little bit more like the Mexican fisherman. And the one thing that always recenters me is rereading "Four Thousand Weeks" by Oliver Burkeman.

I'm, like, on my fourth or fifth reread, and it kind of always brings me back in the loop of, like, okay, recentering. Oh, no, I've done it again. Um, let's go back to what really matters. So if you feel this episode was useful for you, I can guarantee you Oliver Burkeman will, you know, challenge a lot, but be extremely mind-blowing.

Highly recommend That's it for this one. See you next week. Hey, guys, just two quick things before you take off. If you enjoyed this episode and want more structured chess improvement tips from myself, check out my newsletter at [00:07:00] nextlevelchess.com/newsletter. It's totally free. It will always remain free, and it goes out every single Friday with the best, latest chess improvement tips that I have.

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