Category Archives: Miscellaneous

The 90-Minute Rule

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Coffee

90 minutes is the optimal duration for achieving certain types of immersion: social, narrative, health, entertainment, and more. Any shorter than 90 minutes, you cannot cover all the bases. Any longer, the brain may lose focus.

Generally, I set aside 90 minutes for coffee or meal get-togethers and tend to hit that mark without keeping track of time. All of the bases have been covered and the situation has turned cognitively stale. 

While being a conceptual and social theory, the 90-minute rule may be naturally linked to the circadian rhythm of our bodies (a sleep cycle lasts roughly 90 minutes, for example).

I have found the following to be most effective when conformed to a 90-minute window of time:

  • Revisiting with an old friend
  • Business meetings
  • Brainstorming sessions
  • Feature films
  • Home dining experiences
  • Concerts
  • Board games

With enough arcs and nuances to an activity, the 90-minute rule can be broken and expanded to achieve longer sustained immersion. Hikes, conventions, recreational sports, and several forms of entertainment can all present enough twists and turns to keep you invested longer than 90 minutes. The average duration of my ten favorite films, for example, is 131 minutes. Rich and fulfilling content or activities can transcend time (and your day calendar).

Can you think of any other activities that fit a 90-minute profile?

My Ten Favorite Films

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I find the following films well-crafted, recommendable, consistently impactful, personally timeless, and definitively influential to my own life. In no particular order:

Favorite Filmes

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

United 93 (2006)

American Beauty (1999)

Se7en (1995)

Minority Report (2002)

The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

L.A. Confidential (1997)

Road to Perdition (2002)

Heat (1995)

Blade Runner (1982)

My list will no doubt evolve as my tastes evolve. But for now, these films have lingered in my heart as favorites for a better part of the decade.

Three Steps to Earning Trust

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Step 1:  Invite Trust by listening. For someone to trust you, he or she must first be comfortable enough to share with you. You can make them feel comfortable by listening well, patiently and without judgement. Let them know you truly care.
 
Step 2:  Affirm Trust by making a promise. When you identify an actionable promise you can make (keeping a secret, reaching out, delivering results), acknowledge it with a nod, hug or “you can trust me.” Be sure it is a promise you can keep.
 
Step 3:  Validate Trust by keeping that promise. Without question, deliver on your word. The negative effect of breaking a promise can produce far more noticeable results than the positive effect of fulfilling one. You may never be praised for keeping a secret, but you can certainly cripple your reputation by sharing it. Remind the person that trust does not have to end here.

Repeat these steps enough and you can earn everyone’s trust effortlessly.

Film Friday: The Project Triangle

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Project TriangleThe Project Triangle concept was first conceived in the engineering world and has helped me navigate countless managerial decisions in Hollywood. For those not familiar, the Project Triangle rules that you can only pick two of the three: Good, Fast or Cheap.

The logic makes sense and can help you rapidly prioritize through difficult, urgent decisions. In film, there are many – especially as a studio executive, producer, or coordinator.

If you want quality work done quickly, you cannot expect things to be cheap. Talented artists who can move fast without missing a beat are extremely rare and therefore extremely expensive. Want a Director of Photography who can make 45 setups a day look like Leibovitz? Start at $3,000 per day. 3D conversion of a feature film in 45 days? $12-15 Million base.

If you want the project resolved promptly and to cut costs, do not expect top-notch work. Running and gunning a show with cheap labor opens the door for creative and technical mistakes. Many independent films do not gain traction because they simply lack the resources and time to reach distributable or marketable quality. Entire companies like The Asylum have embraced mediocre output to sustain business and cut substantial costs.

If you want to win awards and save money, be prepared to wait a very long time. If you are lucky, the material is strong enough to inspire great talent for scale cost – but you have to work around their schedules. Everyone needs to pay the bills – and my pro bono contribution to your breakout short will take the back seat to my full-time job. Sorry.

I think you can accomplish all three triangle points in one project, but most likely as a weekend passion project or a random conceptual twist of genius. Very rarely, great work is created in little time with no money. As an administrator or producer, you cannot bank on that roll of the dice.

Be prepared for only two of the three; hope for the third.

Jack of All Trades, Master of None

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Justin Hamilton alerted me to this figure of speech over dinner last night. The ordeal with general education, I think. One can learn a little bit of everything or learn one thing really well. Which direction should you choose?

In the business world, niche is king. It is much smoother to specialize, carve your name, and turn a profit. Expert a trade skill and you will never have a problem finding a job in your field again. A specialist is far more straightforward than a generalist – more simple to rationalize and far easier to market.

The risk? You can get boxed in, branded, stuck. Known as a great musician, it will be difficult making your name in other art. Known as a great assistant, you will have trouble being seen as anything but a great assistant. Known as a talented comedy writer, you will never be taken seriously. The list goes on. Think you might want to change gears later in life? Be weary of specializing. Mastering a skill is great for those who prefer simple lives, terrible for others who live to explore.

Being a “jack of all trades” heightens your exposure to a wider variety of crafts, trades, fields and skill-sets. You have more options and therefore a broader opportunity to discover your true passion and talent. You may never be the best at anything specific, but you know a lot about the world and can be a broad resource. You can be the center of it all, a leader. Great leaders can speak the language of their collaborators and must understand the all of the trades involved. I would argue “jack of all trades” status is a prerequisite to leading strong teams.

Master of none? How about mastering the jack of all?

The Curse of a Twenty-Something

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You graduated college. Time for the real world. The bills, the loans, the career, and perhaps even children. Life gets difficult, responsibility escalates. You need help now more than ever. But wait – where did all my friends go?

Being twenty-something can be a very lonely experience. Why? All of your peers are preoccupied with the real world, too. They are all busy reconciling jobs, covering the bases, relocating, soul-searching, starting families, and planning for futures yet unseen. You are not alone. But you are alone.

Some adults never recover. They never find a social life again. The burdens of adulthood consume and defeat an otherwise fruitful, interpersonal existence.

That does not have to be your fate. All twenty-somethings suffer relatable woes. Why not help each other? Revisit an old relationship once every day. Rebuild your support group. Make a habit of staying in touch weekly. Get out of the house at least two weeknights every week. Get out of your own head as often as possible. If it is too difficult to meet new friends, re-meeting old friends can be much easier. You do not have to be alone. But only you can take action; do not wait to be called.

Pick up the damn phone.

5 Fundamentals for the Effective Listener

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    1. Always make eye contact. Know the other person’s eye color.

    2. Face the subject directly. Not at an angle, not side-by-side. Square your shoulders.

    3. Pay attention. Be present in the conversation. No cheating. Staring into space is not listening.

    4. Respond. Listening is not always silent. Repeat core thoughts, ask questions, laugh. It can save you from boredom.

    5. Lean forward. Into the conversation. But be careful not to invade personal space. Intimacy is key. Do not be afraid to connect.

    Listen to someone well and they will be more inclined to listen to you.

    Why the Email Subject Will Never Die

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    Mark Zuckerberg does not favor email as a mode of communication because he finds it too clunky and formal. “You have to think of the email address, you have to think of a subject line. You write, ‘Hey Mom’ at the top. You write, ‘Love, Mark’ to conclude it.”

    I agree with him about the email address part – any email client that does not automatically fill in the addresses in your recipient field deserves to fail. But I do not agree with the subject line part.

    In the social world, it makes sense. Most people share relatively linear relationships with their friends and can contextualize a random message based on past and current circumstances. The person’s name is usually enough to clue you in on the content of the message. You do not need a subject line for a SMS or Facebook message.

    But that only works until personal takes a business turn. When tasks, goals or projects are outlined in text between two or more people, it becomes necessary to separate and categorize different messages. All mixed together, task items become difficult to track and organize. To me, Facebook messages are an organizational nightmare. Don’t you dare try to do business with me through Facebook.

    The naked subject line does not work AT ALL when you do not know the sender. The subject line is the sender’s only chance at catching my attention. Like a book title, the subject line must explain who the person is and hook me into reading the message. I get over 90 legitimate emails per day, 75% of which are not spam or newsletters and a large chunk from people I do not know. If I spend two mintues with each email (which is on the short end of what it usually takes), that’s nearly 3 hours a day in Gmail. I do not have time for that. Without the email subject, I cannot prioritize, categorize or contextualize.

    Email subjects are titles. We are a title-driven culture. The title is a necessary barrier to entry. They always say, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” But the cover is all we have to make a choice. As long as we have choices to make, we will have titles there to help us. As long as I have a million emails to read, the subject line better be there to help me.

    How to Track Your Sleep And Earn A Better Night’s Rest

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    The key to a higher quality life is through self assessment. To improve performance, break habits and adjust personal behavior, one must quantify his or her life with gadgets, apps and spreadsheets that help track personal trends and identify areas for improvement. I am very much on board with the Quantified Self school of thought. I maintain spreadsheets galore.

    I have never been able to track my sleep in spreadsheets. Why? Well, because I am asleep.

    Enter Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock. My friends Drew and Nicole introduced me to this rather handy iOS application that graphs your sleep phases. Place your iPod or iPhone on the bed next to you at night and the accelerometer will monitor your every move to determine which phase of sleep you are in. The main purpose behind the app is to wake you during your lightest sleep phase where you feel rested and relaxed (in a specified time range rather than a hard alarm time), but I have found it more useful for the sleep graphs.

    Sleep Cycle Graph

    Above, my graph from Friday – went to bed at 1:40am, woke up at 9:59am and slept a total of 8 hours and 19 minutes (believe it or not, college friends – I actually sleep now!).

    With only a week of data, I can already see trends. I am taking notes on pre-sleep activity, successful bed times, successful waking times and more. Apparently, a glass of wine within an hour of bedtime has helped me to sleep quicker. Uh oh!

    Keep track and you can unlock self improvement.