246. What I Learned from Naval Ravikant's Meditation Challenge of 60 Hours in 60 Days

<p>I recently saw <a href= "https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Exploring-the-%22planning-fallacy%22%3A-Why-people-their-Buehler-Griffin/f91964dad8c0e54cd58b1aa99e430b900fcf082b"> a tweet storm</a> by entrepreneur/investor/philosopher Naval Ravikant. He was challenging people to meditate sixty minutes a day for sixty consecutive days.</p> <!--more--> <p>The view from the location of my 60th hour-long meditation session. Here’s a quote from Naval about his meditation challenge, from <a href= "https://www.amazon.com/dp/1544514212?linkCode=gs2&tag=kadavynet08-20"> <em>The Naval Almanack</em></a>:</p> <blockquote>Meditation isn’t hard. All you have to do is sit there and do nothing. Just sit down. Close your eyes and say, “I’m just going to give myself a break for an hour. This is my hour off from life. This is the hour I’m not going to do anything. If thoughts come, thoughts come. I’m not going to fight them. I’m not going to embrace them. I’m not going to think harder about them. I’m not going to reject them. I’m just going to sit here for an hour with my eyes closed, and I’m going to do nothing.”</blockquote> <p>An hour a day of doing nothing? I thought, “That’s crazy!” So, I did it. It changed the way I think about productivity.</p> <h3>Who can give up an hour a day?</h3> <p>Giving up an hour a day for two months seemed impossible. But I knew if I didn’t at least try it, I’d be a hypocrite. I had just finished writing a book called <a href= "http://kadavy.net/mind-management-not-time-management/"><em>Mind Management, Not Time Management</em></a>, after all. Taking on this challenge meant I’d be giving up an hour a day in the midst of launching a new book – which is always a busy time. But it also looked like the best possible test of my belief that <a href= "http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/end-time-management/">time management is dead</a>. I’d give up an hour a day of “doing” to just sit. I’d place less emphasis on time, and more emphasis on my mind. Here’s how it went.</p> <h3>Meditation killed my motivation (in