Spaceship You: The Fundamentals to a Good Life

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Initially published on September 13, 2022

I recently watched Spaceship You from CGP Grey on YouTube. He discusses the important concept of the separation of spaces and associating doing different activities in different areas. It's important to create and have structure in your life, and physical separation is the start of that.

While this made during the pandemic, I think it’s just as relevant for today and the future (Grey said in the podcast that this is really a guide for life, the pandemic just provided a nice framing for him to pitch this idea - p.s. I would love a version 2!). I still find myself in my own spaceship or pod lots of the time, and I still need to work on returning to Earth some of the time. I’m sure I’m not completely alone in this regard. That being said, whoever you are, I recommend you watch this video because you may learn something new and valuable or be reminded of something that you can apply to your life for the better. I am not joking when I say this is one of the best videos I’ve ever seen.

I think he has overall great advice and a guide to a healthy, productive, happy life that is informative and succinct. It hits all the major foundational aspects, these are the basic ideas and principles that will account for 80/90/95% of becoming healthy, productive, happy, etc. Nail these foundations first, then you can get into the details. You may see all these life hacks online, maybe some of them work, but a lot are probably bullshit. Grey’s advice is what I’ve heard multiple times before, but it’s really nice to have it all in this one place in a beautifully made video. A lot of it is common sense, or a lot may be ideas you just never thought of before. Essentially, have separate places to sleep, work/create, workout, and for relaxation/entertainment. Also, exercise is non-optional.

I am now going to start creating my spaceship and defining my sections, therefore defining and creating the life I want to lead.

Other resources on the topic:

Reddit discussion 

Further discussion on Grey’s podcast

• Not just physical space/location, but other types of association for different types of things are helpful. Different devices or accounts, doing all your exercise on a yoga mat, clothing, having a playlist just for exercise or work, etc. Thing about your alarm sound, or athletes having certain songs they listen to before they get in the zone to perform (Phelps has his headphones on before racing, baseball player walkout songs, Josh Waitzkin and Lose Yourself when he did BJJ). There is also a time (of day) aspect as you develop a schedule/routine. Maybe you do writing or exercising first thing in the morning. You want to have structure to your day/week. This also reminds me of anchoring - to form a new habit, do it before/during/after something you already do automatically.

• Grey mentions time management - I've never been great at it, I want to start just tracking stuff like how much time I actually spend working or studying. (like tracking your weight, diet/food, etc.) Once you put concrete numbers onto things, it can just help you realize if you're on the right track, making progress, etc.

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