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How To Journal Like The Martian
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This one fiction book has been more
useful to me than any self-help book I
have ever read. It's The Martian by Andy
Weir. It doesn't just tell me how to
think. It shows me how to think through
the story of a guy stranded on Mars with
nothing but potatoes, the will to
survive, and a journal. It's not just a
sci-fi story. It's the clearest road map
I found for thinking clearly when it
feels like the world is against you. Hi,
I'm Sam Mass. I'm a writer and
filmmaker. And in this video, we're
unpacking what The Martian can teach us
about solving real problems step by
step, system by system. First, we'll
define what computational thinking means
and how it shapes the mindset and
writing style of The Martian. Then,
we'll take a look at each of its core
pillars: decomposition, pattern
recognition, abstraction, and
algorithms. And I'll show how each one
shows up in the book and how you can use
these same principles to solve problems
in your own life. Finally, we'll take a
look at why this system works. How it
helps you stay calm, think clearly, and
keep moving forward even when everything
feels broken.
Before Andy Weir became a best-selling
author, he was a computer programmer.
And it shows because The Martian reads
less like a science fiction novel and
more like a debug log. The main
character, Mark Wattney, isn't just
surviving. He's thinking like a
computer. And this method of thinking
has a name. It's called computational
thinking. Computational thinking is a
way of solving complex problems by
breaking them down. spotting useful
patterns, ignoring distractions, and
creating step-by-step plans. That is
what Wattney does throughout the entire
book. When things go south, and they
always go south, he doesn't just spiral
out. He gets systematic.
Our service mission here was supposed to
last 31 souls. For redundancy, they send
68 souls worth of food. That's for six
people. So, for just me, that's going to
last 300 souls, which I figure I can
stretch to 400 if I ration. So, I got to
figure out a way to grow 3 years worth
of food here
on a planet where nothing grows.
Computational thinking is broadly broken
up into four main pillars. We're going
to take a look at the first one, which
is called decomposition.
Decomposition is a fancy way of saying
you take the big problem and you break
it into all of its smaller parts. So,
Wattney in the book is stranded on Mars.
He has no backup. He has no real rescue
plan. He has not enough food to survive.
So there's his big problem. Survive on
Mars. If you stop there and start
working on that problem, you will be
totally lost and confused and feel
utterly defeated because that as a
problem is too big. How do you survive
on Mars? Really, that problem is made up
of a bunch of smaller problems. So
that's what he does. He he starts
breaking down that problem. How am I
going to survive? How will I stay warm?
How will I get food? How will I
communicate with NASA? etc., etc. And
then he'll take those problems and some
of them are still too big. So he'll
break them down even further. So looking
at how do I get enough food to survive.
So he breaks that down. To get calories,
I need food. To get more food, I'll need
to grow food. To grow food, I'll need
dirt. I'll need water. I'll need
fertilizer. I'll need seeds, light,
time. Now he's breaking it down into
parts that he can start to solve. Right?
He has dirt. He has fertilizer. He
doesn't have enough water. So now he has
to solve how he's going to figure out
how to get enough water.
The problem is water.
I have created 126 square meters of
soil, but every cubic meter of soil
requires 40 L of water to be farmable.
So, I got to make a lot more water.
That's decomposition. You're breaking
down problems until you can get to a
point where they're actually solvable.
Here's the trick, though. If you're
still stuck, keep breaking something
down until it gets so easy that you feel
silly not to do it. If your goal is to
get in shape, that's a big problem. So,
you start putting together a plan,
eating plan, it feels too big, you're
not working out, you're still not doing
anything to actually solve this problem.
That's where you break it down to the
point where you're like, "All right, I'm
going to do one push-up today." Okay,
that sounds silly, but then guess what?
You're actually doing something. You're
actually taking a step. The goal isn't
to solve the whole big problem all at
once. The goal is to just break it down
into something you can address right
away. Okay. The second pillar of
computational thinking is called pattern
recognition. Uh there are two big types
to this pillar as I see it. There are
patterns that we recognize from the past
and then there's patterns that we
recognize as we're moving through in the
future. This is what the author Henrik
Carlson's calls unfolding. And Wattney
does both. So let's take a look at the
at the first. So when he decides to grow
food on Mars, he doesn't invent
agriculture, right? He asks, "What do I
already know about farming? What do I
have? What resources do I have? How can
I apply that here?" It's pretty
straightforward. You use what you
already know, apply it to your current
situation. So, if you're stuck in your
career, for example, and you think, "Oh,
I don't I don't even know what I want to
do next. I just know I hate my job, but
I can't figure out what I want to do."
Well, one of the great places to start
is to remember what has worked in the
past. Have you ever felt like this
before? Maybe when you were getting out
of school, you didn't know exactly what
you wanted to do, and so you went and
you targeted somebody and that actually
helped you get further down your path.
Okay, now let's talk about the second
kind um that I refer to as unfolding.
Unfolding basically means letting the
next step emerge out of what you're
working on right now. applying that to
our own lives. Let's say you're trying
to figure out your career, right? The
default approach is to start with a
vision. So, the default approach of a
vision is saying, I want to become this
type of person in this kind of role. I
want to be a writer. A lot of times
people that want to become writers that
don't even really like to sit down and
write because they're chasing a vision.
They're not they're not paying attention
to the current context of what they
actually like doing. But folding has us
look at what are the activities I like
doing day in and day out? What naturally
feels easy to me? what are the types of
people I want to work with? You're
looking at the context and having that
guide your decisions as opposed to
having a vision of what you want to do.
So that's pattern recognition in a
nutshell. You think about what's working
in the past and you think about what's
working or not working right now and you
keep building from there. Okay. Next up
is abstraction. It's a fancy way of
saying tune out what doesn't matter and
focus on what does. Why these problems
are massive. He has to figure out
oxygen. He has to figure out food. He
has to figure out communicating with
Earth. He's surviving on a literal death
planet that nobody should ever survive
on. So, he doesn't try and do everything
all at once because that would be too
overwhelming. He picks one thing to
focus on and he starts working on that.
That's what abstraction is. You don't
fix everything at once. You isolate the
next thing we're solving and you focus
on that. So, applying this to our lives,
there is so much more noise that we run
into when we're making big decisions.
So, we're thinking about making a
relationship change or changing our
careers. Like we talked about, a lot of
things that will come up will be, well,
what will people think about me? What if
I fail? What if I'm not qualified? What
if I don't find somebody else? And
abstraction says, you need to let go of
all that for now. Those are valid
thoughts and feelings, but those are not
helping us to solve this problem. So,
we're going to set those aside and we're
going to focus on what does actually
matter. So, it's a pretty simple pillar
here, but there are two pieces of advice
that I know that make this process much
easier. And the first one comes from
Getting Things Done, a book by David
Allen that I found through Cal Newport.
And it's basically this idea of
capturing everything that enters into
your world. So one of the reasons that
things keep bothering us is because we
don't write them down. We don't get them
out of our head. So whether it's an idea
or something you need to do that's not
relevant to whatever you're working on,
it helps to just have a a journal and
write that thing down. Get it out of
your head somewhere you know you'll see
it again so you don't have to worry
about it. You don't have to worry about
it being lost and you'll come back to
it. The second piece of advice is decide
what you're willing to be bad at or
decide what you're willing to bomb. This
comes from John Akoff in his book Finish
where he's talking about prioritizing
things. And a lot of times that means
other things are going to be set aside.
So you're making your career change, you
might have to say, "Okay, this month I'm
I'm not going to set any PRs at the
gym." Then when you're at the gym and
you're not doing as well, you don't
stress out about it because you've
already made the decision that we're
going to take it a bit easier here to
give ourselves more time to do the thing
that's more important right now.
Once you've broken down the problem,
spotted the patterns, filtered out the
noise, you need to build a repeatable
plan, especially for the things that you
can actually control. And that's where
algorithms come in. They turn the
insight into actual action. So, going
back to the career change example, let's
say you've identified from the past that
talking to somebody helped and you
decided you want to get a coach. Well,
let's turn that into an actual system,
right? So, instead of saying, "Oh, I
should talk to somebody." You you make
it a system. At this time, I talked to
this person about making career change.
Make it repeatable. Make it trackable.
Make it easy to run.
The biggest thing that comes across in
this book, The Martian, is how fun it
is. Wattney is funny in his journal
entries. They're not dry. They're full
of jokes and pop culture references, and
he's he names his failures. He complains
about things. Well, that makes for a
compelling story. It's also a great
thing to incorporate into your mindset
because so often when we're thinking
about changing your career or making a
relationship adjustment, we get so
serious about it and the seriousness of
it stifles our thinking because we're
not loose. We're not relaxed. So, as
you're thinking through, remember to
have fun with it. You try something
that's so so off what you thought. Maybe
you thought you wanted to become a
graphic designer and then you try and
you realize, "Oh, I can't even draw. I
don't know why I thought I don't know
why I thought I could do this. And
instead of getting upset with yourself
or thinking it's some sort of failure,
it's good to just laugh and and make it
and make jokes about it and and move on.
Okay. Number two is to stay positive, to
celebrate the small wins. There are so
many days where Wattney will just say,
"I didn't blow myself up today. Yay me."
That's a win. You didn't die. Good job.
Maybe everything else failed, but you
didn't die. One of the issues that I've
always had in the past was with staying
positive is that it feels productive to
be negative and to really focus and hone
in on failures and repeat them over and
over again because it feels like you're
solving it or addressing it in some way.
And it wasn't until I read the book
Psychocybernetics by Maxwell Maltz where
he's talking about if you replay failure
over and over in your head your brain
sort of it learns to repeat that. What
you should do is that when you think
about the failure you had now visualize
yourself doing the thing correctly and
that's what you want to replay right so
you want to build on wins even if
they're imagined even if there's tiny
stay positive it's going to help this
book actually drives me to action which
is why I love it so much where sometimes
the self-help books they get me thinking
too much but seeing Wattney apply this
to his situation this mindset this way
of thinking watching him apply it and
actually get down to work always spurs
me to do the same. It rewires my brain
for action, for clarity, for optimism.
It makes this sort of process fun to me.
And the system that it gives you is
really simple, right? Break down the
problem, look at what's worked, filter
out the noise, write the next step, keep
showing up. That's how Wattney survives
his mission on Mars. Spoiler alert, but
we've been through a lot already if you
made it this far. And that's how you
will move forward as well, right? One
small step at a time. If you found this
video useful, please leave a comment and
a like. It helps out a ton. Subscribe
for more content on writing and creative
systems. I post a video every week. So,
until next week, keep writing, keep
creating, and I'll see you soon. [Music]
[Music] [Applause]
[Applause] [Music]
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