[motohagiography]

Thanks! Specifically didn't mention them because the effect of activities themselves is the point.

If you haven't read a book on topic-x, the first one is going to change your perspective pretty radically and put you in that iterative and open learning mode.

The activity (see post history for clues;)) was about sublimating that same ego/anxiety by accepting guidance and instruction from a great teacher who had mastered something.

Super productive and high achieving people tend to have absorbing hobbies for (I think) related reasons. It's not that there is a "trick," it's that there is a general effect that all those tricks produce, which is that state of creative flow that results from removing our negative self-conscious reactions.

IMHO, for me that included silencing self-critical mental filters by overloading them with stimuli from things like constructive authority, physical exhaustion, and awe and excitement at a new body of knowledge.

My thinking is that the things people do as flow and inspiration hacks roll up into this overall process.