Task, Time, Energy Ep. 24 – How to Trust Confusion: Life Lessons from the LSAT with Graham Downey

Graham Downey is a graduate of Yale Law School who scored a 180—the highest score possible—on the LSAT, the Law School Admission Test. After law school, Graham taught LSAT prep courses and tutored students for a test prep company, sharing his knowledge with other people seeking to master the test.

The LSAT is one of the most challenging graduate-level entrance exams. It can be frustrating and stress-inducing. It’s frequently confusing and occasionally infuriating.

It’s also an elegantly crafted exam designed to test the limits of a person’s reasoning skills and their ability to think clearly under pressure. It’s a test that can teach us valuable lessons about time management.

In this episode, Graham shares tips for the LSAT that can also be useful in our everyday lives. We talk about learning to trust confusion, why slowing down is as important as going fast, and the value of having clear intentions.

We talk about limits, how to push past them, and how the desire for perfection can get in the way.

Graham’s Lightweight LSAT guide is at https://lightweightlsat.com/.

During this episode we mentioned:

• The Imperfectionist newsletter published by Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals.
• Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky.
• How Buildings Learn by Steward Brand