Day off with the kids.
Time to upgrade my mokka pot technique. Thanks James Hoffmann 🎥
I’m tempted to make a simple website called “Ugly bujo”.
It would explain bullet journaling but every image would be basic and simple, not a super fancy spread so anyone could feel they could start.
Or maybe it’s a tumblr account sharing ugly examples that work.
Hill I will die on. Globalization should always be spelt with a Z, even in countries that favour -ise over -ize because it makes the word and example of its meaning.
I’ve seen a lot about the fourth turning recently. I’ll admit my first reaction was that it seemed and interesting idea. At the same time, I had some major questions right from the off. It seamed very American centric, the more I’ve looked at the more it seems like it might be European - American. After I just saw a well known kinist christian figure share a video seemingly endorsing it (I’m not clicking on that!) and it made me wonder:what kind of people does this “prophetic” vision attract and why?
I can imagine those very critical of “Wokism” would be attracted as the author seams to say that we’re heading to a phase of returning to community values over individualism. I can also see why revivalist christians would like it. There were several great awakenings throughout American history and so it might seem prophetic of another one coming.
(I should add that the author seems to have a new book on the topic coming out so the reason I’m seeing this idea a lot is probably just because he’s promoting it).
Happy Trump indictment day however you celebrate yours. I remember when Trump indictment day was a rare and special day, now it seems like it’s just another day.
When I started blogging, the experts told me not to use hedging words like “I think” and “In my experience”. There’s value in that for sure, but it made me sound like a wannabe guru in topics I knew little about. Now, instead of writing “10 tips to …” I’m more likely to write “10 things I’ve tried” and discuss what works, why I think it works and invite you to share if you try it. Maybe it won’t work for you, and I’d be happy to hear that! Maybe I can learn some more nuance or what types of people it helps.
A bad habit list
Last week I made a shocking discovery.
Fruit is great in hot weather.
I know, revolutionary insight but if you looked at my habits, this idea was a real shock.
I don’t have anything against fruit and eat it when offered, but I just don’t choose fruit or go for it. Instead I’m more likely to snack on a piece of chocolate or sandwich. But during this heatwave I realised that fruit was clearly the more refreshing choice.
And that made me think about my habits.
I know it’s not great, but …
There are a lot of my habits which don’t match my intentions or goals.
The fruit one is one small example.
It’s such a small thing that could be corrected with a minor lifestyle change (buy more fruit in the shop, keep sweets at home, choose fruit at snack time) and yet I wasn’t doing it. Why?
Well I wasn’t really thinking about that habit.
So I decided to make a list of the bad habits I have (in obsidian of course). Here’s a sample:
- not flossing every day
- drinking more coffee than I’d like
- snacking on chocolate during the day
And once I made that list, the alternatives were pretty obvious:
- Floss when after brushing your teeth
- drink water
- Eat fruits instead of chocolate
Not every bad habit is so simple or unentrenched, but some are.
And guess what, just making the list has helped me change these habits.
I’m still not perfect, but they’ve far lesser.
More tricky habits
There are a couple of bad habits in my list that are more sticky.
Not least of which is “being impatient with people”.
While it’s not something that just magically changes, I’m glad it’s on this list. Unless I acknowledge this is an issue, I won’t be willing to change it. And now it’s there, I can plan for change.
Not magic, but maybe worth a go
A lot of good coaching and therapy starts with awareness.
Sometimes, that’s enough.
And sometimes we need to do more. But either way, maybe making a bad habit list will help you with some of your bad habits that you know about, but do nothing over, or even ones you are less aware of.
If you give it a go, let me know what you think.
I’ve just moved from my tiny Ikea desk that I bought when lockdowns started to a 120x60cm standing desk (we’ve actually had it for a while but it’s a long story). The extra space is amazing! It’s the difference between feeling like everything was falling on me, and feeling like I can stretch!
A vegan Birthday lunch with my wife. Very tasty.
End of the work week. Time for my end of week review routine.
I’m really intrigued to see how obsidian properties work. So far I’ve been impressed by the features they add while keeping the simple text file approach.
Who's the adult here?
My kids are almost 2 and 5.
Both of them are going through a period of temper tantrums.
It’s annoying and frustrating. Especially when the elder one turns around and sets off the younger one, usually with a punch or a poke after being asked not to.
On my better days I stay calm and manage to get through the conflict.
But most days aren’t my better days.
Instead I can lose my cool and try to physically or vocally stop the conflict: It always increases it.
Doing the same negative behaviour
The irony is I’m often doing the exact thing I’m annoyed at my children for.
- They act out because they are tired — I act out of tiredness
- They shout at each other — I shout at them
- They aren’t patient — I lose my patience.
I fail the same measure I evaluate them by.
On being the adult in the room
I realised this all about three months back.
My child was acting like a child (as should be expected) but I, the adult, was also acting like a child.
How did I expect my children to learn the values I wanted if I didn’t embody them myself as an adult?
So I made a change and used this mantra:
I am the adult in the room.
Any time I face these kinds of situations, I say those words to myself and force myself to respond like an adult.
I wish I could say this has been a magical panacea — it hasn’t — but it has helped. A lot.
I don’t know if this will help you, but as a parent, I know I could use all the help I can get.
“Nothing else in the world…not all the armies…is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.” – Victor Hugo, The Future of Man.
📹 Van Neistat’s rules of gift giving - YouTube Some great tips here. I love “Expensive, not costly”. My brother is good at these.
Ironically, I think I understand why Musk has done this rebrand now. Threads has stolen attention away from Twitter and presented it’s biggest threat to its existence. Musk needs to steal back attention and have something that points to a more positive future. The rebrand focuses attention back on them so even though they aren’t the “one app to rule them all” yet, it gets people to discuss how likely it could be, how good/bad it would be, can musk do it etc, rather than “Will Threads kill Twitter?”
It’s not a terrible move, but the better move would be to make it a place worth going to.
It’s been …I don’t know how many months since I put my account in non active mode and I realise that I’m so much happier and less anxious than back then.
So thanks for ruining twitter, Musk. You’ve improved my mental health.
The simple but effective end of week review I totally stole
It’s the end of my Friday workday so I’m doing my simple weekly reflection. It’s called plus, minus, next and I heard about it from Anne-Laure Le Cunff of Ness Labs.
I like using the symbols
- / - / ➡
- Plus is for the good things from the week
- Minus is for the bad things from the week
- And next is for the things I want to do differently next week.
So simple, but that’s its power. By being so low effort, I can almost always do it; it’s just 5 mins at the end of the day. Now I have a record of what I’ve struggled with and what was easy and good.
You can do it on paper or digitally and I have templates for both Obsidian and DayOne.
One last thing to note, this isn’t a full weekly review in the GTD sense. Instead, I split that onto Sunday evening when I plan for the week ahead.
Find and replace.
Working from home is great: I don’t have a long commute and get more time with my family.
Working from home is terrible: I feel guilty if I’m not “working” while at home, and there are so many distractions.
I switch through these emotions multiple times a week and day.