2020 Week 39: Changes to Make

This week I started a project to change my habits over the last one hundred days of 2020. Most of these habits are tangible activities, but in my personal development I also need to shift some mental frameworks. My thinking tends to be overly binary, or too focused on questions that are difficult to answer but ultimately unimportant. Thoughts to expand on another time.

Some things to share:

TEA Framework

I stumbled upon a blog post from Asian Efficiency that segments productivity into 3 elements; Time, Energy, and Attention. I had not really considered the components of productive time before, and this is a compelling segmentation.

Strava Metro

Strava Metro uses data from human powered commuters to help urban planners and advocacy groups design for healthier, more sustainable cities.

Photos from the Week

2020 Last Hundred Days

Project Description

Today (Wednesday 23rd September 2020) is the first of the last 100 days of the year. That is, to achieve a 100 day streak in 2020 one needs to start today. I find this arbitrary allotment of time a motivating opportunity to build new and better habits; it is a race to create change before the year is out. I also think sharing the process publicly will help me keep more accountable. Here are the habits I aim to build (and break) by the end of 2020.

The List

  • Exercise to start the day
  • Sweat for at least 10 minutes
  • Work on mobility and flexibility too
  • Practice meditation
  • Avoid consuming junk content
  • Avoid consuming junk food
  • Achieve “Inbox Zero”
  • End the day by reading a (physical) book
  • Avoid eating in the middle of the night

Health and Fitness

It seems universal that people want to improve their health, but almost equally common that people’s habits don’t perfectly align with that desire. I am trying to correct that cognitive dissonance in myself.

Exercise
Start the day with exercise; I know days where the first thing I do is exercise go better than days when I don’t, but it’s not an ingrained habit yet to train first thing in the morning. Exercise every day as consistency beats intensity. Gentle recovery work outs are better than nothing at all. Additionally the physical and mental improvements from regular exercise are felt almost immediately. I want to focus on consistent flexibility and mobility work, i.e. stretching (static and dynamic) and foam rolling every day. When I do this regularly my strength and fitness improves. When I stop I get injured.

Mindfulness
For me, meditation primarily builds awareness. From this awareness, I can make better decisions and know what the state of my mental health actually is. Practicing mindfulness and meditation also leads to calmer, more focused days.

Diet
I generally eat well, but my worst food habit is waking in the small hours of the morning and eating a bowl of porridge oats or a tub of leftovers. Whilst occasionally a 150 g serve of oats at 2 am can be helpful (e.g. the morning of a long run) it is currently unnecessary extra fuel. Usually the midnight snack is not followed by appropriate dental hygiene either, so increasing my risk of dental issues.
Some foods are simply not good nutrition (e.g. potato chips, doughnuts). I aim to shift these from being “sometimes” foods to being “never” foods.

Content Consumption

My thoughts reflect the content I consume, and so improving that content should improve my thinking. For improving sleep, taking the time to read a physical book as the last event of the day avoids the physical effects of backlit monitors, and provides more focused content free of attention grabbing digital distractions. Those distractions I could do without more generally: Reddit provides the anonymous opinions that I don’t actually need to read. Chess is mostly an escape from stressful thoughts where I should action the issue at heart. Shopping websites pit my simple mind against elegantly a/b tested marketing research, and I could be less consumerist. Pornography is stimulating, but can be desensitising.

Productivity and Personal Development

Get more organised to get more (hopefully good) done. “Zero Inbox” is the one habit I’ve already failed on the first day, but it is an ideal I am working towards. Action or deliberately postpone everything in my inbox at the end of the day.

Personal reflection is a habit I have mostly developed, but could improve the consistency of. I can guide my own personal growth by taking some time at the end of each day to reflect on the events of the day, what I did well, what I could have done better, what I learned, and what I need to focus on in the days to come.

Alternative Ideas

These habits are not on my list for the last 100 days, but if you are inspired to try achieving a similar 100 day streak, these are the first few I would recommend:

– Don’t smoke cigarettes: probably the best thing a typical person can do for their health
– More generally, avoid abusing substances, including alcohol
– Follow your doctor’s instructions regarding prescribed medication (seems obvious but actually is a significant issue in health care)
– Stop eating meat: a significant improvement to impact on land use and climate, with some possible health benefits
– Decrease expenditure below income: simple financial management

2020 Week 38: I’m Bad at Holidays

How does one procrastinate on holiday? I took this week off work, with the weekends either side giving a total of 9 days for rest and recuperation. Somehow I don’t feel particularly rested or recuperated as I write this. I was aware at the start that I would need to deliberately focus on taking time off, else the fascination with my work would keep me flitting into and out of tasks yet undone. That awareness was not followed with action: I managed to simultaneously not disengage enough to benefit, but also not to be productive enough to return tomorrow with an empty in box and a clear to-do list. Some habits are hard to break.

Two Thoughts on Time

100 Days

There are 102 days left in 2020. This coming Wednesday 23rd September marks the first of the final 100 days of the year, and in a year featuring a US presidential election, the significance of 100 days is prominent. Locally, it feels alarmingly short, yet long enough to attempt some ambitious goals. I hope to follow this post up with some promises by Tuesday evening.

Time Ratios

I feel my intuition for currency is clearer and more comparative than my intuition for time. Asking if an activity or pursuit is “worth it”, or for someone to “prove their worth”, or even if something is “worth their time”, all conflates time with some type of quantifiable value. Perhaps an alternative way to consider individuals and their time is the extent to which they support or are supported in hours. Fiat currency can be created, and the amount of currency is substantially less than the value of things in the world. People, and thus people-hours, are not so easy to create. Every day, every person has the same 24 hour span to use. Some give more hours to society, by supporting others, while others who are supported consume. This is an idea I would like to explore further.

Obsession

This week I finished Leading by Alex Ferguson and Michael Moritz. Among detailed lessons in achieving football dominance, what stands out is Ferguson’s discipline and obsession. The discipline to outwork his staff and his competition, fuelled by an obsessive passion for football. Paul Graham describes the necessity of obsession in his Bus Ticket Theory of Genius, and I am growing to believe it is a necessity of becoming truly world-class in any pursuit. Of course, there are many people who follow football fanatically, so if this is a truly necessary requirement for success, it is not the only one.

Photos from the Week

2020 Week 37: Imprecise Language

Working with people in a scientific context, I’ve noticed a disparity between the precision offered by language and the concepts it communicates. Physical parameters such as heart rate, body temperature, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, and white blood cell count can all be measure and conveyed, which will give an indication of someone’s physical health. Scientific concepts such as the Brillouin zone may not be commonly discussed, but when communicated there is a precise understanding being shared. Concepts such as love, stress, and pain, are much more frequently discussed, but it difficult to ensure what is being expressed by the speaker is also being understood by the listeners. In some conversations, it is easy to remove ambiguity through numbers: “it was a heavy bag” becomes “it was a 30 kg bag” or “the car was driving fast” becomes “the car was driving 100 km/h”. In contrast, I am yet to learn how to make “the cut hurt” or “they love her” more precise.

Stress

Starting something new is hard. Elon Musk describes founding a startup as “like eating glass and staring into the abyss“. In trying to better understand stress I found this NASA technical report describing the effect of stress on human cognition. It begins with the difficulty of defining what “stress” actually is, and the document as a whole serves as an example of the difficulty of bringing scientific precision to a commonly understood concept.

Human Power

Energy and power are more accurately described than emotional states. This paper titled Human power (HP) as a viable electricity portfolio option below 20 W/Capita includes a numerical description of the amount of power (i.e energy per unit time) that a human can exert. Novice runners often start out too fast, and thus feel they “cannot run for more than 10 minutes”. The chart below explains this: the power output that is comfortable for around 1 minute (e.g. rushing for a bus) is unsustainable for a longer effort.

Photos from the Week

2020 Week 36: The Arena

Creating copy, companies, or cultures, produces imperfect products. I am grateful to have autonomy in the creative environment of a startup, but so much of what I produce is so very flawed. I seek to balance a necessary awareness of my failures with motivation to carry on in spite of them.

Quote I’m Pondering:

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.

Citizenship in a Republic (1910) by Theodore Roosevelt
Delivered at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910.

The quote celebrates action, commitment to an attempt. It places failure above inaction, where cynically one could argue that to have tried and failed has the same outcome as not having tried at all. It is encouraging, it inspires action and the continuation of action in spite of criticism.

While I have heard “the man in the arena” quoted in several places, I found the preceding passage of the Bull Moose’s speech interesting:

Let the man of learning, the man of lettered leisure, beware of that queer and cheap temptation to pose to himself and to others as a cynic, as the man who has outgrown emotions and beliefs, the man to whom good and evil are as one. The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer. There are many men who feel a kind of twisted pride in cynicism; there are many who confine themselves to criticism of the way others do what they themselves dare not even attempt.

Citizenship in a Republic (1910) by Theodore Roosevelt
Delivered at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910.
(emphasis mine)

Over the last few years I have been striving to better respect and understand my emotions, and to hold myself true to worthy beliefs. This quote resonated with me as a criticism of my earlier self, with much less respect for emotion and a much more nihilistic view of belief. It is tempting in today’s political media landscape to take on that cynical view. Perhaps, philosophically, all systems of value are equally justifiable. Perhaps emotions can leave one vulnerable to irrationality and pain. One could maybe live a more comfortable life by facing it with a sneer of indifference. I would rather be marred by dust, sweat and blood, and to have dared in service of a worthy cause.

Don’t Shave the Truth

If you want to be known as honest, then not telling lies is not sufficient… don’t even shave the truth.

What does it mean to hold someone accountable? by Jamie Dimon

In a speech on accountability, it is a useful reminder that to be honest takes more than just saying true things, it is considering how a message is received, it is working to ensure that truths are not told so as to imply a lie.

Photos from the Week