Me
- Rank relationships higher than projects.
- Focus. Focus. Focus.
- Prevent drift by carefully scrutinizing the amount of time given to projects.
- Evaluate each day in terms of positive versus negative actions.
- Kill projects that are “rattlesnakes” and avoid those that are “pythons.”
- Stack the deck in your favor.
- Write more thank-you notes.
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Do you want to fill it with distractions, or keep only the most important work, relationships, commitments
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Do you want to be constantly checking social media, or would you like to read long-form writing and books, perhaps create something new?
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Do you want to be more mindful? More compassionate? More whole-hearted in your relationships?
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Do you want to be more active, eat more healthy, nourishing food? Get outdoors more, find more solitude?
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Do you want to have greater focus for your meaningful work? Be more organized?
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Simplify your life? Get your finances in order?
- Eat only when hungry, and stop when you’re 80% full. Also, make your diet high in fiber.
- Stay hydrated.
- Sleep 8–10 hours per night, consistently. Go to bed early.
- Exercise moderately, three times per week. Pick something you enjoy doing.
- Spend 30 minutes per day reading a book and reflecting on what you’re learning from it. (good for brain health)
- Be thankful and prayerful every day. (reduces stress)
- Treat everyone with respect. (conflict is stressful)
- In-Box. Goal: 0.
- Hours sleep per night. Goal: 8.
- Classic books read per week. Goal: 1.
- Meals cooked/made from scratch per day. Goal: 2.
- Hours without digital interrupt. Goal: every evening, 4 hours, pre sleep.
- Facebook accounts held. Goal: 0.
- Live & Breathe HG21C. Goal: 4 hours per day
- A goal can be set anytime, not just new year.
- A goal needs a walk, some writing and considerable reflection to make it real.
- A goal set over a glass of wine, at a party, in the crowd when heart, mind and soul are truly (rightly) elsewhere is unlikely to bind your will.
- Goals may be big. But they need to have time friendly (20 minutes) and brain friendly (‘no problem-I can do that’) first steps.
- When setting the goal, agree the first three ever-so-easy steps.
- Don’t wait for January. Break out of the crowd.
- Set a breakthrough one today.
Ulysses and Markdown
I want to use the word processing app Ulysses more. It’s just not quite working out.
Distraction-free writing is all the rage with sheets and groups and ebook outputs and “you can write a novel using Ulysses.” These are all fine and spiffy, but I just want a better word processor than MS Word (and I kinda like Word just fine…)
I want to like Ulysses, but I can’t seem to get the hang of writing in it, and I know the reason why: Markdown.
I don’t want to write in Markdown. Yes, yes, I know. It’s the greatest thing in the world for writers. You can just write and use these odd symbols to indicate all the things you want the text to do, and it just does it in the output. It’s supposed to help keep the natural flow of the writing and leave the format stuff to later. This is anathema to me, and I can’t tell if it’s because I’m loathe to try something new or my mind just doesn’t work that way after decades of writing in Word or Pages.
At the beginning of the year, Shawn Blanc at The Sweet Setup archived the site’s best articles, tips, tricks, etc. for Ulysses. I’ve read them all, and it just isn’t clicking for me, and I’m frustrated because this should be the ideal software for me.
Maybe I just need to dive in headfirst.
Routine
Annaliese Griffin, writing in Quartz, extols the virtues of getting back into a routine post-holidays.
Sure, January is cold, and dark. You have to start thinking about doing your taxes, everyone on social media is bragging about how great it feels to drink only green juice, and there’s a vague pressure to come up with some kind of grand project of self-improvement. It’s also a fantastic month to embrace quiet nights and early bedtimes, to snuggle comfortably into the waiting arms of your old friend, routine.
I agree. The seven weeks from Thanksgiving to New Year’s is exhausting and stressful. I’m slowly getting back into my normal routine.
Seven Chores
Michael Wade gives us all a chore list.
The Beautiful Minimalism of a Blank Slate
Leo Babauta has a wonderful take on the new year.
Ask yourself:
Pick just a handful. Spread them out over the year. Don’t overfill the year with a list of 20 things you want to do — savor the space of your blank slate.
Interesting ideas, not sure it’s for me.
A Simple Way to Manage Your Health
Dan Pedersen has a couple of good ideas on managing health in the new year, something I’m sure plenty of us are starting to do.
Here’s a list of macro-themes that I think deliver the most value in terms of overall health and well-being:I so wish I could follow this to the letter.This is a very simplistic formula. But I think it’s better than getting bogged down in all kinds of time consuming and frustrating details. And although there’s no perfect formula for good health, I think we can stack the odds in our favor by focusing on such major themes.
Reflections
As 2018 comes to a close, I have to say… it’s been a year of remarkable change in my life. I’ve been given incredible opportunities, hit some milestones, and I’m grateful for my friends and family.
Personally, a lot went on in 2018. Here are some highlights:
My wife and I bought a house. I never thought I’d be able to say I was a home owner. I live in a great town, in a great neighborhood. I love our house and it makes me smile every time I walk in. Plus, we have some incredible plans for the place in 2019.
We have a dog. I did not grow up in a household with a pet. No dog, cat, hamster, or bird. My brother had some fish for a while and that’s about it. My step-daughter has wanted a dog for a long, long time and once we bought a house, a new puppy was coming soon. The day we brought Rocco home, I realized what I’d been missing. I had no idea how much love I could have for a dog. He’s the best.
I turned 50. My birthday was a low key affair and I wanted it that way. It nicely coincided with a St. Louis Cardinals game and a visit from my best friend and his girlfriend. The Cardinals didn’t win, but I had a great birthday.
Changed my diet, lost some weight. Early in the year, I had a checkup and was diagnosed as diabetic. My blood sugar was sky high. I needed to do something. Immediately. So, I changed my breakfast and lunch meals, learned how to meal prep, stopped eating as much sugar as I was mindlessly consuming, started walking regularly on the treadmill and lost some weight. I was really blind to how bad it was. My changes dramatically dropped my blood sugar to normal levels without insulin and I’m healthier than I have been in a long time. I still have a long way to go, but I’m making plans in 2019 to do even better.
Started writing for fightingillini.com. I was given an opportunity to write some articles for the University of Illinois athletic department and made the most of it. I wrote nearly 20 pieces over the course of the year and enjoyed every second of it. The writing helped me become a better interviewer, be less nervous around people, and ultimately be a better writer. It’s been a wonderful side job and one I hope to continue to do for years to come.
Streamlined my online presence. I thought the best way to enhance my writing was to take up with the Medium Partner Program and write essays on Medium for profit. That really didn’t happen. My best month barely covered the $5 a month I was paying to be a part of the program. I had moved away from “blogging” thinking writing longer pieces were the way to go and found I didn’t enjoy it. I wanted more control and Medium as a blogging service took away control. It’s still a great service and I appreciate what it does, but I wanted more control. It will probably always be a work in progress and I change my mind all the time. Who knows what it will be five years from now.
The Word
Nicholas Bate asks his readers to choose a word for 2019 and lists 101 ideas.
Choose a word. Any word. One word. Make it yours. Whiteboard it. Write it every day on your planner, put the word on a handful of 3 by 5 cards and place them in strategic places as an ever-present reminder. Get a personal T-shirt printed with it. Learn it in ten other languages. Grab it now: meditate on it, reflect on it; live it, breathe it and nurture it. For 2019.Even before I saw his post, I was thinking along the same lines. My wife asked me what my word was going to be in 2019 and we brainstormed a bit. Her word is “Rhythm.” She decided she most wanted to work on work/life balance, but realized it would never be truly balanced. There would be ups and downs within both of these areas. Her goal then would be to better understand the wave and instead of cresting and crashing, find the rhythm.
For me, I had lots of ideas of things I wanted to accomplish in the new year. I want to be more present with my family, bond on a more adult level with my adult daughter, listen better across the board and stop making assumptions, be more creative and finish a couple of big projects with proper tracking and deadlines, eat better and exercise more and with a purpose.
I settled on “Connect” as my word of the year. Connect with friends and family. Connect my health with my choices. Connect my creativity with my output.
What will your word be?
You Can Only Grieve So Much
Will Leitch basically created Deadspin. He left several years back, and once a year since 2011, he gets back to writing a piece for the site as a fill-in for Drew Magary. While Deadspin is mostly about sports, Leitch has used his space this year to talk about death.
I kind of wish he would have written this piece for The New Yorker, but here it is. It made me feel incredibly melancholy.
Every Word Counts
Seth Godin with a Christmas message ―
Poets use words (and silence) to change things. They care about form and function and most of all, about making an impact on those that they connect with.Every word counts. Every breath as well.
In a world filled with empty noise, the most important slots are reserved for the poets we seek to listen to, and the poet we seek to become.
Your 2019 KPIs
Nicholas Bate is back with your key performance indicators for 2019.
Home
On Christmas Eve 1968, NASA astronaut Bill Anders took the now-famous Earthrise photograph while aboard Apollo 8. Additionally, there was the famous Christmas Eve broadcast from the astronauts.
I was born in the summer of 1968 and it was a tumultuous year. A war raged across the Pacific and on American television sets. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed. The St. Louis Cardinals did not win the World Series. Bobby Kennedy was killed.
However, some amazing things happened too. 2001: A Space Odyssey premiered. Led Zeppelin made their American debut. The Civil Rights Act was signed into law. And at the close of the year, astronauts on a roundtrip flight to the Moon took one of mankind’s greatest photos and said some words to a wounded nation.
2018 isn’t 1968. As much as I’d like to find the “not normal” of today reflected in the past, it really isn’t there. What does remain is the blue marble of a planet hanging there in space. Our home. Our only home.
On this day, it’s good to be reminded of home.
More
Josh Spector with the only way to get more next year –
More curiosity.More confidence.
More commitment.
More connecting.
More focus.
More optimism.
More saying no.
More doing.
That’s how you’ll get more of what you want next year.
Happiness is a Choice
Hugh MacLeod and Gaping Void have a great newsletter. Occasionally, he drops some good stuff. This is a great one linking to a study about happiness and being responsible for it yourself.
Buddha once said that “Life is suffering”. He didn’t say that most of our suffering is self-inflicted. Or if he did, that part was mostly lost on us mere mortals.Happiness is not just the result of good fortune and good brain chemicals. Happiness is also part of being responsible for your own experience. Indeed.
All In or All Out
Josh Spector in his For the Interested newsletter opened with something that spoke to me.
If you want a certain result, you have to be willing to do what it takes to get it.He’s right. I’ve wasted far too much time with half-in measures. Time to go all in.Half-in won’t work.
Half-in is a way to convince yourself you’re trying, but in reality it’s just the surest way to waste your time, effort, and resources.
All in or all out. Never half-in.
A More Deliberate Way of Living
Leo Babauta has done it again with his thoughtful breakdown on living a more deliberate life. Here are few of my favorites
Set intentions at the start. When you start your day, or any meaningful activity, check in with yourself and ask what your intentions are for the day or that activity. Do you want to be more present? Do you want to move your mission forward? Do you want to be compassionate with your loved ones? Do you want to practice with discomfort and not run to comfort? Set an intention (or three) and try to hold that intention as you move through the day or that meaningful activity.Read the rest.Pick your important tasks & make them your focus. What tasks are meaningful to you today? Pick just three (or even just one) and focus on that first. Put aside everything else (you can come back to all that later) and create space for what’s meaningful in your life.
Create more space. Instead of filling every minute of the day with space, what would it be like to have some time of rest, solitude, quietude and reflection? My tendency (like many people, I suspect) is to finish one task and then immediately launch into the next. When there’s nothing to do, I’ll reach for my phone or computer and find something to read, to learn about, to respond to — something useful. But space is also useful. What would it look like to include space in our lives? Giving each activity an importance, and when it’s done, giving some weight to the space between activities. Taking a pause, and taking a breath. Reflecting on how the activity went, how I held my intention, how I want to spend the next hour of my life. Moving deliberately in that space, not rushing through it.
Be in silence more. Our days are filled with noise — talking, messaging, taking in the cacophony of the online world. What if we deliberately created a space or two each day for being in silence? That could look like a couple of meditation sessions, a walk out in nature, a bath where we don’t read but just experience the bath, a time for tea and nothing else but the tea, or just stopping to watch a sunset (without taking photos). Silence is healing to the soul.
Time Better Spent
Michael Wade has some suggestions for you to spend your time better.
Take a nap ~ Read a good book ~ Write a thank-you note ~ Call an old friend ~ Send an unexpected present to someone ~ Take a walk ~ Lift weights ~ Do some lawn work ~ Clean your car ~ Listen to good music ~ Watch a classic film ~ Shine your shoes ~ Help a child ~ Sweep the porch ~ Bake cookies ~ Give to charity ~ Visit a museum ~ Study another language ~ Memorize a poem ~ Watch some birds ~ Complete a crossword puzzle ~ Talk to a neighbor ~ Plan next week ~ Research some family history ~ Stay off of Facebook and Twitter ~ Climb a wall
Goal Setting
Nicholas Bate adds to his basics list with seven ideas regarding goals. Good ideas.
Doing the Day
Michael Wade designs your To Do list:
“Urgent and Important” tasks? Easy choice. Those get tackled first.“Not Urgent But Important?” Spend as much as possible of your remaining time on these.
And if you decide to slip into the “Not Urgent and Not Important” or the “Urgent But Not Important” territory, carefully limit and record how much time you spend (waste?) on those.
Slow Down
Nicholas Bate on slowing down:
Slow down to the speed of thought. There is no such thing as hurry-up thinking.Especially good advice for me.You’ll just get a headache and get stressed.
The Alternative to Thinking All the Time
I overthink everything. This is a known problem for me. Sometimes I can’t enjoy an experience because I’m thinking about it too much. Or I’m thinking ahead to other experiences and not focused on what’s happening right this second. Chris Bowler in his email newsletter, The Weekly Review, expressed an item of note that spoke directly to my own experiences.
David Cain, writing at Raptitude, wrote about not thinking all the time:
One evening last week, I was sitting on my front stoop waiting for a friend to come over. I brought a book out with me, but instead of reading I just sat there and let my senses take in the scene.I don’t think I’ve done anything like this in years. It’s a focus thing for me. Cain ends the pieces with this call to action:I didn’t look or listen for anything in particular, I just let the details of this particular moment in the neighborhood come to me: the quality of the air—heavy and warm, the incoming summer storm kind; birds; two couples having a conversation down the sidewalk; the clinking of dishes coming from inside the house to my right; distant hammering from a construction site somewhere in the blocks behind my house.
Life can disappear on us just like a cup of coffee consumed on autopilot. In other words, to really experience life itself, as opposed to just more thinking about life, we need to remember we’re having an experience.I get this. I really should try to remember to experience life itself. Maybe that’s a good goal for 2019.