Link: No, you won’t make time. Because you can’t.

Here are some of my takeaways from reading this:

To achieve a goal, you have to give up something in return. In most cases, this means giving up time allocated to doing something you like, and using that time to work towards your goal.

You don't have “free time”. While it might seem like we do, we really don't. Most people have their daily routine already set. I know I already do. To carve time out to do something else, means to give up something in your daily routine. So yeah, most people don't have “free time”.

If you're not willing to give up anything to achieve a new goal, then you most likely don't care enough about that new goal in the first place. You can either accept that fact, that the goal will never be achieved, or you give up something in return to achieve that goal.

When reviewing your failures at achieving a certain goal, ask yourself these questions:

• What have you given up in the process of working towards your goal?
• And is/are what you've given up, substantial enough to help you achieve your goal?

Tags: #Bookmarks #AchievingGoals #TimeManagement #SelfImprovement

One thing I've learned from the Atomic Habits book, is that we're more likely to keep up with a habit if it is easy and convenient. The less effort it takes, the more likely we can keep up with the habit. If 15 minutes is the most you can spend reading, then by all means take it. You either spend 15 minutes or less reading, or you'll end up not reading at all.

Tags: #BuildingHabits #SelfImprovement

If you have time to play video-games, then you have time to pray the Rosary or read the Bible.

As you can see from the example above, I'm simply following the format for this statement: “If you have time to do X, you have time to do Y.”

At first glance it sounds like I'm only guilt tripping myself into doing said activity. It might even look like I'm only tricking myself with the use of the statement. And maybe I am. But I like to look at it a different way. It as a way to refocus on my priorities. Playing video-games is a past time of mine, but it is not a priority for me — working on my relationship with God is.

Some other examples of using this trick to refocus on my priorities are:

• If you have time to browse the internet, you have time to wash the bottles.
• If you have time to scroll through Instagram, you have time to read a book.
• If you have time to write a blog post, you have time to play with your kid.
• If you have time to watch a TV show, you have time to learn something new.

While my first example in this post was a spiritual one, the other examples above show that it will work for any activity that you want to focus on. The key is to define what falls under X and Y for you.

In my case, I like to think of X as an activity that I do for entertainment, or to pass the time. Prime examples of that would be playing video-games, browsing the internet and watching TV shows.

Y, on the other hand, is an activity that I want to prioritize in my everyday life. So, examples of Y for me would be activities related to self-improvement, personal growth and even daily chores.

Once you have the definitions of X and Y in place, you can start using the same trick to refocus on your priorities. Just tell yourself this statement any time you find yourself with some free time:

If you have time to do X, you have time to do Y.

Tags: #SelfImprovement

Link: The Secret to Better Habits in 2021

Below are some of my key takeaways from reading this.

Improve yourself with incremental acts performed consistently every day

Self-improvement is all about small, incremental acts performed consistently and intently every day. It's about doing the work that needs to be done to get better, day by day, until you finally get to see some results.

Kinda sounds like the advice Bishop Barron gave on one of his Daily Gospel Reflections — that baby steps are all you need to take to start doing God's work. In this case, it is also applicable to self-improvement.

Building habits is a long-term endeavor

When it come to building habits, you have to think about it from a long-term perspective. Similar to how losing weight is a marathon, not a sprint. The build-up to developing a good habit is almost always underwhelming. Like as if they don't amount to anything. Almost like how compound interest works. But this continued work and effort that you put out, into developing a habit, is what allows you to develop that habit in the future.

Routines can bring order to chaos

And lastly, having a routine in place can help you build habits in the long run. This is because routines give order to our sometimes chaotic daily lives.

It's almost similar to the idea of instilling discipline in yourself, as mentioned in Jocko Willink's Discipline Equals Freedom book. When you can no longer count on willpower or motivation to get you through, you can count on discipline and routine to get things done.

Tags: #Bookmarks #SelfImprovement #RyanHoliday

So, my aim with the new format is to make writing Weeknotes posts quicker. I want to spend no more than 30 minutes writing one. — This post still took close to an hour to finish, damn.

The new format is simple. I start with the highlight or highlights of the week. Followed by at least one thing I've learned during the week. Then lastly, at least one interesting read during the week. And that's it.

Let's see how this goes then.

Highlight(s) Of The Week

The main highlight last week was getting our 2nd dose of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine.

I had to take a sick day the day after, because I was not feeling well. The side-effects of the 2nd dose of the Moderna vaccine are pretty rough. It felt like I had the flu, minus the fever. I felt really tired. I had body aches everywhere. I had chills all day. I felt hot and cold at the same time. It was tough.

Now, take all that I said about the side-effects I felt above and double it. Oh and add some nasty headaches as well. That's how my wife felt. Normally, she doesn't get sick as often as I do. So, it was surprising to both of us that she had a much tougher time dealing with the side-effects than I did. I'm so glad it's over, for the both of us.

A minor highlight was finally upgrading to a new phone. After 5-6 years of using an iPhone 6s Plus, I was ready for a new one. I did not realize how slow my old phone had become. Opening OneNote took like 10 seconds before it would allow me to type in a new note. On the new phone, it loads in an instant. Wonderful!

Lastly, paid off a couple of debts last week. One step closer to becoming debt-free, yay!

Something I Learned

Physical activities like exercise, will raise your blood pressure momentarily. Doesn’t matter if it is an isometric exercise, body weight exercise or free weight exercise. They all raise blood pressure temporarily.

The key is to always focus on breathing in and out deeply during exercise.

The fitter a person is, the faster his/her blood pressure drops back down to normal after an exercise. This also means that people with already high blood pressure, should exercise with less intensity, just to be safe.

Reference: – The Bullworker Compendium

Something I Read

Tagging is Broken — Interesting read on why using Tags might not be the best idea for organizing notes.

Three Mental Tricks to Deal with People Who Annoy You — I read this in the hopes of finding a trick to deal with aggressive drivers on the road. I love the first tip about “getting big”. I'm sharing my note on it below.

Getting annoyed at something or someone, is like being a 2 year old who can't get what he wants. Chances are, in the bigger scheme of things, that thing or person that is annoying you is not even worth your time. Be a grownup and recognize the situation you are in. Ignore and move on to something else that is worth your time.

Tags: #Weeknotes #Blogging #PublicHealth #Vaccine #NoteTaking #SelfImprovement

Last week I remembered why I chose to go with pen and paper for my bullet journal — it was to give my eyes a break from staring at screens all day long.

My only issue with this analog approach to journals, is how to digitize the text that I wrote so that they can be searchable in the future. Sure, bullet journals have an index for tracking down specific topics. But let's face it, that doesn't even come close to being able to search text digitally.

I previously tried to get around this by publishing journal entries on this site. As part of writing those posts, the content from my bullet journal would end up in a text (markdown) file when I download a backup of this site. This benefit went away when I decided to stop writing journal entries.

Now, I'm doing a similar thing with these Weeknotes posts. This time around though, my journal entries end up in my Obsidian vault. I still have to manually type them in though. This is the part I'm trying to streamline. But I'm not sure that's even possible. It's either I ditch my analog bullet journal and go straight to digital journal apps, or just continue what I'm doing — write on my bullet journal then migrate (type up) my notes into Obsidian sometime later in the day or week.

If you have some thoughts that are stuck in your head, write them down so that you can get them out of your head. This frees up your brain and allows it to think about or focus on something else. Like you know, what you should be working on instead.

An idea: Instead of creating a “microblog” to house micro/short posts, or creating one as a social media replacement, how about creating one to hold micro thoughts (or atomic notes) on a specific topic? I'm thinking more of a digital garden here versus a Twitter replacement.

I started trying to build a digital garden on Are.na using excerpts from my journal entries. This also solves one of the problems I've had for awhile now — how to take excerpts out of my Weeknotes posts and put them into their own stand alone posts.

I actually think Are.na is better suited for displaying excerpts, than it is for building a digital garden. But we'll see how it goes. The alternative to it would be another Write.as blog. One using the Novel format, which means no published dates on the posts.

For now though, the use of Are.na is free, at least until I hit the 500 block limit. So I'll try it first and see what I can come up with.

It doesn't do back-links like Obsidian does, but it is possible to connect blocks to a channel. I wish they would allow connecting a block to another block, but they don't. So I'll just try to work with what it can do.

Some great reads last week were Brandon's post about “Home” and Scott Nesbitt's take on digital gardens.

Regarding digital gardens. Scott mentions using Write.as to build a digital garden. I have thought of using Write.as as well, but so far have not figured out the best approach to it. I believe that once Write.as allows a custom static homepage, then it will pave the way to being able to use it to create a digital garden. Until then, it will look more or less like another blog.

This is also another reason why I elected to try building a digital garden with Are.na first.

Found this new site, habitica.com. It seems like it could be used to help accomplish some self-improvement goals.

This was a photo that the wife sent me last week. I definitely agree with that!

Content moved to... Basics of Using Git from the Command Line

Last week I managed to solve my first ever React issue. The React developer in our team had the day off, so I tried figuring it out on my own. After getting the location of the source code from a team member, I was able to figure out why the app was taking us to another page. I am not a React expert, but apparently I can understand it enough to figure out the issue. I'm so proud of myself. The work that I've been doing with trying to learn React is not going to waste.

The song “Where I Belong”, which features Simple Plan, State Champs and We The Kings is such a good song!

I found a reason And suddenly I'm not so alone I'm finally breathing Like I never could on my own Start the countdown, let's get it on Scream our lungs out to our favorite song 'Cause this is where I belong (This is where I belong)

Could listening to music possibly reduce the stress levels brought about by work? I think it does. I was getting stressed out at work and then “Uh Oh” by Junior Doctor started playing. I immediately felt this sense of relief come over me. I felt much more calm and settled. So yeah, I think listening to music while working does help lower stress levels.

Just noticed Davin going over a YouTube video on how to build a tower in Minecraft. He then tried to mimic what he saw in the video and build the tower himself in the game. I thought that was pretty amazing for such a young kid. And amazing that a game fosters that kind of learning and creativity.

The hardest part of raising an infant is the countless sleepless nights. You're not going to get any sleep until your infant is asleep.

And for this week's installment of #FunnyThingsMyKidsSay:

Me and Davin were in another room. I was on the PC, while Davin was reading a book. We heard Baby Caleb cry and then my wife called out.

Davin: Dad, Mom is calling you. Good luck!

***

Davin was trying to color Thor in his coloring book.

Me: Davin, Thor’s clothes should be colored dark blue. Davin: That’s not dark blue, that’s black blue!

I'll end this post with a photo of what dad life looked like last week.

Tags: #Weeknotes #Blogging #BulletJournal #DigitalGarden #FunnyThingsMyKidsSay #JuniorDoctor #Parenthood #Minecraft #Nutrition #PopRock #PopPunk #SelfImprovement #SimplePlan #StateChamps #WeTheKings

If you don’t know about your past, you can’t shape your future. Now go. Learn where you came from. ~ Kemal, The Protector S1, E5

You can't shape your future, if you don't know your past. This applies to most things in life — and can apply to a person, to an organization, to a company, to a country, etc... Sometimes we get too caught up in the present, that we forget to look back to the past, to figure out where we should be going or what we should be doing.

For instance, the whole human race has come so far. From barely being able to survive in the wilderness, to building out amazing skyscrapers, to even flying out to the moon and back. It would be such a shame to let all this collective knowledge and progress go to waste by only focusing on the present.

A lot of the problems we have now, have already been encountered in the past — they just look a little different. For instance, a problem with addiction to books in the past, morphed into addiction to television, then to computers, and now in its most potent form yet, addiction to smartphones. Like it was mentioned in the The Social Dilemma documentary, these are the same problems that we've encountered before. They've just taken on a different form.

But not every problem we encounter today needs to be solved by a new app or new gadget or even new technology. Sometimes, all we need to do, is look to the past for answers.

From the standpoint of personal self-improvement, you should look to the past, study it, find out where you failed and where you succeeded, and use that to figure out how to shape your future.

Tags: #Reflection #SelfImprovement

A few days ago I heard an ad on TV that said something like, “people say less is more, but more is REALLY MORE!” Obviously, the intent of that ad is to get you to spend more money. We live in a world where people are judged by their material possessions. The narrative being, if you have more, then you are living a better life compared to everyone else around you. That is ridiculous.

The older I get the more I really believe that less is more. Dan Erickson wrote a post about focusing on the “less is more” mindset. It is an absolutely wonderful read.

So often we want more. We have been trained to think more is better. More money. More stuff. More success. But this idea of getting and doing more often gets in the way of our goals. ~ Dan Erickson

Visit Original Post: Sometimes It’s the Things We Leave Out

When I wrote this back in 2019, I was mostly thinking in terms of material possessions. Fast forward to today and I can't help but think that the “less is more” mindset, is also applicable to my online activities. One thing I learned during this second digital declutter, is that I definitely had too much going on with all my online activities. I mean I had five websites that I was trying to maintain for crying out loud.

This post is Day 72 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. Visit https://100daystooffload.com to get more info, or to get involved.

Tags: #Bookmarks #SelfImprovement #DanErickson #100DaysToOffload

Walking is increasingly mediated by technological gadgets worn on wrists or gripped in hands. We spend an increasing amount of time ‘screening’ the world – taking in most of life through a contracted frame that captures objects of immediate interest. To live with eyes on the screen is to be attached, stuck in the frame, taking in what is presented to us and re-presented to us again. But representation – even in fine-grained pixilation – is not experience. To experience is to perceive. When we look at a screen, we might see something, but we don’t perceive. To live life through representations is to live passively, to receive rather than to experience.

~ For the full life experience, put down all devices and walk by John Kaag

I am so grateful that I discovered the IndieWeb. Owning my content and posting my thoughts on my own site instead of a silo like Twitter gives me real freedom. I can decide how my thoughts are displayed (I like to make them available to everyone without advertising), I can edit them and they stay available for as long as I want.

~ I deleted my Twitter account by Jan-Lukas Else

People were created to be loved. Things were created to be used. The reason why the world is in chaos is because things are being loved and people are being used.

~ Love People, Not Things by Joshua Becker

This post is Day 56 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. Visit https://100daystooffload.com to get more info, or to get involved.

Tags: #Bookmarks #DigitalMinimalism #Blogging #SelfImprovement #100DaysToOffload

Life is short, so it matters how you spend it.

As Seneca points out, “We are not given a short life, but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it.” A minute is long if you know how to use it. A week is plenty of time if you don’t waste it.

I thought this was an extremely good read. If you are a fan of Stoicism, you'll find much to like here. And even if you are not a fan, there is still so much good information here. The kind that you could use right away.

Reading this has made me interested in finding out more about Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. From the quotes I've read on Seneca, he seems to be this old guy full of common-sense wisdom that he imparts in sometimes hilarious fashion. Marcus Aurelius on the other hand, was like this serious, principled and disciplined authority figure. Figures, he was only emperor of Rome at some point in time.

One thing I noticed is how a lot of the ideas that Jocko Willink outlined in his book — Discipline Equals Freedom — resonate with the ideas listed in this article. It could be that Jocko Willink is a student of Stoicism. I don't know for sure, just that some of the ideas are similar.

Link: How to Have the Best Week Ever

“On those mornings you struggle with getting up, keep this thought in mind—I am awakening to the work of a human being. Why then am I annoyed that I am going to do what I’m made for, the very things for which I was put into this world? Or was I made for this, to snuggle under the covers and keep warm? It’s so pleasurable. Were you then made for pleasure? In short, to be coddled or to exert yourself?” —Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.1

This idea, of waking up every morning and seeing it as another chance to be a better human being, has been stuck in my head for a while now. There was another blogger on read.write.as who posted something similar. If I recalled correctly, his/her example made use of Sisyphus. The idea was that after so many tries at rolling the boulder up a hill, surely Sisyphus would have figured out ways to improve himself with the task at hand.

The point I'm trying to make is that every new day is a chance to improve ourselves, to become a better human being. We should make it count.

It may hurt some feelings. It may turn people off. It may take hard work. But the more you say no to the things that don’t matter, the more you can say yes to the things that do. This will let you live and enjoy the life that you want.

One of my favorite lines from the article.

Marcus Aurelius didn’t believe that it was unfortunate that bad things happened to him. He said, “No, this is fortunate that it happened to me.” Because not everyone would have been able to handle it.

This one in particular sounds like something that Jocko Willink would say. Except he will say, “Good” instead of whatever Marcus Aurelius said.

My favorite part of the article is the last part, on the topic of Review.

“I will keep constant watch over myself and—most usefully—will put each day up for review. For this is what makes us evil—that none of us looks back upon our own lives. We reflect upon only that which we are about to do. And yet our plans for the future descend from the past.” —Seneca, Moral Letters, 83.2

Winston Churchill was famously afraid of going to bed at the end of the day having not created, written or done anything that moved his life forward. “Every night,” he wrote, “I try myself by Court Martial to see if I have done anything effective during the day. I don’t mean just pawing the ground, anyone can go through the motions, but something really effective.”

That's two separate instances of different people implementing review to improve themselves.

In his book Discipline Equals Freedom, Jocko Willink mentions a similar thing. In his case, every day he will ask himself (and this is not a direct quote from the book), “What did I do today to improve myself?”

Again, there's that similarity of ideas. But my point is, these are three different persons, who lived/live in different times and they all practice the same thing. There must be something to it then, right?

At the beginning or end of each day, the Stoic sits down with his journal and reviews what he did, what he thought, and what could be improved. It’s for this reason that Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations is a somewhat inscrutable book—it was for personal clarity, not public benefit. Writing down Stoic exercises was and is a form of practicing them, just as repeating a prayer or hymn might be.

The great thing here is that I already maintain a bullet journal. I can simply add this practice to it. Anyway, if you've gotten this far, go read the article. It is a good one.

This post is Day 44 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. Visit https://100daystooffload.com to get more info, or to get involved.

Tags: #Bookmarks #SelfImprovement #RyanHoliday #100DaysToOffload