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Category: Thinking Clearly

Time Blocking Made Easy

Published on March 25, 2023

Macro: 8 hours sleep / 8 hours work / 8 hours life.

Which means: 50/50 split either daily or weekly between work tasks (things we do for survival) and life tasks (things we do for fulfillment).

Pro tip: Take life tasks as seriously as work tasks. Make formal blocks for family / friends / nature / adventure / reading / writing / hobbies / doing nothing / etc.

Bottom line: Those who master how they manage their time… become masters over the fate of their lives.

P.s. Do you struggle over the thought of your life’s fate? My guide The Art of Forward will help.

Lead With Your Heart

Published on March 16, 2023

Lead with your heart and utilize the power of your mind to figure out the rest.

Leading with your mind and trying to utilize the power of the heart doesn’t work out so well.

Why? Because the heart isn’t one to be utilized.

The heart is who you are; the mind is composed of all the tools that you could ever need to utilize and shape that identity.

Force your mind to build an identity that is in conflict with your heart and the heart will inevitably rebel. Many of us get pigeon-holed into this trap because our minds are so damn loud and constantly connected to the damn loud minds of others.

That is why we must quiet our mind; why we must turn down the noise of what’s “practical” “lucrative” and “respectable;” why we must return to stillness.

Because it’s only there… where we’re quiet and thinking as ourselves—not as others would have us think—that we’re able to truly hear what our heart has to say.

So that from there… we can begin to truly lead.

Too busy for self-care?

Published on March 15, 2023

Think again.

Here are 9 creative ways you can intertwine self-care into your routine:

No 20-minute meditation block?

  • Meditate while waiting.
  • Meditate while eating.
  • Meditate while commuting. Commit to no podcasts, music, or phone use of any kind. Just drive mindfully, focus on your breath, and notice all that’s filling your senses in the world around you.

No 40-minute reading block?

  • Try audiobooks instead. “Read” while driving, while doing chores, while exercising, etc.
  • Try the 5-page rule. Read no more and no less than 5 pages in the morning, afternoon, and at night… and inside any other pockets of time you can swing throughout the day.
  • Read from your phone. Instead of obsessively checking social media throughout the day, download a reading app that allows you to consume books as you would social media. I average ~2 hours of screen time per day… imagine if all of that was devoted to reading…

No 1-hour exercise block? 

  • Focus on getting 10k+ steps. Park further away everywhere you go. Do a lap around the office/ neighborhood a few times throughout the day. Take the family/ dog out on a longer than usual walk.
  • Exercise in pockets. Pick a bodyweight exercise and do 3-5 max-ish sets throughout the day. Push-ups every 3 hours. Lunges every 4 hours. Sit-ups whenever you enter or leave the house.
  • Do an abbreviated workout. You don’t need 1 hour to get an excellent workout. Do 2 exercises every minute on the minute for whatever time you have (e.g. 5 push-ups, 10 squats, done each minute for 10 minutes). Go for a 15 minute run around your block. Do as many burpees as you can in 5 minutes.

The Excuse That’s Needed

Published on March 14, 2023

Yesterday, my website broke.

And as anyone who has ever built websites knows… there’s a million things that could’ve caused it.

Fortunately, it was still functional, just all of my theme settings were seemingly erased or there was some major facelift that messed everything up.

Now for context, my previous settings were in place for several years. And, as the saying goes, it wasn’t broke… so I didn’t fix it.

But, once it did break… rather than wreak havoc on everybody and anybody who could’ve been involved or spend a handful of hours trying to troubleshoot the exact (sometimes ridiculously minor) issue… I simply looked at it as a signal for it being time…

…Time to take a fresh look. Time to upgrade from where it was several years ago. Time to question everything about the user experience and re-create new settings from scratch.

Because while the pain of having things break is that you have to fix them… sometimes that’s the excuse you needed (and didn’t know you were waiting for) anyway.

P.s. How To Stay Calm When Things Break – A Buddhist Teaching.

Non-Negotiable

Published on March 13, 2023

My best piece of advice for anyone living “all-in” in the digital world is to take frequent, deliberate, non-negotiable breaks away from all things digital.

P.s. Tweet this.

Onion Identities

Published on March 11, 2023

We are complex, multi-layered creatures.

What everybody sees are the exposed outer layers of our onion identities.

What we feel are the deeply influential inner layers that are encoded in emotion and symbolism that take quality time to understand.

It’s only when we learn to decode the complex feelings and insights buried within that we can finally change the vibrancy and authenticity of our exposed outer layers.

Trying to upkeep the appearance of an impeccable shell with a rotting interior is futile work. What’s rotting on the inside will inevitably make its way to the outside.

It’s only once we understand that we function as an integrated whole… that we might finally commit to developing and improving our innermost—most influential—layers.

And we can begin the inner work that’ll change our daily mission from “shell upkeep” to “core cleaning” and what used to be a facade will slowly crumble and what’ll be left is a vibrant glow that was there all along. 

No Waste On Weather

Published on March 10, 2023

Dear busy person,

The weather is out of your control. So don’t spend even more than one minute complaining about it. No good will come from it. All that will come is a worsened mood, wasted time, and a rippling effect of the same into the lives of those whom you’re connected with. You’re already busy enough. Just for today, practice complete acceptance. Whatever weather comes, comes. Whatever weather goes, goes. And how you respond is: dress for the weather regardless—while sheltering your inner weather from any unnecessary skews or upsets along the way. And if today goes well, maybe you do the same tomorrow?

Sincerely,

Your inner work person

P.s. If you’re busy, you can read my other letters to you here.