A learning lifestyle

The person you are when you wake up in the morning is not the same person you were when you went to bed. Your brain assimilated new knowledge and changed as you slept.

Since I haven't been sleeping more than 4 hours a night for the last few weeks I wonder how much that has inhibited my personal growth. Have my concerns about work, life and the value I bring to others caused me to veer off into an eddy? How do I break free and rush downstream?

Perhaps it is time to consider a step back:
Soren Kierkegaard said that life must be lived forwards, but can only be understood backwards.

At the moment I am (along with a significant portion of the planet) fixated on the here and now. News headlines, my current 'ever growing' ToDo list. The daily interrupt requests that rob me of my productivity and focus.

But here's the thing...

This aint my first rodeo. I've been here before. There have been other stressful times in my life... times too numerous to count

And bad mistakes

I've made a few

I've had my share of sand kicked in my face

But I've come through

So why has my personal productivity gone to 🔥 in a handbasket? I've allowed myself to learn that checking for the latest headlines on Covid-19 every couple of hours is ok. That checking to see how bad the market is doing is ok. That not saying NO to new items for my task list or dropping unimportant tasks is ok, that not blocking out time free from distractions or fixating on minor things is ok.

How you feel right now and how you choose to deal with life's challenges is a learned behavior.

It may not be intentional learning, and what you learn my change over time, but the only person who can make you feel angry, or helpless or frustrated, is you.

Secret:

Totally not what my current self wants to hear

Reality:

Exactly what my current self needs to hear.

So if I want to 'think different' I need to change the way I learn, assimilate new knowledge, internalize new patterns.

To do that, I'm going to try to keep it simple.

Stop:

Checking news websites

How: Configure blocklists in Cloudflare for Teams DNS Gateway.

Checking markets
How: Blocklists + uninstall financial apps + move passwords of nn accounts to encrypted notes.

Interrupts

How: Blocklists for Twitter and other social media sites + unsubscribe from internal groups that need unsubscribing + silence users that need silencing + block out 1 hour in the morning for tasks + 1 hour at night to build a priority list.

Start:

Writing
How: #100days + publish at end of day even if incomplete / unpolished + internal tech tips.

Relaxing

How: Use the breathe app + close some rings + sit on the mat and breathe

Doing meaningful work:
How: Master a new piece of software and write up the process + deliver training in a new way + bomb through the MOOCs.

Perfect strategy? Hardly. But an imperfect plan violently executed and all that....

So the real key here for me is, I think, being ok with imperfection, with change and with a little withdrawal to kick my limbic system into a learning mode for new patterns.

#100days #reboot #writeMore #stressLess #officeWaffle