A look at what’s ahead

I do a short dive into discipline and my effort to consume less. Then, I mention a handful of reads I found interesting, particularly “Remembering Quartz’s Lauren Brown” — if you read anything, read that. Finally, a recap of my inconsistent and undisciplined week of training.

On my mind: discipline and consumption

This past week, I’ve had a lot on my mind, but nothing notable. I wrote ~800 words about motivation, extrinsic vs. intrinsic motivators, and what I planned to do moving forward. But, what I wrote was pretty damn boring. I even had a cool meme and everything (see below). In the interest of keeping the meme relevant, I’ll briefly address discipline before moving on to consumption.

Discipline meme

I enjoy writing and have wanted to write for a while, but never dedicated any time to it. I could employ some motivation-related techniques to write more consistently, but discipline is the key. Having some routine or commitment every day or every week is what’s necessary. That means sitting down to write this piece (or other things) no matter what gets in the way. Yeah yeah, there may be exceptions but unless an “act of God” happens, I should be able to dedicate the necessary time to my writing goal.

So here’s me, being “disciplined” and writing something for you, dear reader (or friend I forced to read because no one else will).

On consuming less

Last week I mentioned my desire to “consume less.” I have a bad habit of over-consuming. That applies to food (I still believe I can finish an 18-inch Costco pizza in under an hour, but we will see), material goods, and information. I unsubscribed from a few newsletters, but I still consume too much from Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, and the like.

Cutting down my time on social media is imperative to curing my over-consumption, but that will be difficult. However, I could get an easy win right now by starting an “information cleanse.” Every morning, I get like five different newsletters, some covering the exact same topics. It seems unnecessary to get both Exec Sum and Axios Pro Rata when both newsletters are two sides of the same coin. I’m going to whittle down my newsletter diet to only six. It seems like an arbitrary number, but I get a variety of newsletters on different cadences (daily, every other day, weekly, etc.). Additionally, I have a long list of articles that I planned on reading that I need to cut down. There’s no point (for me) in maintaining a list of 20+ articles that I “plan” on reading for months on end. To start, I’ll limit the max number of items at one time to some arbitrary number (TBD whether I do six or ten). That might be a poor approach, but it will help me determine (1) how often I’m having to remove something from the queue and (2) if I’m making any progress. If in a month, that queue still has 10 items and I have not read a single one, I’ll clear it all.

Sure, sometimes I may want to set aside an article for “when the time is right”, but more often than not I don't come back to it. In those scenarios, I tend to just collect links in some bookmarking software. Though I only occasionally check back on those links, it has been useful in some instances to look up a keyword and see what I’ve saved in the past.

So, my first two acts to help reduce my information over-consumption are: (1) cut down the number of newsletters I get and (2) clear my “read later” queue. Will report back on how that goes.

On consuming slower

I’m currently reading Stolen Focus (literally just started), which has shown me that in addition to consuming less, I need to consume actively and slowly.

As mentioned earlier, I’m subscribed to too many newsletters. Yet, for most of them, all I do is skim to get the gist before moving on. Skimming reinforces the idea that I have to consume as much as possible as quickly as possible to understand everything I need to. My attention is thus reduced to brief moments of concentration. Instead, I should exercise the ability to slow down and consume information in a focused manner.

I haven't figured out if there are any easy steps to work on consuming more slowly. It might help to set aside time solely for reading newsletters and articles. Other than scheduling time for reading, I'll have to be more self-aware to prevent myself from multitasking and skimming. I’ll let you know if I find any quality advice while reading Stolen Focus.

Reads and other tidbits

Is it ironic or merely coincidental that after my “consume less” and “cut down on information” rant, I am now suggesting information to consume? Given that I have never understood how the hell to use the word “ironic,” I’ll say it’s just coincidental. You might think it’s antithetical to my previous point, but I would advocate more for conscious and slow consumption. The below links all provided value to me for one reason or another and I believe can provide value to others as well.

  • (Book) Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow — link

    Fire book. Not sure I could think of any more apt adjectives to describe this one. I’m a sucker for books that can navigate relationships well and this one did just that. I don’t particularly enjoy romance-specific novels, but instead, those that include an exploration of relationships (romantic, platonic, familial, …). Several nights this past week I stayed up past my usual “bedtime” (if you know me, you know that’s a bit wild) to keep reading this book.

  • (Book) Stolen Focus — link

    I’m only 37 pages in, so I don’t have any real commentary yet, but I thought this quote was pertinent “Slowness, he explained, nurtures attention and speed shatters it.”

  • (Article) The science of motivation — link

    As part of my “research” into motivation, I went back to one of my favorite sources, Ness Labs, to see if there were any articles/posts on motivation. This article got me thinking about what it is that motivates me and what I can do to motivate myself.

  • (Article) Remembering Quartz’s Lauren Brown — link

    I struggled to write a short blurb for this, so I’ll just use this quote to do it for me: “’The experience taught me that, despite all of the circumstances in life we can’t control, “happiness” is one thing you can. Happiness is not a feeling, but an orientation. It is an active approach to life, in a million small ways, that insists on persevering through shitty circumstances. Sure, this approach means that much of the time, you’re faking happiness before you feel it. But that’s when it’s most important.’”

Training log

Tiburon View of SF from Tiburon

I’ll officially start half-Ironman training the first week of April. So, I’m about two weeks out from that point. Swimming is still quite difficult, but I do feel I’m slowly getting better. Youtube has been clutch in helping me learn some drills and techniques, and then I have several books coming in the next week or so to help in general with swimming and triathlon training.

Consistency is key and last week was anything but consistent. I missed a couple workouts and switched up when I would bike. Luckily I’m not in a dedicated training phase — when I start my training plan, I will definitely need to be a bit more ~disciplined~.

Monday: Run

Tuesday: Swim (more like avoiding drowning) / Upper-body focused workout

Wednesday: Brick (bike + run)

Thursday: Swim / Bike

Friday: Recovery (aka I got too busy with work to do anything)

Saturday: Bike (longer ride — ~40 mi)

Sunday: Full-body workout

Parting thoughts

What’s been fun about writing is how non-linear it can be. Sometimes I’ll start writing with a specific focus only to go in a completely different direction. I'll branch off into different areas of interest, jump from topic-to-topic, or even have an epiphany in real time. I had always struggled with writing because I couldn't figure out what I wanted to write about. Only after I committed to writing anything, regardless of topic, have I been able to actually write. I may start with a topic like motivation and then pivot after realizing I don't care or have enough to say at the moment. Today was a prime example of that after trying literally four different topics before settling on consumption.

I'm excited to see what happens with next week's edition.