Tag: Routine

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 730 and Wrapping Year Two

I almost can’t believe I’ve been writing every single day for two straight years. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very impressed with myself. But in truth, it doesn’t feel like I’ve been at it for that long.

Like it’s just a basic habit that I have surely only recently picked up right? My emotions tell me it must be less time but the facts disagree. The time distention of the pandemic appears to be permanent. Perhaps I’ll never have a handle on time ever again. And maybe this is even for the best. I live more in the “now” than I ever have.

If you are considering picking up a new habit for 2023, I recommend it. The beauty of a daily habit is the freedom it brings. We seen them as disciplines or even constraints on our time. But habits give us more freedom than they take.

I no longer pressure myself to produce good writing or force an outcome on my practice. I gave up on that early on. I trust my habits and the value of the practice inherent in them. I practice each and every day. And practice makes perfect. It is our habits that make us who we are over the long run. Cue Allen Iverson’s “it’s practice” speech.

I consider myself a good writer now. Sometimes my writing is even truly excellent. I’ve got round up posts for this year and for the prior year as well. I’m not sure they are comprehensive or even representative of my writing. I’m not even sure if they represent my excellence. But I am proud to see the breadth of topics I’ve tackled and the consistency I bring to addressing whatever is on my mind. And that is it’s own good.

I have no plans to stop writing. One day I will. The milestone my heart seeks is 1,000 days of writing. Perhaps I’ll make it. If I am lucky enough to have space to put down my thoughts each day it will be a blessing. If I am not able to make it, I will grieve and find a way to move beyond it. But until then, I will continue to practice. And I trust whatever comes from those habits.

Happy New Year to you and yours. I am so blessed to have you as a reader. My journey is your journey just as your journey is mine. Writing is screaming into the void and praying a warm voice returns our call with a kind “I hear you” response. I hear you too. None of us are alone. And I look forward to reaching for you in 2023. I hope you reach for me as well.

Categories
Background Chronicle

Day 729 and My 22 Round Up

I scrambled a bit to do round up of this year’s posts. I went through through each day individually and attempted to sort posts that grabbed me into succinct categories. I don’t want to call it a “best of” list so much as a set of themes and experiences that made up my 2022. It was quite a year.

The most popular post I wrote this year was my viral hit about dickriders by a huge margin. The tweet got several million views and the blog post got upwards of 50,000 readers. Nothing else even compares. I think my some of my most honest writing came through two days in May when Alex and I decided to buy our house in Montana. Day 499 and 500 respectively. But I cover a huge breadth of topics over the year so without further ado here is the list. In no particular order.

Twitter Shit

Dick Riders or Don’t Outsource Your Credibility

Excession, Nerd Wounds & Needing to Be Liked

Gender Politics.

Mommy Issues, Girlbossing, & Chivalry for Women After Feminism

The Cuckservatives

The Fuck Boys

The Thot Leaders

Startup Content

My #5Before40 Project to Build Chaotic Capital in Public

Managing Founders or The Rule of 3 Asks

How To Do Cold Outreach

Managing Winter As A Metaphor For Downturns

The Importance of Corporate Governance for Startups

Glass Cannons, Gaming & Going Critical In Startup Life

Accidentally Ahead Of The Fraud Trend

Shoot The Puck or Letterkenny as a Metaphor for Startups

Vibe Shifts, Web3 and End Times at EthDenver

High Agency People

How I Sensemake My Investments

Emotional Work

FTX, Crashes, And History Repeating

A Love Letter To My Husband About Chores

Being A Daddy’s Girl

Halfway There or 500 Days

Vinegar or Why Boundaries Are Good

The Emotions of Buying Your First House

The Emotional Security of Owning A Home

A Painting Without Shadows is Flat

A Deep Sense of Okayness

Watching Others Drown

Montana

Bozeman, Boulder and the Uncanny Valley of Progress in The American Mountain West

Hospitality, Guest Rooms & Welcoming

Leaping into Action or How A Wilderness EMT Course Helped Me Work in Chaos.

We’re Not In Colorado Anymore & Our Digital Barn Raising Move

Health & Biohacking

The Personal Politics of America’s Drug War

Aesthetics, Religion and Botox

The Poetry of Migraines & Stretched Time

A Meditation On Heat, Social Mores, Pain, and Texas

Tracker Jacker or When Your Health is Outside The Mean

Politics

Preparedness, Consumer Culture & Distrust

Margin Call & Collapse

Women & Bodily Autonomy, Young Male Reactionaries and Groypers

The Humiliation of America’s Broken Immigration System

Categories
Biohacking Emotional Work

Day 727 and Low Recovery Scores

I am chuckling at how excited my former self was for a productive holiday season. I was just overcome by enthusiasm for getting ahead over the break. I was so sure the relaxation would lead to creativity and connection. Pride comes before a fall I guess. But according to my Whoop & Apple Watch, my heart rate variability has been significantly worse than usual.

Maybe it was the extreme weather. Montana had a temperature swing of 95 degrees over the last week. Perhaps I’ve simply been overdoing it with cortisol and overstimulation, as I’ve had an exciting couple of days online.

I’ve wrote up a product road maps for Twitter’s messaging service and gone viral for therapy poasting. Those two activities are tied together. You can guess who the audience was for each of those and enjoy a chuckle.

I’ve got at least one post I’d like to get done before I wrap up year two of writing every single day. I think it’s important to do a year end “best of” overview. But that will require focus and time to get right. But I won’t be doing it today. Today I will listen to my body and let it recover. 2022 was by all measures a hell of a year. I look back on it and see a huge level up in my personal life across multiple dimensions. So if my body wants a little extra recovery time it earned it.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 720 and Good Inputs

I’ve been enjoying how relaxed and open everyone is this week. A good chunk of folks are out on break for Christmas (with the requisite nod to Chanukah) and it’s making for delightful conversations and relaxed interactions.

Having more time to attend to your life clearly is beneficial for everyone. I know it’s been a frantic year. Heck it’s been a frantic couple of years. And being frantic fucks you up. I feel like I repeat this constantly, but being in fight or flight on a permanent basis is bad for you.

So it’s nice to see people have space to breathe. I love seeing people bring more of themselves to an encounter. I’ve had so many great connections with people this week. It’s shown up in my fundraising. I’ve seen it in my deal flow. I’ve enjoyed it in every interaction I’ve had this week.

It makes me wish more people could have the space to give themselves the right inputs in their lives. It won’t be the same for everyone. But it really does help when people have the basics like sleeping, eating, exercising and other “taking care of their body” activities time. I hope that everyone remembers the joy of the season is from giving everyone around us grace. And that includes ourselves.

Categories
Emotional Work Startups

Day 719 and Step By Step

I was discussing my goals for 2023 with a friend today. They wanted to know if I was planning on making any New Year’s resolutions. I told them that I wasn’t in the habit of using a new calendar year for making big changes.

Generally speaking if I want to do a thing I just start. I honestly feel like it’s far too intimidating to declare yourself to be some kind of fundamentally new person that will, as of a certain arbitrary day, make huge life changes. It’s too much pressure. One of my rules for biohacking is to only change one variable at a time. And I don’t make big changes to it either. 10% a week is good enough for most goals. Anyone familiar with the magic of compounding knows that small changes add up to big numbers.

Which isn’t to say that I haven’t started big life changing projects on January first. If you count back from 719 you will notice I first began writing on January 1st 2021. I did indeed resolve to write every day. But I hadn’t intended it as something I’d keep up for a specific amount of time. I’d hoped I’d practice my writing for thirty days and I allowed myself a little fantasy about how amazing it would be to write for a thousand days.

A thousand days seemed like an impossibility at the time which is why I allowed the fantasizing. My pragmatic side said just get started and see if you can keep going. And I did. I put one foot in front of the proverbial other for two years. Now I’m relatively confident that if I want to do so I’ll make it to a thousand days.

I approach most goals like this. I had a fantasy that I could make it as an investor. I was a founder so I thought let’s wire some small angel checks. We were already committed as a family to being startup operators so why not combine our skin in the game with a little more capital risk with our network.

I never envisioned myself raising a fund and making some big announcement about how I had a venture fund. I just started learning by doing. I cut checks. I ran some special purpose vehicles. And this year I decided to one-step-at-a-time go about raising a rolling fund. I am just doing the thing one day at a time. And it’s going well. Amazing people are coming on board. I am confident I’ll reach my goals just by putting one step in front of the other.

If you’d like to join me my goal is to raise $500K per quarter. I’ve got folks like Joel Spolsky of Stack Overflow and Michael Pryor of Trello so you will be in good company. You can read the fund overview here. Yoican sign up on Angellist through the above link or get on a call with me and we can discuss the fund, our portfolio construction and my thesis. Because I intend to work through the holidays because it remains one day at a time.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 715 and Hide Under The Covers

I don’t like having people in my house for non-social reasons. I’m easily overwhelmed by social situations when I expect to be left to my myself. I find myself getting anxious any time a service provider comes down the drive away. And yes, we have a cool home automation that sends me an alert.

I’d call it social anxiety except I’m reasonably good at social graces when it’s an obligation. I can hype myself to socialize when it’s me necessary. But sometimes, people are just in your space because it’s their job.

I can often hide away downstairs to avoid interactions. We’ve got workers coming in and out regularly for bigger outdoor projects like our solar panel installation. That’s not too bad as I can keep out of their way except for a polite hello and offers of water and snacks.

But sometimes I’ve got to bite the bullet and spend hours with people around me and there is no simple way to exchange social niceties and hide. I find this especially anxiety inducing for house cleaning. I can’t easily hide under the covers when it’s their job to change the sheets.

I am also the sort of person who cleans up for the cleaners. Not deep clean stuff but pick it up and put it away tasks. Hence my little organizing obsession with the cosmetics cabinet yesterday. Maybe that was just an early sign I self anxious about having people in my most intimate spaces.

I managed just find in this most embarrassingly privileged situation. I moved from room to room getting my work done for the day. If anything I had a very productive day as I kept running to the safety of my email inbox to create some distance. I did however take a nap once the house was empty this afternoon. Too many hours of hyper vigilance sure tired out my inner autist.

Categories
Travel

Day 713 and Travel Logistics

I’m planning my first international trip since we moved to Montana. I will be going to Prague for a couple weeks in January if you happen to be around. And the logistics are very much only for experienced travelers.

I’ve not yet had to fly out through the Bozeman Airport but Alex tells me it is easy and straight forward. We have many short hops to international airports. The real issue seems to be that with a pilot shortage getting out of hand, arranging layovers eats up more of your travel time. Airlines are less able to do hub banking with their flights so I will be enjoying a six hour layover in Munich. Finally all my German lessons on Duolingo will get a property stress test.

I love optimizing for Airbnbs when I travel. I have a lot of little details that I look for when I’m going to be somewhere long enough to settle in. For instance, I like to cook my own meals. I like to be walking distance to a grocery store so I can pick up ingredients and cook when the mood strikes. That can be trickier if you are staying in a downtown area. So I look to be near the major neighborhoods but maybe just a bit off the beaten path.

I managed this quite well in Frankfurt last year where I was a short 10 minute walk to a high end grocery store in one direction while also being only 15 minutes from the main shopping area and farmers market in the other. I didn’t take a single cab or Uber the entire time except to get to the airport. It was absolutely perfect planning for enjoying living as if Frankfurt were my home.

I think I’ve achieved this for Prague. I found a cute spot that is equidistant to to most of the sights I want to see as well as the errand and obligations on my itinerary. I am yet again attempting to help someone with an American visa so I wanted to be near the embassy. But the embassy row isn’t much for other amenities like grocery and nightlife so I found a spot on a small park next to all the crucial shops. I am excited so if you have suggestions I am all ears.

Categories
Startups

Day 710 and Holiday Work

Working on a Wednesday is expected. Working on a Sunday is a transgression. And like all modern transgressions, working when you aren’t supposed to be working is now a desirable thing. When work becomes a rebellion, strange things happen to your life. I think magic happens.

I’ve excited for the dead time that the end of the year brings for work. Because it’s secretly one of the best times to get shit done. I am never more productive than when I’m expected to be at rest.

In America, there is an expectation that we take some of the time off between Christmas and New Year. But the time off grows and suddenly no one is expected to get anything done for two whole weeks. And then it’s just a mess of resentment where we are at work but not getting much out the door. It’s such a waste. But as soon as people are actually off the clock. That’s when the entire energy of the situation changed.

When everyone is out of the office, is the best times of the year to sprint ahead. Maybe it’s that when people are off work officially they are more receptive to new ideas. They are less on the clock and can take more chances. It seems fun to check your email after too many hours with family where no one shares your interests.

But trust me people are looking for an excuse to do deals when it’s taboo to be working. It’s as tantalizing as getting a message from someone you want to bone. Look at you doing this thing that is a little bit naughty. What a secret you have getting work done when social convention demands we be with family.

So if you get an email from me during the holiday season know it’s because I’m having a blast. You might enjoy responding. Who knows what kind of cool deals we get done when no one else is hustling.

Categories
Aesthetics

Day 708 and Early Bird Special

Somehow we missed lunch today. A busy morning involving a drive into town to meet a new doctor had some second order effects. All our meetings got pushed back. I agreed to a media interview over the typically blocked lunch hour that Alex and I share. One thing led to another.

We just ate lunch at 4pm. Which I think is basically an early bird special. And frankly I’m ready to go straight to bed after that meal. Alex made a bacon & scallion macaroni and cheese that hit my empty stomach with an intense urge to engage in rest and digest.

My circadian rhythm has up up before down and ready to sleep as soon as the sun is down vibe these days. Which in Montana as we near the solstice is 4:40pm. The setting sun is sending down tendrils of orange and pink light through the clouds as the wind in the valley pushes a light snow flurry out to the west. It’s majestic as fuck.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 707 and Self Discipline

In case it’s not readily apparent from the fact that I’ve written for seven hundred and seven straight days, I am very good at personal discipline. I can will myself to do almost anything. But this gift gets tangled up in negative emotions easily.

Part of this internal sense of discipline is the very clear set of norms I got as part of gendered expectations for good womanhood. You must exert ownership over yourself. Because without doing so, you will be unable to do the work that is expected of women.

You just discipline yourself to serve others. Because women must put other people’s priorities and schedules ahead of their own. Women must be accommodating. Women must be nice. It’s all a very careful training to insure you’d never consider stepping out of line. At it starts at self discipline.

Deviations like weight gain or chronic tardiness or looking unkempt in public were roundly censured in popular culture. I internalized all the ways in which I needed to be constantly improving, fixing, bettering and otherwise making sure I was showing up as others wanted me.

I am slowly unraveling the ways in which this has shown up negatively. Now as I try to unlearn my own obedience I find unproductive ways to rebel.

A small list of the ways this manifests. I hate external deadlines. If someone tells me I must deliver by a specific time I get anxious. If I have a morning appointment r my body wakes regularly through the night to check that I’ve not missed it. Calendars and schedules evoke feelings of despair that go back deep into my childhood. I’ve clearly been learning and unlearning this pattern for sometime.

I am deeply grateful for having discipline as a friend in my life. I have excellent habits in many areas because of it. But making it a true friend will take more time. It’s one of the hardest pieces of shadow work I’ve ever done.