Tag: Routine

Categories
Emotional Work Travel

Day 1026 and Failure Modes

I’m not sure my current traveling is yielding the success I’d hoped. A bumpy road of geopolitical chaos, physical stress and emotional work has made my time in Tallinn harder than anticipated.

I don’t want to call the trip a failure as I doubt anyone is paying enough attention but me to notice. I didn’t get to attend as many meetings and events as I’d hoped and I feel guilty about it.

But I am noticing the challenge of doing work as a digital nomad while also coping with emotional family obligations and responsibilities.

I’m trying to decide what constitutes a failure mode for me. Am I doing what’s best for the longer term goals I’ve set for myself? And do I know where must I set painful boundaries?

I struggle mightily to be separated from family and friends. But I am also coping with the new reality of closed borders, impossible visas, and challenges to uniting everyone in my extended chosen family unit. Many people can’t get to America anymore.

It’s on my mind as I am considering rearranging some of my time in Estonia to go to the Netherlands for the Network State conference next Monday. It’s exhausting to be on the road but I also firmly believe the network state will be an emerging organizer for populations that aren’t well served by their current geographical state.

That’s ironically why I’m in Estonia in the first place. It is the most progressive of the nation states with its e-residency program and I’m excited to do more business here as it’s welcoming to all who can make a contribution.

And yet I feel like I’m not doing all that I’d hoped while I’m here. There are too many directions to go in and no good choices. I long to be more specific about some of them but the salient point is that I have freedom of movement that many others do not. And that’s the failure mode that undermines us all.

Categories
Culture

Day 1022 and Decision Tree

How often do you rely on other people’s decision? I bet it’s more than you realize. It’s actually mind boggling to me how much we all rely on each other’s assumptions to function. Enough to make the concept of “operating from first principles” seem comical.

Every aspect of my daily routine relies on decisions made by others going back so far we’ve simply lost track. And I’m not even talking about the big shit.

Let me give you a example. I’m writing this post on my iPhone inside of a mobile application called Jetpack. It’s a mobile content management system that’s part of the wider the WordPress ecosystem.

I’ve blogged using WordPress for nearly two decades. I’ve been using Apple products for thirty years. MacOS and its successor mobile iOS have been the dominant operating system for my entire life.

Isn’t it astonishing to think that the software (and hardware) that I use to organize my thinking relies on engineering decisions made by PHP and C developers decades ago?

And those decisions rest on top of other decisions made by other engineers. I am in Europe so charging my ridiculously powerful pocket computer that is running WordPress software requires a power adapter as American appliances run on 110 volts, while European appliances are 220 volts.

Decisions, resting on top of decision, resting on top of other decisions rule my life. They run your life too. And it’s entirely possible somewhere in that decision tree someone made a decision for reasons that you wouldn’t make. So try to remember that your life relies entirely on the work of other people that are just as likely to be wrong as you.

Categories
Emotional Work Preparedness

Day 1017 and Crisis Chores

No matter how trying the week may have been, a day of rest is a day for chores. Fighting entropy is the fight to remain among the living. I feel more than a little bit behind on my goals and obligations. Doing chores is the way I exert my own will over a crisis.

I hope that anyone wondering why I’ve not been up to date on correspondence over the last week can glance at the last few days of posts and extend me grace. I’m not sure if I have done anyone wrong but be slow but I notice my own tardiness.

The benefit of public diaries and social media is that it provides a kind of open “what is happening” context for everyone to see why their emails and messages are not being returned.

I was able to do some amount of personal chores around the Airbnb. Then I was hit with another round of migraines and had to lay down. I am not out of the woods yet it would seem. Maybe tomorrow.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 1016 and Carrying On

It’s been a terrible week. I feel stupid even typing it. How many times can I state the obvious? It’s as if the repetition of stating that I’m in a hard place physically, and emotionally, somehow shames me. Can’t I say or feel something new?

But I don’t have any desire to dig any deeper into the wounds of the present. I am in too much pain. I am deeply emotionally affected by the situation in Israel. In ways I frankly didn’t anticipate. Those horrors overlapping with being sick, being far from home, and having a significant personal milestone, have collectively laid me flat.

I’d prefer to remain silent but the exercise of daily writing pulls at my habits no matter the extent of the misery. And maybe that’s the point. No microcosm of personal suffering or global macro view of atrocity changes the reality. Pain is an equally shared human condition. And we walk through it no matter our circumstances.

I have to assume I am not alone. The ambient misery is both personal and collective. The human experience is terrifyingly universal. I am fearful of my own physical fragility when abroad certainly but it’s bigger than being away from home. I’m afraid of being fragile in a cruel world that is getting crueler.

I’ve struggled to maintain a level head and a healthy routine this week as the whiplash of a hostile immune reaction and steroids took me from one misery to another. Prednisone is a cruel drug. It tamps down any reaction from your immune system. It’s a hard reboot for a physical system gone haywire. How appropriate given the circumstances.

It wasn’t quite how I envisioned turning over from one decade to another. And while I appreciated the stormy Baltic solitude to savor the weight and significance of my personal milestone, I can’t help but also notice that carrying on feels like a heavy burden.

Categories
Travel

Day 1012 and Extra Rest

I laid down for a short nap after my workday and promptly fell asleep. I had to force myself back awake so I could write. I could easily sleep straight through.

I don’t know if I should give in to the impulse to be honest. I know I should do other things on my list long of “to do” items but even pleasant simple ones like wash face and eat dinner seem like too much.

I want to slide back into my nap and let it ride. So I will wrap this up and do so. Three paragraphs is enough to count right?

Categories
Biohacking Finance

Day 1009 and Non-Reactivity

I’ve been working on my Q3 investor update all day. I am a little behind my own artificial deadline for it as I believe it’s good to get it out in the first week of the new quarter. I am chasing down a bigger theme in my market insights section that is being refined as I rework my own narrative understanding in real time.

I feel that there is a collective disagreement on consensus reality. We’ve got multiple worldviews that are being hotly contested. Epistemic status humble as the kids say. And so I am doing what I can to get outside the presumed worldview of my own geography and nation and see if a more global perspective is helpful.

But being able to see any of these different vantage points and narratives will require me to be accepting of other competing or adjacent narratives. The presumption is that I can control my own reactions. My body has to be open. So I am here with my Apollo Neuro band sending sound waves to my body while I listen to Endel’s chill program on my noise canceling headphones. I plan to do a Non-Sleep Deep Rest mediation after I’m finished.

I can only give my best performance when I’m sure my body is in a non-reactive place. Parasympathetic is sometimes called “rest and digest” versus its more active sympathetic nervous system partner “fight or flight.” We must assess our world and the many competing perceptions from a place of non-reactivity. It is the only way through the fog of the moment. Never let the stress of the moment distract you.

Categories
Medical

Day 1008 and Pesky Hormones

I’m enjoying a double header of hormones today. I’m in my luteal premenstrual phase which always leaves me tired and emotional. But I am also just letting go of the last bits of adrenaline and cortisol from my travels last week.

As the last bits of stress hormones drain away and my cyclical hormones flow in all I can feel is the weight of the world. I’m sure this dramatic phrasing is merely a function of the pounding hormonal migraine that always accompanies this time of my cycle.

If this all sounds a little foreign to you, Alisa Vitti’s life’s work has been to help women understand their hormonal cycles impact. I’m always looking for ways to hack my physical performance and health so I’ve been especially focused on pesky stress hormones.

Hopefully a little bit of salmon, some greens, and more rest will get me through it. And by next week I’ll be well on my way to peak creativity and energy. The lull will pass soon.

Categories
Aesthetics Travel

Day 1005 and Settling In

I really appreciate being able to get into a routine in a new city. Doing some grocery shopping is a grounding experience. If you can sort out breakfasts and sensible lunches you can probably keep a routine going.

I personally love the search for a grocery store that caters to a hipster class. There is always demand from some some band of picky upper socioeconomic band that expects a lot of its retail.

I found a spot inside of a mall that appeared to be some variant of an Erewon meets Whole Foods. It had an organic section. It had several choices for high end vinegars. There were multiple types of fish counters. I got some gravlox and horseradish sauce. I got some nice bread for toasts. I was got a nice head of lettuce and some balsamic.

I was very pleased with the basics for living. I realize it’s a little cringe to discuss a day in the life but I think people imagine much more glamorous meals. When the reality is always some variant of prepared food no matter where you are. Though I will say I appreciated good bread and good smoked fish. I’m feeling very cozy Baltic. It’s nice when a town has good vibes.

Categories
Chronicle

Day 1000 and The Milestone

When I first started writing every single day I had modest goals. I wanted to instill a habit of writing more often. My initial goal was to write daily for one month as that seemed both significant but also manageable. But I deliberately didn’t put any pressure on what I would write or for how long I’d keep at it.

Once I had reached my first milestone of writing daily for an entire month, I began considering extending the habit. Maybe I could do it for two months? Maybe I could do it for 100 days? Every new milestone made me excited to reach for a new one.

Once I got to 500 days, I began to feel confident discussing the possibility of reaching 1000 days of writing. I even called that blog post my halfway point. Still I wasn’t sure even then that I’d actually make it to a thousand days. A lot can go wrong in a year or two. But as I learned, with a little bit of perseverance, a lot can go right. Or if you will indulge the pun, a lot can go “write” too.

Still, even as I became accustomed to the habit, I didn’t want to do anything to jinx it. Locking myself into an outcome seemed like a recipe for disappointment. But locking myself into a daily habit? That seemed like a recipe for success. I knew I could keep showing up.

My philosophy for writing has been to take it one day at a time. Habits compound just like money. Small change over time can have a dramatic outcome. I committed to showing up and putting the proverbial pen to paper every day.

And here I am a thousand days later with enough writing for any number of other goals. I’ve got answers to most of the regular questions I encounter in my personal and professional life. I’ve got enough content to turn into a book if I’m so inclined. The volume of my writing is so extensive I could easily train my own artificial intelligence agent.

I don’t know what I’ll do with this body of work other than continue to hyperlink it together and see where it takes me.

And to answer the most obvious question, I do plan to keep writing. I don’t have any desire to stop. I enjoy this practice. It’s conceivable there are other milestones ahead of me. Maybe I double it. Or maybe at the end of the year I decide three years of writing daily is enough.

Who can say? I reached the stretch goal I set for myself. It’s an unbounded journey from here.

Categories
Travel

Day 998 and Pack It Up

Packing is one of my least favorite activities and yet is one of my most refined life skills. I’ve got a number of systems including the 3 bag cascade and the 54321 method.

Packing is a source of significant anxiety for me as I moved a lot as a child. I’ve written about packing 36 times during my thousand day writing experiment so it’s clearly still an unresolved issue for me. But it’s a great opportunity to share my tricks.

I’ve got a Notion document that has a list of all the various medicines, supplements, and other necessities for keeping me healthy & functional on the road. I also maintain a packing list in my daily note book by hand to double check. Then I lay it all out on a towel and double check against both lists. Each separate bag & cascade of needs goes through this process.

Skincare for my transcontinental flight that I keep in a pocket in my backpack.

Because you can’t rely on checked bags arriving at the same time as you (or sometimes at all) I separate out what I need for the first 3 days in my Aer backpack, the first week in my carryon roller bag from Muji, and the remainder of the trip in a checked bag. That’s the three bag cascade system.

Being detail oriented is crucial to the packing coming together. I go so far as to label my packing cubes so I know what pajamas to grab for the overnight versus the more formal clothing which can be safely checked. A separate set of casual outfits goes in the carry on so no matter what happens I’m comfortable and have what I need.

Labeled packing cubes
Aer backpack & Muji roller for carry on
Toiletries for first few days
Checked bag cosmetics
How I organize my packing for all types of travel