Alexandersmap

    Category: Habits

    • Getting Smarter

      “Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Day by day, and at the end of the day – if you live long enough-like most people, you will get out of life what you deserve.”  
      – Charles T. Munger

      I’ve heard this quote a few times over the last few years, and try to live by this rule of consistent, incremental improvement over time.  But especially now.  Now I’m past the halfway mark on my hundred year odyssey.  I figure if family genes have anything to do with it I may suffer from some dementia at some point in my senior years.  I’m hoping that continuous learning combined with medical advancements in memory care multiplied by vibrant life experience will fend off the worst of it until I hit triple digits.  But hell, you just don’t know in this world do you?

      So every day I read.  Mostly non-fiction history or business books, but I mix in page-turner fictional novels along the way, and the occasional classic.  I read a daily dose of stoicism from Ryan Holiday.  I read a few articles in The Athletic or Sports Illustrated.  And God help me I keep an increasingly reluctant finger on the pulse of politics.

      And every day I write.  I journal a bit, but blog a bit more.  Life observations, history, conservationist ramblings, stoicism and hopefully some self-depreciating humor along the way.  Perhaps this will extend my memory and serve as a reminder should it falter someday.  Perhaps it will serve as the foundation for a book someday.  Time will tell.

      What I don’t do every day, but try to do most days, is to anchor my days in vibrant life experiences.  I’d be a fool if I said every day was vibrant, but every day offers experiences.  And I’m trying to suck the marrow out of each of them.  Hopefully I’ll remember most of it when I hit the century mark.

       

    • Routines & Systems

      “Routine is one of the most powerful tools for removing obstacles.  Without routine, the pull of nonessential distractions will overpower us.  But if we create a routine that enshrines the essentials, we will begin to execute them on autopilot.” – Greg McKeown

      I’m a big believer in established routines.  Unfortunately I’ve got a lazy routine established at the moment.  Not enough rowing, walking, burpees, and weights.  A few days ago I set out to re-establish a routine by starting small – ten burpees and ten push-ups.  Just do them at the same time every morning, just after I get up, and once the routine is established start increasing the workload.

      James Clear, in Atomic Habits, talks about focusing on a system, and not on goals.  I feel that’s about right too.  He also says it’s okay to miss, but don’t ever miss twice.  More good advice.  Of course, I missed more than twice, but who’s counting?  I should be.

      Last summer and fall I had a pretty solid routine that included fifty burpees per day, no matter what.  But then I injured my back, and that what mattered.  My back is back to normal again, but the routine of fifty burpees per day hasn’t reappeared.  Perhaps starting with ten and building back up again will do the trick.  After all, ten is way better than zero.

    • Morning Cleanup

      This morning I got up early and did my usual Saturday morning routine when I’m at home: Coffee and some contemplation, followed by the outside chores.

      Step one as I sip coffee is to look around the house and yard to take stock of what needs to be done.  Once my coffee is done I’ll get to work.  This morning that meant putting on my boots and winter gear and heading outside to shovel shit.  In summer?  Eliminate step one.  This shit’s not going to take care of itself.

      Chores are a form of meditation if you approach them the right way.  Tasks done repetitively, and done well, are a reward in and of themselves, even when that task is shoveling up dog crap.  I don’t take pleasure in the process, but in the result it brings.  Clean yard, walkway, deck…  wherever he’s done his business.  Winter with an old dog is tough.

      Despite having responsibilities in my teens and twenties, I can point to one event that accelerated my journey to adulthood.  I was married to the wrong woman at the time, and had moved to Connecticut with her — literally meeting her halfway between where she’d lived and where I’d lived prior to that.  She got a job before I did, and while I looked for a job I worked part-time at Guiding Eyes for the Blind cleaning dog kennels.  Nothing offers perspective like realizing you’re in a bad marriage while shoveling the crap out of 30 kennels, hosing them down and then going outside to clean up the outdoor kennels they occupied while you were cleaning the indoor kennels.  Day after day while you look for a job in a place where you know next to nobody.

      I thought that, until I became a parent, thankfully in a great marriage the second time around, where changing diapers became one of my primary roles.  Explosive diarrhea blows out a diaper?  Clean it up and change their clothes.  Son’s explosive diarrhea up the entire sleeve of your dress shirt?  Clean it up and change your shirt.  Daughter’s barium enema leaks out all over your dress shoes?  Clean it up and buy new dress shoes.  Shit happens.

      So now, with an older dog who tends to shit while he’s walking somewhere to take a shit, there’s a lot of cleanup again.  But I have perspective on what cleanup can be.  Not optimal but not so bad.  Bodhi is one of many to teach me a lot about myself over the years.  Certainly patience was a key lesson as he went from his adolescent years to his adult years to his senior years.  He’s teaching me a final lesson.  Today it’s him.  Someday it may be me.

      But not today.  The shit’s cleaned up, the bird feeders are filled.  Snow is falling now, adding a coating of white over the places I’d just cleaned.  Looking over at the feeders I see three bluebirds taking turns at one of the feeders.  It’s going to be a good day.

    • Reading Water

      Back in college when I rowed, we would row in all kinds of conditions.  In general we would row in just about anything.  But two things you never wanted to see when you were rowing were lightning and whitecaps.  Lightning was a problem on summer afternoons.  Whitecaps were a problem on bigger bodies of water.  It’s been years since I rowed.  I have strong memories of rowing in both thunderstorms with lightning crashing around us and in races where the whitecaps were cresting over the gunwales.

      I don’t row on water anymore, but I still look to the water whenever I’m around it, and read the surface as I once did as a rower.  Rowers read the water a little bit differently than sailors do.  Where sailors read the water looking for puffs to propel the boat forward, rowers look to those same puffs with a mental calculation of what that means to the set of the boat.  Wind and water conditions determine rigging, strategy in a race, and whether you’re going out on the water or hitting the ergs.

      Sunday I was looking out at Buzzards Bay and watching the gusts of wind ripple across the glassy water.  It reminded me of those days reading the rivers and lakes that we rowed on.  And I remembered that I miss rowing.

    • Stoicism and Daily Habits

      I’m pondering a pair of quotes from the stoics.  They go well together of course; each a call to action.  And these quotes also pair well with two books I’m reading right now.

      “Give yourself fully to your endeavors.  Decide to construct your character through excellent actions and determine to pay the price of a worthy goal.  The trials you encounter will introduce you to your strengths” – Epictetus

      “Not to assume it’s impossible because you find it hard.  But to recognize that if it’s humanly possible, you can do it too.” – Marcus Aurelius

      I’ve been reading a gem of a book, The Daily Stoic, by Ryan Holiday.  This book, as the name indicates, is a daily practice.  Get up in the morning, read the one page quote and thoughts on it from Holiday.  In these days of phone addiction, this is a ritual that I’m enjoying.  I usually switch immediately to reading a few pages of whatever book I’m onto at the moment.  At the moment that means Atomic Habits by James Clear.  Brilliantly crafted book with actionable steps for the reader to establish better daily habits.

      Action is the trick.  Today I had a good day because I took action on the objectives I’d laid out for myself.  Tomorrow I hope to build on today’s momentum with more action and perhaps some solid results.  Consistent daily effort, over time, leads to results.  Nothing new in this, and yet so hard to see the forest for the trees sometimes.  That’s one reason I read so many books like this.  They reinforce the message, dilute the impact of the crushing negativity on social media, the news and from the fellowship of the miserable.

      You are the average of the people you hang with the most.  So I choose to hang out with authors and thought leaders who lead me in the direction I want to go in.  Reading and podcasts offer much more than television and talk radio.  So we’ll see how far of a leap forward I take.  But staying where you are in a rapidly changing world is really going backwards.  And I’m not going to go backwards.

    • Time Travel

      As we speak cruel time is fleeing.  Seize the day, believing as little as possible in the morrow.” 
                                                                                            – Horace

      “Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” – William Penn

      January 4th.  Working this week is almost as challenging as working last week was.  Short weeks are always tough, but add in that most people are on vacation or working on their plan for the year and the productivity in a given week goes out the window.  Working the tools of the trade – Salesforce CRM, bullet journal, Getting Things Done methodology – helps but some weeks are more off the rails than others.  I’ve entered the Friday afternoon Bermuda Triangle of productivity.  I look up and it’s after 3 PM and I’ve checked one out of five boxes on my bullet journal to-do list.

      I’ve tried many methods, but to me the Bullet Journal combined with GTD methodology is working the best for me.  If I had all the money I spent on productivity tools over the years I’d be able to retire early.  Best to keep it simple.  Right it down immediately in a bullet form, cross it off when you finish it, move it forward if you don’t.  Keep it simple…

      For a short, unfocused week, I’ve managed to get a few things done.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s still plenty to do, but you need to celebrate the small successes when you achieve them.  After all, there’s always something else that needs to be done.  If you waited until it was all done you’d never celebrate anything.

    • New Year’s Day

      2019 has begun in earnest and there’s no time to waste.  Things to do, places to see, books to read, people to meet, friends and family to reconnect with, work to accomplish.  The flipping of the calendar signifies many things but it does mark change, if only in a number.
      “I will begin again” – U2, New Year’s Day
      The morning after the celebration, for those who didn’t celebrate too much, is chock full of promise.  New habits or the banishment of old habits, goals to accomplish, changes to make in the way you live your life.  Really, every morning offers this opportunity.  Every day you wake up is a clean slate, and offers the promise of the coming day.
      “When you see the Southern Cross for the first time
      You understand now why you came this way
      ‘Cause the truth you might be runnin’ from is so small
      But it’s as big as the promise, the promise of a comin’ day”
                                          – Crosby, Stills & Nash, Southern Cross
      Those lyrics remain burned in me like cattle prod, and poke at me now and then to get out in the world.  Just as the movie Local Hero does.  They serve as a catalyst and travel and some form of adventure must follow soon after each taps me between the ears.  I need to pay penance first with work to do at home, in Pocasset and in my job, but sure as the calendar changes on January 1 I’ll be off somewhere again, finding adventure where I may.

    • Morning Person

      I like to think of myself as a morning person.  Most days I actually am one.  By morning I mean that period of time between night and when the sun rises.  Pre-dawn is my time.  It goes back to when I coached crew and had to be up at 4:30 to get to the boathouse.  It was a struggle at times, but the payoff was when I was out on the river as the sky slowly flooded with light.  We used to say that we did more before the sun came up than most people did all day.  I’ve heard that same expression used with people in the military like Jocco Willink who’s started a cult following with his 4:30 club.

      As a 50-something, I’ve grown lazy.  Sure I try to get my 10,000 steps.  But I rarely lift weights anymore, and even rowing on the erg is hit or miss.  Doing either at 4:30 is prohibitively unpleasant.  At least that’s what I tell myself.  And so I put off working out and have a coffee or two.  I journal or read.

      There’s a 63 year old character named Joe in Hampton, New Hampshire who goes for a power walk every morning before sunrise.  His wife also goes for a power walk but they don’t walk together.  Instead Joe walks with a flight attendant of roughly the same age while his wife walks with some other friends.  Occasionally they meet up and walk together at the end of their respective power walks, but usually they do their own walks independent of each other.  Joe looks a lot like Rodney Dangerfield and has a similar sense of humor.  I imagine his walks with the flight attendant are filled with much laughter.

      Joe used to live in Atkinson, New Hampshire where I live.  He downsized a few years ago, selling his house, his condo on the lake up in Maine and the boat that he had up there for a condo near the beach in Hampton.  Joe is happier now than I recall him ever being.  He works part time in a butcher shop, power walks and flirts with women half his age.  Joe is a morning person for sure.

      For me being outside getting some exercise before sunrise is just about the perfect start to the day.  I’ve settled for a couple of cups of coffee and some light reading.  It’s about time I get back to being a real morning person.