It is time for another meandering life post.
A long term goal of mine is to improve my writing skills. To do that I have to write. A diary like post is easy content as no research is required. Just writing and editing. I appreciate they're of limited in interest, watching someone practice write can't be fun.
Publishing my words forces me to edit to a level I would not do otherwise. It may not look like it but this text was in a much worse state before I edited and published.
Yoga
I have taken up Yoga, my partner suggested we get some introductory lessons. I was already doing a 10 minute "yoga" routine most mornings. Say hello "5am Club". Yoga was in quotes as really is was just collection of badly performed move without much understanding what I was doing. Stretching without thought to movement or form would be a better description.
After the introductory lessons I moved to the improvers class.
I have been getting the cliched improvements:
- Improved core strength
- Better focus (For that reason I often do it twice a day)
- Flexibility and posture seem to be improving.
The core strength one I was not expecting but is nice as I was expecting more focus on flexibility. I guess that shows how little I actually knew about Yoga.
Clarity of mind is great, it is helping to combat my YouTube addiction. More on that in a moment.
YouTube
I am slowly eliminating or reconsidering activities that fall into these categories:
- Low value activity.
- Activities that have a diminishing return
- Activities that don't have a compounding effect.
It would be easy to eliminate fun from life if you are not careful. So before this I re-evaluated my personal weighting on play activities like gaming and reading fiction.
I had very few low value activities, perhaps because I have been shifting this way for a while. In fact it is hard for me to think of many. Often they are repetitive tasks that have little outcome.
YouTube fits into the second category as do many of social media platforms. Light use has nice returns either from feeling connected, fun or learning new things. As I have reduced other social media my use of YouTube seems to have managed to make it into my morning routine.
I didn't notice at first but I think it should not be there. I try to structure my morning about getting on with tasks. Unfortunately it looks like it has become habitual like much of my morning. So will power will be needed to break it.
I have habitual morning as it avoids having to use will power early in the morning, Looks like I have a fun battle ahead.
5 am
As mentioned in previous posts I have been getting up at 5am most days this year. The times I haven't have been deliberate decisions to extend the evening for social reasons.
I have been following suggestions in the book The 5am Club. Not precisely and I feel I need to adapt it some more. Well that means get my direction/goals sorted a little better
This all means I am not quite ready to do a deep dive into it just yet. You have been spared this for a different post.
I will say I am enjoying it and in general it is a win but I am not sure I getting a net win in terms of getting things done just yet. Although when you first start out the gradient on the curve is very small so it may not be discernible just yet?
That is kind of why I am holding off doing a report at the moment.
Perhaps I should do a 5 months in style report?
What next
Due to a fun collection of events I have been away for the 4 of the past 5 weekends. While fun I am left feeling like I need to recharge a little bit. I am someone who enjoy quiet as much as I enjoy social.
I am still sort of working on a small game. Really that means I am on the 4th iteration of the engine side of things. I think I have it good enough this time. I am also flipping to a different ideas as the first game was a little ambitious for someone who has not written a game in years.
There are still some self improvements I need to make and a few small habits I need to form.
I have a few ideas germinating, which will probably come to nothing. No single idea is fully formed so rather than discussing here I will hold off. It's likely that they will drift back into the ether only to resurface in a few year time.
Well, I am surprised you are still reading, thank you. You can expect a few more of these in the coming months, maybe.