What observations can I make about myself when I feel these internal triggers? I just need to not be hungry when I'm in the car, or have food in the car, so I can avoid the trigger altogether. What are some liminal moments in my day that I find myself getting distracted? When I transition from lunch back to work, I can get more easily distracted by my phone or my fullness or emails. Switching between tabs and checking emails brings me off topic and unfocused. Looking outside makes me more contemplative or prone to daydreaming. Having my phone screen visible is one of the worst culprits as I'll see all the notifications and texts, etc. Even in focus mode I have many of the apps still allowing stuff to go through because they might be work related, like email or Slack. The alpha / theta waves definitely helps will all of this though, especially if I connect with my phone. That way, the video will stop playing if there's a call. So I just need to be getting into that alpha state more often when doing deep work. Whenever I'm in between thoughts and look away briefly, I'll see something that distracts me and then I may lose my train of thought. So let's close my eyes there in those situations. Things I randomly get reminded of I should write down on my whiteboard and come back to it later when I can expand mental energy towards smaller items.
What's one task I see as boring? And how can I reimagine the task to make it feel more like play? I think I actually already do a pretty good job here. I don't think I really view anything as boring. I just understand it's all part of the process so I know I have to do it so I approach it neutrally or already with a positive attitude.
So there were a bunch of questions that I already have a system for that were asked in the most recent quest episode. Like defining what traction is, what my values are, dividing time between different life domains, etc. So no need to redo my entire system based on recency bias. However this breakdown of "You", "Relationships", and "Work" in increasingly bigger concentric circles may resonate with others more. So it's just another tool in the toolkit.
What does my ideal day look like on a typical day of the week? On days that I have more meetings at work, I'd like to have more time for deep work in the evenings or time where I can create energy being with myself. Vice versa with days with fewer meetings and / or more deep work time at the office, then more Relating and perhaps Learning after work.
Semi-side note here is that on Monday, I had spent quite a bit of time Thinking, Learning, and Doing and I felt mentally spent but physically alert at just 8:30 pm. Maybe I need to pick up meditating in the evening again so I can create that energy for the 2nd half / last one-third of the day. I think there is also a subcategory of Learning that I could have done more of Monday. Learning by Doing. I spent a lot of time learning through podcast, video, articles, books but all that is theoretical until I apply it. I spent maybe 10 min on Spanish yesterday but diversifying with one more thing that I'm learning actively would have made Monday even better. Nevertheless, it was still a 90-95 / 100 type of day.
Does my ideal day live up to my values? Unintentionally / unconsciously sure but I don't necessarily think of my values when doing something. It's within my identity inherently. I don't think it's necessary to add another metric to my list journal for that, but it's a potential idea worth monitoring.
What could be improved from my current daily schedule to my ideal day? And what could I not be making enough time for? Nothing that I haven't already talked about before. Finishing the day strong is one thing that could have a massive impact on other areas of my life. Learning new skills like languages or instruments or art or design are things that I want to be incorporating into my weekly, if not daily, schedule.
Related to that, I saw a ~8 year old TED talk by Josh Kaufman in which he said 20 hours is what it takes to learn a new skill. What we have to do is deconstruct the skill, learn just enough to self-correct, remove practice barriers (basically indistractability), and then commit to learning for 20 hours. He says that because the major obstacle to learning something is not intellectual, it's emotional. He played a medley of pop songs on the ukulele with just 4 chords, which the performance on the stage got him to 20 hours of practice. So it's pretty simple, I just have to decide which skill I want to learn and go do it.
This weekend I did a lot of thinkitation as well as some merging. Some of them back-to-back. I almost feel like when Snape is training Harry Potter to prevent his mind from being controlled by Voldemort. It's this constant mental exercise to prepare him for times when he would use it 'in reality.' Feels like that when I go into back-to-back deep work sessions when I tap into my intuition in different ways. It can be both mentally exhausting and constructive, so I'll just need to continue creating energy in more ways surrounding those times.
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