Just a few things I’m thinking about as we roll into the new year…

  1. Notes and Notebooks: I have mountains of notebooks around with one or two pages filled and the rest empty. If I want to find something I wrote down I never know where to look. Recently Warren shared his approach of having one hardback pocket sized Moleskine as the master year notebook for every day notes, and individual smaller Field Notes books for individual projects. I’m going to try and mimic this to some extent. If you see me, ask me if I remembered to carry my 2019 notebook.
  2. Intermittent Fasting: I’ve had success with this in the past but 2018 got in the way in lots of ways and I forgot about it. I’m back on trying to keep all food consumption in between noon and 8pm. Coffee + MCT oil in the morning helps push through.
  3. Take The Stairs: In Tokyo elevators and escalators are everywhere, and while I walk about 10x as much as I did in Los Angeles it’s still too easy to take the easy way up. If you look around you can quickly tell the difference between the older Japanese people who have been active their whole lives and the older tourists coming from countries where people are much more sedentary and as I’m quickly approaching 45 I figure it’s a good time to remember it’s only 40 steps from the ground floor to my office, and rather than take the elevator up 2 floors every day I should just walk it.
  4. Water: Drink more of it.
  5. Waste Less: Related to the above, Tokyo is full of vending machines and it’s quick and easy to get a bottle of water anywhere anytime, the trade off is that also creates another empty plastic bottle. I’m taking one of my travel tumblers to the office remembering to carry a small one in my bag when I head out so refill those from the tap rather than buy something I’m going to throw away a few minutes later. I also have a pair of titanium travel chopsticks I’m keeping in my bag.
  6. Read More: I have a serious ebb and flow issue when it comes to books, I’ll go through months where I’m glued to several books and plow through them and then won’t look at anything for months after that. With my PhD work this year I have several books I need to be reading anyway, but I hunted down my kindle and making a rule for myself to read a bit of something before bed rather than playing iPhone games which is what I usually do. It’s a habit thing, and I just need to adjust it.
  7. Moratorium On Fuck Giving: I think overall I’m pretty good at not stressing much about how others will react to whatever it is that I do, but I also know that once I start thinking about it I can dwell. Looking back on the last 40 years or so of my life I’m much happier and prouder of the output during the times when I really didn’t even consider what reactions might be, and I can see that the times I cared more about it my creativity suffered because of it. So this is more of a note to self: Just keep going.
  8. I forgot what 8 was for.
  9. Say Yes: When my default reaction is no, that often based on fear which is often based on assumptions. I need to catch myself in that process and stop the assumptions from getting in the way of reality. I give people that advice all the time but I sometimes forget to take it myself.
  10. Say No: Lots of awesome people have lots of awesome projects and lots of awesome ideas and there’s literally no way to say yes to them all. That’s a recipe for failing and letting people down. So, similarly when my default reaction is “YES!!” I need to take a breath and step back and look at the overall situation and see if this is actually something I can do, have the time to do, and will be proud of doing after the fact. It’s it’s not, don’t do it.