Month: April 2023

Up early even though I went to bed late.

Today is a running day.

My brain is fried from insufficient sleep.

Ghost as an email platform is vastly better than Mailchimp.

Today is a day to be methodical and not have any strong opinions. I’m likely to be a tad irritated with everyone and everything today.

So the day will be:

• Call. Should I renegotiate my arrangement? Refocus the consulting?
• Lunch. What are they doing about processes and checklists?

Make the afternoon about excellence in project management. Or should I say process management?

I will give up 100 points again today. Didn’t hit my sleep target because I was working until 10:30 pm.

Sleep matters. I’m starting to see this and feel it. Early to bed is essential; I feel groggy now.

The other sleep problem (aside from going to bed late) is entirely preventable: don’t have phones in the room because they make noises in the middle of the night. This is now a three time problem within a week. And it doesn’t help that I have multiple devices. Keep the backpack out of the bedroom and charge devices somewhere else.

I feel as though I am treading water at work. Things don’t get better, and no one around me seems to care. What to do? It’s unsustainable.

First things first. Spam calls are bad always and especially at 4:30 am. The iPad was in the bedroom and FaceTime called. Ouch.

New day. Better rhythm. It will be a full points day. And it’s a running day. Increase the distance by 1/2 a mile. My objective is to get the short days to 10k, then start lengthening the long day to a full half-marathon distance.

Today: MIW consists of polishing the slide deck. Make customers.

Today: ship client work.

Today: remember to breathe. Stressed. It feels like treadmill time, so slow down and look at the clouds. All of the previous major dilemmas of life passed and here I am. Why take these minor dilemmas seriously? Remember that.

Went to bed too late (past the self-designated 10 pm bedtime because I went to a baseball game) so I’m giving up some points today. Otherwise, all will be well.

I’m finished with baseball. I rarely go, and it will be rarer than ever now. Or maybe I will try a minor league game to see if the feeling is still there.

Reason: the audio-visual overwhelm at the game. It’s too loud, too much with the flashing lights and loud colors. The scoreboard is busy—and garish. Perhaps the glacial character of the game was too much in one direction. But last night’s experience is too much the other. The glacial pace was supplemented by in-your-face noise, flashing lights, between-the-innings distractions.

Of course, I haven’t given a damn about professional sports for decades. I don’t want to be the blob on the couch passively watching—I want to be doing.

I am frequently a blob on the couch. That’s by choice. But don’t plop me down and direct a firehose of noise and flashing lights at me.

Turbulent sleep last night, but plenty of it. Up and at ‘em early.

So what does the day hold? MIW and W. The day is planned. Some stretching. No refined sugar foods in my diet: soda, etc. It’s a day and I am ready for it.

Yesterday’s run. These are starting to be a distance that challenges. Before, I would come home and do whatever I wanted. Now, I’m tired and lack the brainpower to do much.

Also it is clear that I must actually run a half-marathon distance at altitude (or maybe 16 miles here) to be competent and confident that I can complete the half-marathon later this year.

Today is Day 1 of the Ultraworking Pentathlon XXII. I will use this as the starting point for the next 15 days of writing.

Sleep. Set to “be in bed by 10 pm” which is usually easy but lately I have strayed to the “sit around until midnight” routine, and paid the price. Wake time is 7:30 am and I don’t know the last time I slept that late. Aspiration: to sleep like a teenager. 😀

Most Important Work. Two videos. Slides done, ready for the live presentations.

Diet. Cut out the added sugar stuff that has crept back into my life. I’m looking at you, root beer. But I’m also looking at the snack cupboard at work. Stick to the raw almonds if you need a snack.

Exercise. Stick to the current running schedule and add tiny (5 minutes a day) stretching sessions for nonrunning days. Tiny Habits. Good book. Good ideas.

Planning. Three things on the “Today” section of the app. Ideally done the night before, but not mandatory. Reviewed first thing in the morning or written then if necessary.

Day 1 is here. Slept properly.

Did not do the planning last night because I forgot and I think one of the reasons I forgot is because I’m using the To Do app from Microsoft which is on my work tech (phone, iPad, laptop) which I more or less mothball after the workday.

Lesson learned. Use Reminders on my phone and share between the work phone and the personal phone.

Tech switch to remove friction and make the habit easier to follow.

It’s a running day. Target 10k.

Diet is easy.

Most Important Work after breakfast and before the run.

Saturday morning. Not a weekend day off.

Work. Last minute deadline task. (A) Continue refining the fat outline on Plan A, until you’re satisfied. (B) Figure out a Plan B with a fat outline.

If I have time: Some work and writing for the long term project I want to accomplish. (A) Grab and save the document that is going to be the center post of the book. (B) Outline what you want to say, and don’t make this a fucking encyclopedia on the topic. It’s a practical Field Guide for the weary. At least do (A) to keep momentum.

In with this: (1) call to bookkeeper for interview, and (2) launch the Pentathlon.

Busy!

Let’s start the day slowly: water before that first jolt of coffee.

Let’s work at a measured pace all day, with care and consideration, completing each task before moving to the next.

Let’s complete the afternoon with a run: no particular care for pace, running the pre-determined distance.

And then home. Shower, light dinner, and sleep.

Each day a new beginning.

Let’s go.

As for the big picture? Measured actions there, too. None today. Maybe tonight if I have the energy. Today is a “do the ordinary” day.

I want it all now. It all does not exist now. I am creating it. So have it all, create it all, but spread over time.

Small example, running. I have better than doubled my comfortable running distance in six weeks, admittedly from a modest base. This has been accomplished with a defined schedule and program of running: this much, when, no more. I will get to half-marathon distance by the end of August/early September with ease.

I have business plans. They have a three year horizon on them. I cannot accomplish those goals as well as meet my other commitments now but I can in three years.

Three years for a reason: that’s the remaining term on the lease and the IT contract.

Plan because I have wanted to do this and I think it will work. Not in a grandiose way, but good enough.

Accomplishing this goal will be easy with the same methodical approach I am taking to the half-marathon training. The fact that I am up early this morning tells me how to do it and when. I don’t have a sustainable system but I have a clue on what it looks like. And a vision of what fully fleshed-out will look like.

It is still dark outside. I can hear the street sweeper truck a few blocks away: it’s loud. The day begins.

A new day.

It’s a bright, sunny morning
Each day a new beginning

Lifeboat, by Miranda Lee Richards

That song is lodged in my brain permanently. How many obscure (let’s be kind to Miranda) artists have written small gems like Lifeboat? And those gems are hidden forever by time and an avalanche of average vomited up by the machine, invisible even to the persistent Seeker.

I heard the song once. Jason Bentley played it and I was driving around doing something and that was enough to place the gem in my open hand.

How many Lifeboats have I never heard? And not just songs. Books. Poems. People. Sunsets. A stranger’s laugh. A sky filled with clouds on a windy day. How many of these glories of life were invisible, within reach, and yet passed by unnoticed?

As many as I have missed, there are yet in front of me to experience. If I see them.

How do I see them? By doing what I did on Monday. Stop. Go to the beach. Have a corn dog. Walk around with no purpose in mind. Go down that street and see what is at the end of it. Nothing! The harbor. Some workmen eating lunch. Boats.

Slow down. This morning, slowly drink your coffee. Hear the sounds of the birds, the neighbors, the distant hiss of the freeway.

None of it is going anywhere. There is enough.