Foundational Practices for a Good Life

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Something to Read: (6 minutes)

10 Foundational Practices for a Good Life

Some of the best conversations are around the Korean BBQ table.

And this meetup I had last week over bulgogi and beef brisket was centered around the personal development with two good friends.

The topic can be overhyped — and even I get annoyed with how portrayed in social media aka why I made Modern Analects in the first place.

Like who’s all behind this nonsense??

Today’s read is brought to you by Scott Young, who wrote about ten recommendations on how to get the most out of your life.

So what I did is took my favorite three and put my $0.02 in on how I apply them to my life below:

Establish an Airtight Productivity System.

There’s more to productivity than a to-do list and meal prepping for the week.

And being as easy to be distracted as I am, I’ve been able to narrow my focus with a couple tweaks.

• Scheduled “veg-out” periods: Yes, I schedule time to aimlessly scroll through my timelines and giggle at memes.

• Work in sprints: Take 5, 10, 30 minute sprints for tasks.

  • Set a five minute timer and clean your inbox up.

  • Block out an hour for cold email writing.

  • Set a timer for 15 minutes and chip at that book.

• Set screen time limitations:

  • Only allow family/co-workers/etc to reach you during the workday: settings > downtime > turn ‘on’ > customize days.

  • Mine is set for 10:15pm — 1:30pm on full do-not-disturb mode.

• Use a notetaking application:

  • I’m a firm believer that effective notetaking is a powerful

Exercise Every Weekday

Above all else, health is a first priority of mine and the past 18 months has highlighted the fact we all need to improve habits around health & wellness.

Now the biggest problem I find with people in regards to exercise is the consistency portion and here’s some tips on how to fix this:

• Start small — as they say walk before you run. Pick just 2 days a week to start, slowly bump it to three, then four days a week. Going from no days to attempting 5 days a week is a recipe for disaster.

• Schedule your workouts at/around the same time. Before work, after work, during lunch-time — whatever. The better it fits to your schedule, the more likely you’ll stick to it.

  • What i do? I prefer mornings between 5am and 8am — less people and traffic.

One Conversation Per Week with Someone Smarter Than You.

This was an interesting tip because I don’t completely agree on this one.

Its valuable to expose yourself to others “smarter,” but I believe there’s equal value doing the opposite.

Here’s my take on the subject

Thanks Mahamud, for always being an inspiration and for this blog post.

Something to Watch: (8 minutes)

HISTORY OF IDEAS | Wabi-Sabi

A catchy term with no direct translation.

Wabi-sabi, it’s an attitude to the Japanese and way of living.

It’s a call to action to embrace the imperfect and broken.

Take a couple minutes and adopt a new lens on how to approach life.

A Song to Listen to:

Cannons - Fire For You

Have a roadtrip coming up? Add this to your playlist.

Listen to this track and many others on La Fórmula, a playlist by Modern Analects

A Quote to Think About: