Iteration

I think iteration is an incredibly powerful mindset to have. It means hitting reality as often as possible and learning from each attempt.

For example, my routine. For ages, I’ve told myself that I’m someone who cannot stick to a routine without a forcing function. This is because every time I try to do so, I’ve come in with a preconception of what I wanted my routine to be, and then failed to feel motivated enough to actually stick to it. I did not realise that in fact I already had a routine, it just wasn’t ideal for me. When a proposed change to my routine doesn’t work, I can consider this a failure of my ability to stick to a routine, or I can treat it as a datapoint to learn from - to inspect why it didn’t work and what can be done differently next time.

This morning I spent much longer on my phone that I would have liked to without getting out of bed. One thing I could try tomorrow is to a book next to my bed and try reading for 30 mins instead. If I still end up on my phone for longer than I’d like, I might need to buy an alarm clock and charge my phone in another room.

Every day, my friend Jason gets on a google meet call where he, and whoever else joins, write for 30 minutes. He has his own set of rules which he abides by when writing on these calls. I have spent too many of thee calls getting distracted and not ending up writing anything properly. Here is my attempt at my own rules - these are subject to change.

1. No generative AI
2. No changing the screen / looking up information
3. No opening my phone
4. No backspace?? we’ll see about this this one
5. immutability - once i publish i cannot delete or edit

additionally, independent of the calls, i want to 5. publish something on my website every day even if not a polished blog post