Category: Miscellaneous

From loc 93 of War of Art highlight:

Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.

That being the direction, the execution reminds me of Dave Ramsey’s debt snowball method. Start with the least effort or least scary one.

• Afraid to write publicly? Start with writing in a blog.
• Doesn’t know what to do with an empty webpage? Start with writing on to do app or post-its.

Momentum will compound.

Two books I did not finish recently and the reason.

• The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need by Andrew Tobias
  • A fundamental book. If it dates back to 2017, I think this would be a nice read. For now, it feels like a reminder; there’s nothing wrong with that, but I haven’t found big insight to keep me going.
• Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel by Rolf Potts
  • A highly to-the-ground, practical book. I think it will be a good read when I’m on the road, but that ‘s not the case at this moment. It felt distant and hard to follow through.

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Why do I feel obligated to finish a book?

1. I paid. I want my money back. or: it’s a waste not to.
2. There’s something, I just haven’t stumble across it yet.
3. It’s a book. It has to be right.

But a book is an idea, and idea doesn’t always translate for everyone. At 35, I think there’s no guilt in that; although at times I imagine myself to have to like it.

Millie’s turning 5, school began to teach numbers and alphabets. I found this as an opportunity to learn to do hard things.

Every time she writes from 1 to 50, a box is slashed, she accumulates 4 minutes of iPad or Switch time to redeem.

It works for adults too. What’s that one anticipation we reward ourselves when we finish our work? Or may be in smaller pieces: I’m having a cup of hot mocha after 3 pomodoros on this deck.

I’m a great procrastinator. I paid for Bluehost, I switched to Hostinger. I changed a dozen or so themes. But I avoided the thing that should be done: to write.

• 2021: 3 posts
• 2022: 3
• 2023: 5
• 2024: 30
• 2025: 25

I began to write on TickTick and reached 22 straight days. I found writing in my todo list to be a tactical move stay away from perfection.

1. Removes the mental barrier, it’s like writing on a post-it note.
2. Smaller screen landscape compared to an empty webpage.

“Dad got scammed for NT$18,000,000.”

That’s the reactive response to frame the situation, but it made scammer the bad guy. Doing so, we loose the opportunity to iterate for the next occurrence.

Same goes, “Dad got greedy.” says himself.

Acknowledge that it might appear again and scammers are professionals, we can frame it to rewires the action.

1. Dad leveraged.
2. Dad invested in something he doesn’t know.