Earlier quoted context omitted.
For me I just want to remember what's gone on in my life better, even if it's sometimes mundane. I've tried short-form daily journaling, but I've only made it around 3 months before I start skipping days and stop doing it altogether. When it comes to doing something new/memorable, I'd be fine with aspiring for just one thing per month (with the assumption that sometimes/often I'd end up with more than that). I think…
I started this in 2015 and I'm still keeping up with it. Maybe it will work for you. https://medium.com/@markracette/make-every-day-matter-9ac6db...
My Life in Weeks
161–170 of 272 posts
Re: My Life in Weeks
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
I earned over 200k base in Canada and it didn’t make that meaningful of a difference. I gave up chasing money and went to work for an NGO I care about, earning slightly more than half as much as before, and… I love it. I wouldn’t trade incomes if it meant trading the work. I thought the money would help, but with family, something will always suck it up. A trip, furniture, house, extracurricular, etc. I wasn’t gettin…
But would you work for an NGO if you don't have the savings from the 200K job? Maybe it's just me, but I never feel safe without the FU money, especially under this market. BTW getting 100+K working for an NGO is fantastic! I thought they mostly just pay for meagre money. I only earn some 130K and would definitely love to switch to an NGO job with lower pay.
I’ll be candid. I spent a lot of my savings on a home that cost way too much, and burned a lot of it on… Burning out. I was unemployed for some time after a layoff and good god, the timing was awful. It was only months after getting my mortgage. So it goes though. Buying the house did a number on me. I thought it was going to matter. I thought it would finally feel like I did something important. I think it was a net negative, though paradoxically, it was the kick in the pants I needed to start to realize how futile my goals and methods were, so it was good in some ways too.
I get what you mean about not feeling safe without the money. I grew up pretty poor and a lot of my motivations were essentially “never be poor again”. I’m still insecure about this, but much less compelled by it. I think going through a rough stretch of essentially living on lentils and water made me realize that the thing I was afraid of wasn’t actually practical so much as status-driven. In a weird way I actually enjoyed aspects of having to watch every dollar again. Having to be resourceful is engaging and interesting. Making good food with less makes cooking more exciting and rewarding. Solving problems around the house with fewer tools and supplies teaches you so much stuff you’d otherwise miss. I was confronted with the fact that I was previously comforted by money more from an ego rather than a practical or survival perspective.
Well, everyone is different, but that made me feel like a complete moron and I began reconsidering my relationship with work and money.
Which landed me here. Knowing what I know now, and without my savings, I’d totally take the route I’m on now. Without knowing and with the option to earn more? The idea of working this job would fill me with dread. Weird, right?
Re: My Life in Weeks
#163I know a lot of folks are intimidated by such a calendar (existential dread and all that), but I personally love the idea. It shows how far you've come, sure, and that there's a finite end for everyone. But it also shows how much might be left . It's so easy, especially in dark times, to think this is nearing the end, or your best days are behind you. Yet when I look at your calendar here, all I see is a bunch of gre…
Re: My Life in Weeks
#164Re: My Life in Weeks
#165Weeks is the most terrifying unit of time to think in. Short enough so you have a good sense of how long it feels but long enough to add up quickly.
Fun fact: Nordic countries use week numbers for all sorts of planning, e.g. vacation period, school events, company planning, statistics reporting, ... All calendars show week numbers.
I've done a bunch of thinking around how to organize things in dates, etc, and often wondered if I should be using week numbers. Never thought to look up if it's a common practice in any countries.
Re: My Life in Weeks
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
The older I get the more I realize that the most effective and productive things I can do are not at all what seem to be productive or effective on the surface. One of the most mentally and physically crippling things I’ve ever done was work too hard, for too long. I worked and earned more money than I thought I ever could but… All I truly got out of it was a lesson. To never do it again. I would have earned enough b…
Did you ever start that non-tech business?
I got started on some discord channels with other hobbyists, but I’m in the process of creating a store front that’ll hopefully boost revenue a bit. I’ll likely need to learn a bunch of boring stuff like marketing to actually get traffic to it, but we’ll see.
It’s at an awkward stage where I need to devote more time to it in order to allow it to grow more, but I’ve also got a full time job, kids, a wife, etc. But I really enjoy it. I hope to make the leap to doing it full time eventually, but that would be a while off still.
Do you have non-tech business ideas or plans?
Re: My Life in Weeks
#167What strikes me is the empty spaces where we don't recognize what we did, or didn't do anything memorable. I made an app to try to address this about a decade ago which I called Bucket52, the idea being that every week you put one memorable thing in it. Trying to do this just for a year was surprisingly difficult.
Re: My Life in Weeks
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fun fact: Nordic countries use week numbers for all sorts of planning, e.g. vacation period, school events, company planning, statistics reporting, ... All calendars show week numbers.
Quite common in German companies too, it's usually refered to as KW, tomorrow (2025/02/17) KW 8 starts.
Re: My Life in Weeks
#169Weeks is the most terrifying unit of time to think in. Short enough so you have a good sense of how long it feels but long enough to add up quickly.
And the best part of it is that there's really only about 4000 weeks for any one of us! It's an interesting metric.
Re: My Life in Weeks
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have almost no <20 memories and I'm barely 40.
That seems very extreme. I remember my entire childhood from about 4 years old on.
Myself, I remember maybe one or two things per year from 4+ onwards if I focus; flashes of images. This gradually ramps up after ~12yo, and I can actually say I remember some events from around 16+ well enough to describe them and place in rich context. Properly detailed memory? That starts for me somewhere after 20. I'm 36.