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Learn, Reflect, Apply, Prepare: The Four Daily Practices That Changed How I Live

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Re: Learn, Reflect, Apply, Prepare: The Four Daily Practices That Changed How I Live

#2
> Learn something every day.

It's fine if it doesn't happen every day. Don't be obsessed about this stuff. Forgive yourself if you ever behave sub-optimally. You're not a machine, neither should you be one.

Tyranny starts with the best of intentions.

Re: Learn, Reflect, Apply, Prepare: The Four Daily Practices That Changed How I Live

#3

> Learn something every day . It's fine if it doesn't happen every day. Don't be obsessed about this stuff. Forgive yourself if you ever behave sub-optimally. You're not a machine, neither should you be one. Tyranny starts with the best of intentions.

It’s fine if you have an easy out. Didn’t learn anything today? Open a random Wikipedia article. There, that’s something.

Re: Learn, Reflect, Apply, Prepare: The Four Daily Practices That Changed How I Live

#5

> Learn something every day . It's fine if it doesn't happen every day. Don't be obsessed about this stuff. Forgive yourself if you ever behave sub-optimally. You're not a machine, neither should you be one. Tyranny starts with the best of intentions.

I believe Oliver Burkeman calls it "daily-ish" because it may not be realistic or helpful to force yourself to do it every day. But striving for "daily-ish" is worthwhile.

Re: Learn, Reflect, Apply, Prepare: The Four Daily Practices That Changed How I Live

#6

> Learn something every day . It's fine if it doesn't happen every day. Don't be obsessed about this stuff. Forgive yourself if you ever behave sub-optimally. You're not a machine, neither should you be one. Tyranny starts with the best of intentions.

He says something similar at the end of the article:

"These four verbs aren’t a productivity system or a self-help formula. Some days I forget one. Other days, one takes over. But when I return to them, they gently reorient me."

You may be overreacting with words like "machine" and "tyranny" to an idea simply suggested as a useful and helpful goal.

Re: Learn, Reflect, Apply, Prepare: The Four Daily Practices That Changed How I Live

#7
I like this. My view is I aint doing it if it aint a system.

A system: change diet to always have at least 3 veg per meal. Do that until you die.

A non-system: skip a meal and just eat soup for 30 days and try to drop 10kg.

Not diet advice and some people may need to drop weight quickly under doctor advise. But the general idea is to avoid will-power driven outcomes and rely on habit and system driven outcomes.

Not clever org mode needed. To develop a habit just do it every day. Track it somehow. Make it not too onerous. Forgive slip ups.

Re: Learn, Reflect, Apply, Prepare: The Four Daily Practices That Changed How I Live

#8
post #6

> Learn something every day . It's fine if it doesn't happen every day. Don't be obsessed about this stuff. Forgive yourself if you ever behave sub-optimally. You're not a machine, neither should you be one. Tyranny starts with the best of intentions.

He says something similar at the end of the article: "These four verbs aren’t a productivity system or a self-help formula. Some days I forget one. Other days, one takes over. But when I return to them, they gently reorient me." You may be overreacting with words like "machine" and "tyranny" to an idea simply suggested as a useful and helpful goal.

I wouldn't have commented if the article kept neutral on when to apply its ideas. But the push for daily learning-reflecting-etc is there. Even the segment you're quoting uses days for accounting. You're downplaying one's potential to read something like this on the Internet and try to literally live by it.

As for machines and tyranny, they're terms capturing the Zeitgeist all too well.

Re: Learn, Reflect, Apply, Prepare: The Four Daily Practices That Changed How I Live

#10
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He says something similar at the end of the article: "These four verbs aren’t a productivity system or a self-help formula. Some days I forget one. Other days, one takes over. But when I return to them, they gently reorient me." You may be overreacting with words like "machine" and "tyranny" to an idea simply suggested as a useful and helpful goal.

I wouldn't have commented if the article kept neutral on when to apply its ideas. But the push for daily learning-reflecting-etc is there. Even the segment you're quoting uses days for accounting. You're downplaying one's potential to read something like this on the Internet and try to literally live by it. As for machines and tyranny, they're terms capturing the Zeitgeist all too well.

> But the push for daily learning-reflecting-etc is there.

But this is a good thing; if I waste a day without learning or doing anything, I feel bad about myself. And I want to feel bad! Always pushing to improve myself has helped me immensely. It's easy to keep telling yourself 'oh, I'll do better tomorrow'; it's harder to actually do better tomorrow.

That's not to say you shouldn't take it easy on yourself every once in a while. But figuring out those exceptions isn't what this article is about, and it's certainly not a 'tyrannical' article. As a society I feel we have gone way too far in this direction; sometimes life is hard! Sometimes you have to do hard things! And often it will pay off later in life and you'll be glad you put in the work.

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