I couldn't help but think of Leonard Cohen's Anthem, one of my favorite songs:<p>> The birds they sing, at the break of day<p>> "Start again" I heard them say<p>> Don't dwell on what has passed away<p>> Or what is yet to be<p>> ...<p>> Ring the bells that still can ring<p>> Forget your perfect offering<p>> There is a crack in everything<p>> That's how the light gets in<p>Strong words for the hope and promise of a new year. Happy New Year to all!
'In the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few'<p>It took me years to break out of rigid thought processes and patterns and get out of my comfort zone. If I feel like I'm leaning into rigid thinking, I deliberately break out of that.<p>That could be anything from learning a new programming language, or trying out a new Linux distro (I have learned a lot just by trying out different distros).<p>In terms of TODOs, I batch tasks into 'marathons' and 'sprints'. If something is going to need small iterative steps spanning a whole year, then I organize my TODO to suit that. If something needs speed and sprinting, again, I organize my life around that. Too many are doing sprints for what should be a marathon, and doing marathons for what should be sprints.
This arguably touches on one of the most important aspect of being an adult. Our education system is designed to ignore it. Most interesting things in life are difficult. Difficult things mean you will fail many times. One of the most important habits you can learn as an adult is recovery from failure. This means looking at failure in analytical way - to get feedback from it, adjust, retry.
I remember getting a new lease on life with Factorio when I gave myself permission to start again as much as I wanted. Before that I would overcommit to every base, thinking that the "real game" only began after you get past the bootstrap phase, but in fact there is a lot of joy in just putting marks on the page.<p>Also, having things be small enough to fit in your head, as things tend to be at the beginning, is a boon for learning. I thought the early game was pointless, but in fact working with small factories made me realise that there were foundational practices that I had yet to learn which helped me to level up significantly at the game.
Yes. After missing a streak, gamified apps should adapt their feedback metric from current streak to cumulative days over a meaningful period (week, 1-3-6 months, year) to encourage resuming the habit.
There is a ancient Chinese teaching which translates to: if I could learn to play like a child, (so we live without baggages).<p>I think it succinctly summarizes the mindset that we should always have.
Heard a nice interview with Tara Brach on meditation. It's not about never losing focus on your manta or particular technique, it's about noticing when your focus has wandered and starting again. So don't beat yourself up, but be grateful you have the opportunity to practice starting again...