Re Human — Week 10 Reflections — Day 70
Re-inventing ourselves is the most important skill nowadays. I’m reinventing myself by improving in 15 areas at a time. This post is part of my Re Human project.
At this point I’m very used to being able to do all the activities each day — habits work. It almost feels weird if I haven’t done one of the activities and it’s late in the day.
Today I want to do a reflection on each area.
Daily Habits
Meditation
Reflection: I’ve been doing Sadhguru’s Inner Engineering Kriya:
I’ve been doing it once a day (20mins) when I visited my girlfriend’s home in San Diego for Thanksgiving, and twice a day when I’m by myself.
I find it easier to focus on my breath when doing these exercises and switching between them than only “watching my breath” for a full 20minutes.
Direction for coming week: maintain meditation the same.
Writing
Reflection: Been writing small daily posts (my daily thoughts), these documentation posts in which I also write thoughts, these weekly recaps, and my weekly gift newsletter. Apart from my personal morning and night journals and weekly reflections. I’d agree it’s a lot (at least I perceive it as that) but I want to write way more.
Direction for coming week: spend a bit more time writing (maybe 10mins more each day), focused on higher-value posts (i.e. posts that take more than a day to post).
Piano
Been practicing La La Land’s Mia & Sebastian’s Theme, 10mins every day. When I practiced in my girlfriend’s physical piano and Flowkey wasn’t recognizing the keys as good as with my keyboard, I realized I still have a lot of practice to do for reading sheet music.
Direction for coming week: keep practicing the same amount of time, focusing on memorizing La La Land’s song and practicing reading sheet music.
Books
Reflection: This week I read a lot more on my Kindle (on phone and iPad) than usual — because I was traveling and because I spent time “reading” with my girlfriend and I don’t really sit down and listen to a book — I usually listen to books while walking or doing other things.
On my Kindle I started Bird by Bird (which I’m loving, it’s about the process of writing and the author is hilarious), Metaphors We Live By, and I finished Extend Your Mind (a compilation of essays by Tiago Forte about note-taking, productivity, creating a “digital brain”, attention, etc.). On Audible I finished How to Fight a Hydra, The Score Takes Care of Itself, and been reading The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership. My book notes are here.
Direction for coming week: keep my usual practice of listening to books and include some more Kindle reading as I did this week.
Soccer trick juggling
Reflection: It might not sound that I’ve made a lot of progress since I “got” the around the world trick, but I feel it. I’m now able to get the around the world consistently, and frequently 2 around the worlds without the ball falling in between. This week I set a record of 4 around the worlds in a row (meaning without the ball falling in between).
Direction for the coming week: Keep practicing 10minutes per day. Watch 1 more video about how to do around the worlds to refresh my technique.
Fitness
Fitness: I’ve been able to hold my human flag for around 5 seconds and my handstands also for around 6 seconds. I want to be able to hold the human flag for around 8 seconds and the handstands almost indefinitely — like 15 seconds. Also been working out each muscle group/full body workouts, high-intensity exercises like sprints and burpees, and also included hikes this week. Yesterday I did some Tabata training and I really liked it because it was really hard.
Direction for coming week: keep practicing human flag and handstands every day. Do at least two days of Tabata training.
Digital Drawing
Reflection: Really happy that I turned this into a daily habit instead of a weekly habit. This week I did this painting (over a couple of days):
Direction for coming week: Have some of my “reading” time be reading the “Drawing from the right side of the brain” book. Keep drawing 5–10mins per day.
Continuous Habits
I originally didn’t conceptualize a bucket for “continuous habits” but I’ve found that these habits are not necessarily “daily” habits and also not “weekly” habits.
Building and Running a Startup
Reflection: Been setting time and a special environment (no notifications, no anything) for at least 8 hours of deep work per day during the weekdays. Weekends and Thanksgiving have been less than that. Also, some of the other areas, like Graphic Design or Writing, have also been geared towards the startup.
Direction for coming week: maintain the focus and deep work.
Media Influencer
Reflection: This is the area I think I can improve the most. This past week I didn’t post anything on Instagram. I did watch a course on Skillshare on “instagram for creatives” and did some of their exercises. Also recorded myself doing a couple of the activities. But nothing will happen if I don’t post… I feel that being a Medium influencer counts as Media Influencer, but I somehow have Instagram as the platform with which I conceptualize “Media Influencer” most (apart from YouTube, which I’m not super interested in spending the big time that requires right now).
Direction for coming week: keep capturing content, and actually post, at least 3 things on Instagram this week. Ideas: post stories of the books I’m reading, continue my posts on the 15 areas, post my drawing process for the drawing I just painted, post my progress in piano, post a “day in the life”. Experiment with a Twitter post or two.
Topics Deep Dives
Reflection: These were originally scheduled as once-a-week on Sundays but I often find myself reading and learning about the topic throughout the week too. There hadn’t been many updates on this because on Sundays I write these weekly recaps and the format of several of the previous weekly recaps didn’t include reflections of all the areas (you probably realize by now why — 15 is many things to write about and makes these posts pretty long). My topic deep dive is still on “Systems over Goals”. Some things I read this week included the small book on “Complexity” last Sunday, “The Score Takes Care of Itself” book, “Extend your mind” book, and a couple of articles / blog posts.
Direction for coming week: keep learning about systems, also learn about why goals are good. I want my post about this to be pretty good and well-researched.
Different & Positive Social Interaction Systems
Reflection: I wasn’t sure whether to put this as a “continuous habit” or a “weekly habit” because I mostly write my newsletter on Sunday mornings, but I collect things throughout the week. I felt it’s more of a continuous habit. Also been interacting with a couple of people through comments on my Medium posts! And there’s even a VC that was inspired by my Re Human project and started her personal project in learning 7 areas and documenting it too.
Direction for coming week: Ask some people what they like most about my newsletter/medium posts and double down on those. Keep writing and interacting with people.
Weekly Habits
Music Production
Reflection: Been enjoying this more because I’ve been getting better. This week I also experimented with producing on my iPad. Here’s my latest posted version of my “Create a dream” song:
Direction: ”finish” my create a dream song and work on other songs. I’ve found / learned that iteration is key for creative endeavors.
V.R. Artist and Architect:
Reflection: Haven’t felt much progress in this area. I feel the interfaces for creating in this Medium are pretty bad still… have experimented with a couple of programs and ways of creating with my computer but nothing has been actually good so fat.
Direction: focus on getting a rough draft of my library that’s usable/”experienceable”. Stop trying to find a good interface/method for now.
Graphic Design
Reflection: Been using Sketch more than Figma this week. Been focusing on making stuff more than learning stuff. Been making stuff more related to my startup than on other stuff.
Direction: watch a Skillshare course on graphic design, and also practice making things.
Salsa Dancing
Reflection: This Wednesday I was in San Diego because of Thanksgiving so I couldn’t go to my class in San Francisco. But it was really useful for learning and fun to teach my girlfriend several moves.
Direction: go to class on Wednesday. Practice full engagement and deliberate practice.
Now you see why I don’t do reflections/directions for each of the areas each week — it’s too much to read, write, and I feel like I can go through what I need to do/how I did with just my mind. But sometimes it is useful to write things down.
How can I make these weekly recaps better? Let me know in a comment or a message.
More detailed thoughts, tips, and takeaways about each area, organized by day in my Re Human publication.
Read the previous day’s post.
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Thank You :).
