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Archive for the ‘Resolutions’ Category

Focus Mode and Aspirations

Posted in Daily Life, Resolutions, tagged , , on August 29, 2023| Leave a Comment »

In a recent post, David Epstein quoted an interview with Murakami back in 2004:

When I’m in writing mode for a novel, I get up at four a.m. and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for ten kilometers or swim for fifteen hundred meters (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at nine p.m. I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind. But to hold to such repetition for so long—six months to a year—requires a good amount of mental and physical strength. In that sense, writing a long novel is like survival training. Physical strength is as necessary as artistic sensitivity.

Murakami mentioned ‘writing mode’, which suggests different cycles of focused work. Cal Newport mentioned something similar in his recent podcast on a 4 month period to reinvent one’s life. He provides specific plans, with the first step being the discipline layer by setting up 3 key daily habits (one on professional, one health, and one personal) for the first two weeks.

I like the idea of having different 3-4 months focused mode within a year, which is a good way to avoid the December/January habit changing peak season trap. But I find it hard to stick to a weekly or daily planning routine.

Whether we call it discipline, grit, or habit, smart effort sustained over time tends to produce results. Since we all have different genetic endowments, it makes more sense to measure our progress against ourselves than others. For late bloomers (and I would consider myself one), we might feel like it’s too late to start many pursuits. But there’s no point in lamenting things that we didn’t learn or do in the past. We may not become the best in any pursuit, but we can improve in many of them. The good thing is, no one knows what potential we have, and it’s good to have aspirations and pursuits regardless of our age.

Andrew Huberman has a good summary of recent research on goal setting.

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Effort, Deep Work, and Time

Posted in Hobbies, Resolutions, tagged , , on June 14, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Bryan Caplan recommends spending ten times the usual effort to be competent.

People who attain fluency practice about ten times as much as the typical person who is officially “learning a foreign language.” Sure, the quality of practice matters, too; immersion is the best method of foreign language acquisition. But unless you’re willing to give ten times the normal level of effort, fluency is basically a daydream.

When I see the contrast between people who succeed and fail, I generally witness a similar gap in effort… 

If you want to learn a foreign language, you need to budget about two thousand hours. If you want to master a technical subject, you need to budget about five thousand hours…

Either that, or admit that you’ve got higher priorities. No one succeeds at everything. If you’re not willing to do ten times as much, just level with yourself: “I’ve got better things to do than learn a foreign language.” “I’ve got better things to do than become a great economist.” “I’ve rather raise my kids in the modern world than be a family of earnest Orthodox Jews.” If you take all of the time you dabble away in a hundred quixotic ways and concentrate it on two or three goals you truly prize, you’ll probably succeed at what you value the most. Pick your battles, friends. And wherever do you choose to fight, do ten times as much.

Like what he noted, spending 10,000 hours on something doesn’t guarantee mastery, but without the sustained efforts, it’s generally difficult to become proficient. Depending on the goals and desired level of excellence, one could achieve decent results with good quality focus for a few months.

The problem with this plan, of course, is that it required Keanu Reeves to become sufficiently good at judo, jiu-jitsu, and tactical 3-gun shooting so as not to look clumsy for Stahelski’s stable camera. Reeves was game. According to the featurette I watched, to prepare for production, he trained eight hours a day, four months in a row. The effort paid off. The action set pieces in the movie were show-stopping, and after initially struggling to find a distributor, the film, made on a modest budget, went on to earn $86 million, kicking off a franchise that has since brought in hundreds of millions more.

For Keanu Reeves, it was obvious that the most productive path was to focus all of his attention on a single goal: becoming really good at Stahelski’s innovative brand of gun fu. Doing this, and basically only this, month after month, materialized hundreds of millions of dollar of profit out of the entertainment ether.

Cal on the slow productivity of John Wick

Deep work + time = competence. Pick your battles.

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Tolerance for Discomfort and Attributes of Greatness

Posted in Health and wellness, Hobbies, Resolutions, tagged , on June 11, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Brett summarizes Hemery’s book Sporting Excellence. The attributes mentioned seem reasonable, but it’s hard to know how applicable they are to the general public.

Athletic excellence has thus been linked to the capacity to tolerate discomfort — to feel the pinch and the pain and keep going anyway…Another gold medal winner, Herb Elliott, who’s considered the greatest middle-distance runner of his era, put it this way, “In retrospect, my training wasn’t to improve my physical strength or stamina; those came along as a secondary result, but the primary purpose of every training session was to toughen up mentally. A training session was totally useless until it started to hurt. That was the point when it started to be worthwhile.” 

I like the concept of having a high tolerance for discomfort. While we want to avoid overtraining and getting injured, I think in today’s society many people tend to shy away from discomfort. Consistent efforts contribute to progress, which makes the chosen pursuits more enjoyable and sustainable.

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New Year Resolutions

Posted in Reflection, Resolutions, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 27, 2022| Leave a Comment »

My resolutions, if they exist, generally revolve around 1) getting better at certain activities, such as piano, Wing Chun, and basketball, or 2) developing certain habits, like meditating and journaling daily.

On getting better, the challenge is to 1) set up a routine for regular practice, and 2) be conscientious enough to focus on areas that’d help me improve. The latter is more difficult, as activities that’d likely help me improve most tend to be the less exciting drills, self tests, and evaluations that are not well-defined and require mental efforts.

I would also like to set a regular time to review things. Without reviews, I forget many things, including experience, books I read, or movies I saw. I hope this blog can help me to be more reflective of life events and media consumed, and be more organized with my photos, videos, and drawings. This in turn might help me remember the more important things in life.

Matthew Mcconaughey kept a diary for 35 years, and this is what he said when he reviewed them to write his memoir: “I enjoyed myself more than I thought I would. I laughed, I cried, I realized I had remembered more than I expected, and forgot less.” I’m not sure my memory would be as good as his, but I think my future self would love to read my real time feelings and thoughts.

Most people don’t stick to their resolutions beyond February, and I’ve failed many times (e.g. regular review has been a challenge). But life is a journey. If I fail, I can be more like Calvin and be content with myself.

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New Year resolutions vs habit formation

Posted in Daily Life, Resolutions, tagged , , , , on January 7, 2014| Leave a Comment »

New Year resolutions usually don’t last, and most people return to life as usual by February. This is not as depressing as it sounds. End-year provides a good opportunity to reflect and New Year resolution is more a by-product of the changes we want to make. The best way to make changes is to alter our habits, and developing/changing habits can start anytime. So if things don’t work out in January, maybe try again in February in different ways.  I find it easier to change thing one at a time than all at once, so it makes more sense to space out changes we want to make throughout the year.

I don’t have many ambitious goals this year (to achieve anything significant would likely require more than a year anyway). If I can form a few good habits sometime during the year, I’d be happy.

Below is a video summary of Charles Duhigg’s book on habit, and Alex Tabarrok’s review here.

More on New Year resolutions and the time it takes to form habits.

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2009 – A year to look forward to

Posted in Resolutions on January 10, 2009| 3 Comments »

The global economy might not be doing well, but the Wanderer’s internal world remains bright and hopeful. The Wanderer will continue to live life to its fullest. This year’s theme is depth over breadth: to focus on a few important things and to do them well before attempting the others. Same principle applies to relationship.

2009 Roadmap

Stay healthy, maintain my little sunshine fingertips, and avoid 還我師師拳.

Exercise: daily push-up and sit up, jog at least once a week, work out and stretch twice a week, basketball once a month, and continue to walk everywhere.

Food: limit dessert to weekend and with friends only, continue to eat healthy and use meals to catch up with people.

Finance: spend prudently to expand opportunity set and to focus on important things; continue to track and balance budget on a quarterly basis; gradually improve my quality of living and later this year start looking for a better den that is more private and can accommodate more friends and animals.

Career: be the best in the field with quality research and good work attitudes; aim to learn something, add value, and act professionally on a daily basis; learn economic concept by heart: set 5 hours per week to
learn/review economics through textbooks, journals, reports in addition to blogs.

Personal: set 4 hours per week to brush up my Japanese and maybe learn Chinese Ping Ying and a secret language; reflect and write regularly and aim to blog at least once week; draw at least once a month; continue to read widely, keeping in mind quality over quantity; watch movies, concerts, and dramas with
spare time.

Work hard to make BD Co. Ltd. prosper and appreciate in value: DDYBBL – 幸せになる

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Stay Strong

Posted in Resolutions on March 2, 2006| 4 Comments »

Reading a friend’s blog reminds me of various things in life. Seeing friends pursuing their dreams (writing novel, starting and running business, etc.), learning to deal with life, and facing adversity while still helping and supporting others, I want to be become stronger too.
 
Today’s resolution: Work hard and stay strong and positive for both myself and my friends.

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My Way

Posted in Resolutions on December 28, 2005| 1 Comment »

Life’s like a game. Society has rules that reward certain activities and penalize others. Whether I like it or not, my decisions are influenced by these rules. So how do I know whether what I want is really what I want, not what the society imposes on me?  I guess there is no way to distinguish them since I’m in the system. I don’t hate the rules, at least not all of them. Many of them probably exist to serve certain purposes, and perhaps these rules/conventions/social pressure/laws are what make civilization possible.

 

I can’t change the game nor the effects society has on me, but I can choose how I want to play it and to what extent it can influence me. Everyone else is in this game and follows the same system, so the way I choose to play this game will make my life different from others’. It is hard to say to what extent I’m consciously living the way I want, but I’ll strive to be conscious of how I play this game and decide for myself the way I want to play it in order to live a life that I think suit me best.

 

僕は僕の行き方を生きる、自分の道自分で決める。

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