These are my Momentos, short personal diary entries I write daily – since 2013 – and publish monthly. Some links are affiliate links.
1
Lots of stress and struggle for me in 2022, trying to juggle business, relationships, and moving to a new country. And yet I look back on it all quite fondly. Some things that suck in the moment can become good memories.
2
Maybe productivity is like sleep: the harder you try, the more it eludes you. What if I surrender and just let things happen rather than trying to force them? Maybe I’ll finally figure out what Gay Hendricks was on about…
Once you understand that you’re where time comes from, you have the power to make as much of it as you want.
3
Snowed overnight, first snow we’ve had for a month. Took the afternoon off and drove further up into the mountains to see the wonderland. There’s a valley here where they do dog sledding and snowmobile rides. Will have to partake in some of that soon.
4
Read and enjoyed a novel recently: The Amsterdam Good Murder Guide. It’s about a guy murdering sociopaths in Amsterdam. Got me thinking a lot about Amsterdam. And sociopaths. I may or may not be related to one.
5
What if stress itself isn’t the problem, and the real problem is thinking that I shouldn’t be stressed, trying to resist it, telling myself that it’s wrong. What if I just notice the stress, accept it and get on with my day. Same way I might look out the window, notice it’s raining, accept it and get on with my day.
6
Used to pride myself on reading a book a week, about fifty books a year. But what if I only allow myself to read ten books max this year? That would force me to be more selective, and I’d pay more attention to each page instead of rushing through.
7
Listening more to Tara Brach’s podcast recently. When walking, or cooking, or cleaning. It’s a good reset. She told the story today of a new mom with a terminal illness. Every moment with her child was sacred, so her mantra became, “I don’t have time to rush.”
8
My year is off to a great start. Feeling more at peace and everything looking good with the big three: health, wealth, relationships. This place I’m in now, this is likely a place I’ll want to get back to someday. Must appreciate it while I’m here.
9
Felt sluggish after lunch. How to fix? Coffee, sugar, exercise, fresh air, a nap, something else? Or maybe just let it be and enjoy a lazy afternoon? Hard to know which is best. But I opted for a nap today and it happened to be the right choice, got an enjoyable chunk of deep work done after.
10
Love getting to the point where a habit is so ingrained that it feels weird not to do it. I’m like that with my daily baseline of exercise: 7000+ steps, 30+ minutes of resting squat, 20-minute stretching routine. Was in the bathroom tonight jogging on the spot to hit that step threshold.
11
An underrated thing about having your parents live to old age: you get to see them in high definition go through phases of life that you’ll someday encounter yourself. That helps you figure out what path to take, what you’ll want to emulate, what you won’t…
12
Been thinking about that Good Samaritan Study. The main takeaway for me: if you want to be a kind and generous person, best not be in a rush. The more you can free up time and space in your life, the more likely you are to be helpful to people in need.
13
At some point this year I’d like to hire a housekeeper. That would save us a lot of time on cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. But it’ll take time to find the right person and show them how we want things done. I think a lot of things are like that: you have to slow down before you can go faster.
14
Apparently Leonardo da Vinci once wrote…
As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.
My favorite moment at the end of a well-spent day is right after dinner, kicking back with a cup of tea in front of the telly. I wonder what the end-of-life equivalent would be.
15
Just a friendly reminder not to trust everything you read on the internet. That Instagram post with 438K followers said “brushing your teeth with a non-dominant hand can boost the plasticity in the brain.” Google around and there’s scant evidence to support this.
16
Not yet nine, sat down here with a fat cup of coffee, hood up, headphones on, listening to the likes of Bach and Grieg. Snow is falling heavy and snug on the hill outside my window. I don’t feel like working much today.
17
Been snowing for two days straight. Took the car up the other side of the valley to a lookout point, where it promptly got stuck. Had to dig it out with my boots. I quite enjoyed the whole thing.
18
I don’t how people get anything else done when working 9-to-5. The best I usually manage is a 5-hour work day, without even having to commute. And with that relatively light workload I still have little time for hobbies.
19
The dream took place in a supermarket. I was looking after someone else’s baby in my shopping trolley. But the baby was made of biscuit, and little bits kept falling off. The mother was okay with it, and the baby seemed to like me.
20
Probably the work I like least in my business is researching, writing and editing reviews. But it’s also the most valuable work I do. Reviews are where we create the most value and make the most money. And I reckon we do it better than anyone else in our niche.
21
The house we’re visiting was built more than two centuries ago. It’s a museum now, staged like the last occupants left it in the 1950’s. My grandparents would have grown up in houses like this, simple and hard living. How far we’ve come.
22
Crazy winds in Andorra, woke me up in the middle of the night, felt like it would rip the shutters off the windows. I got out for a walk anyway this afternoon, -10°C and the wind still howling. It wasn’t the walk I wanted, so much as the feeling of coming in after.
23
The main thing I’ve sacrificed the most these past few years: friendships. I haven’t kept in touch with people, haven’t made much effort to maintain friendships or start new ones. I’m okay with that for now, but I won’t be forever.
24
Did a consulting call today, someone interested in doing user reviews for their niche site. Decent money for a 90-minute chat. Not sure I want to do regular consulting calls though. That time is probably better invested building my own thing.
25
The twice-a-week newsletter thing is also a bit of a grind. Often feels like I’m rushing to get the next edition finished. Was sick today, but still had to do some work on it. Up early in the morning to finish it off so my VA has time to get it all prepped for sending.
26
Email from the co-creator of a course I roasted for being scammy a few years back. Asking me to remove the review since the course is no longer available and apparently the scammy stuff wasn’t his fault. I read back over the review. Sorry dude. That stink won’t wash off so easy.
27
You ever get that? In the evening, before shutting down the laptop, that urge to check one more thing, find one more notification, watch one more video… Pure self-sabotage, that’s what that is.
28
Watching Man on Fire. Seems familiar. Check my movie log and turns out I watched it November of 2012 while crossing the Indian Ocean on a cruise ship. Funny the things we’d forget forever if we didn’t write them down.
29
Looking for more courses to review. Gotta keep the pipeline full. Plenty to choose from. Hard part is knowing which to do first. Freelancing courses, copywriting courses, audience building courses, YouTube courses, blogging courses…
30
Some mornings I need to ease into the work stuff, do my full morning routine before eating any frogs. Other mornings it’s best to jump out of bed and take a massive bite out of that fecker. This morning was the latter. And it felt good.
31
I didn’t enjoy Norm Macdonald’s book very much but one line from it has stuck with me. Looking at a painting and seeing what the artist depicted rather than just some paint on a canvas, he wrote…
I understood then that it takes a powerful imagination to see a thing for what it really is.