Habits in pandemonium

There are many methods to create new habits. If you create and persist with these new habits, you alter your longer term behavior.

At first these changes in behavior are hard to keep up. They feel wrong, and difficult and like hard work. But over time, if you persist, then they become second nature. What was difficult becomes manageable.

In this time of pandemic, panic, pandemonium – it makes sense to me that you could find yourself a method to create some new habits. Persist with the new habits even as you hit a trough of disillusionment. Even as you are tempted to take the easy route. Once you pass through the dip, you will find the new behavior easier to manage. It will normalize.

Company

If we wanted to do something worthwhile – and it almost doesn’t matter what it is – we would likely find it easier to do with someone else as a guide, a teacher, or just as company.

There’s always an opportunity for creating a welcoming venue for birds of a feather to come together and practice, discuss, create, define what they want to get good at.

The best websites do this. Podcasts too.

The best restaurants, clubs, churches, offices, parks, homes and companies do this too.

Dining Room (a study)

This wasn’t always a dining room. In fact, like a pimply-faced teenager this room is not quite sure of what it is yet. The dinner table gives some structure and purpose, but there are also bedside tables in the corners, a bean bag at one end, and what was designed to be an office cabinet along the wall. My fish in his tank greets me each morning for food. I assume he is a he, and not a she. More confusion in an adolescent room.

The light in here is lovely in the mornings. While the air is still cool, the sun pours in to light up the dining table for breakfast time. Strangely we never take advantage of this as we are generally in too much of a rush to sit down and eat in the morning.

There is also a door in one of the walls, next to the bean bag. This leads straight onto a flight of stairs and is remarkable for not having a landing. Instead one has to step up into the open door at a different level to the room. Perhaps not the best design, and apparently illegal for health and safety reasons. Oh well. The teenager stumbles through life until it figures out what it wants to be.

When we first moved in, this was my music room. My favorite room at the time, I filled it with jazz, rock, blues. There were movies and computer games. Speakers and amplifiers. A turntable and cds littered the floor. These days my beautiful children turn it into something different every day. Sometimes it is a race track for scooters, sometimes a camp site, a beach, a mountain top for epic adventures. Sometimes we even eat at the table. I’m just glad my amps and speakers are not in here.

Handwriting

When I was 11 years old, I changed my handwriting in an effort to be cool. I wanted to be more like my friend. He wrote with far more flair than I did. His pages had words that stood out at you. They were all in in neat rows, but they looked artistic and full of purpose. His paragraphs were all in joined up writing and each word was at an angle. His pages looked like they came from someone interesting. Mine just looked like they came from a bog standard 11 year old kid.

I remember clearly deciding to write an assignment in this new style – with my new found flair. The words were all at a painful angle across the page. It took me ages to finish because I was more interested in how it looked than what was written. I put my name on it and handed it in. I felt satisfied and liberated. My new, cooler, more angular identity was emerging.

When the teacher handed our marked papers back, he stopped when he reached me. I got a poor mark. He was disappointed with me, he said. And what on earth was wrong my handwriting? He could barely read it.

I couldn’t hide my blushes as I mumbled some sort of response. I reverted back to myself the very next class.

Happy Sunday chimps. To thine own self be true!

Listening with children

This year is still young, but I’ve already achieved one of my life goals/resolutions. I’ve started a ritual of sorts with my 2 year old daughter. We listen to the hifi together. And she loves it!

I play cds with her. We pick a nice album based on the artwork, and I pick a nice track. Af after one song we switch albums. In one session we covered Pink Floyd, Bob Marley, Elvis, Dylan, and a few others. She now asks for “music with daddy”. My life is complete 😂

The fun for her seems to be time alone with me. She enjoys picking the cds and then deciding if she likes the song or not.

I always point out the obvious sounds and instruments to her (drums, guitar, singing).

We spin around in my office chair at fun parts of the songs.

It is so much fun, and way more successful than I thought it would be.

Happy Tuesday chimps.

Information packaged

In this internet age, access to information and data is not necessarily a competitive advantage. Everyone has google. Everyone has more data than they know what to do with. This includes your clients.

The trick then when dealing with clients and data is to package it properly. Package it into something as specific as possible.

If the target client needs scientific proof to make a decision, send them scientific papers.

If they are driven by money, send them as many financial statements and ratios as possible to back up your sale.

If they identify with emotion and passion, possibly you need to package your information in the form of a romantic story.

It is a matter of speaking the right language to achieve your goal with a client.

We all have a language we like to speak and will pay money and attention for. What is yours?

New Years purge

We are purging our cupboards on the first day of the year. Although it wasn’t planned for this exact day, the timing feels extremely cathartic and right.

We will send our old clothes to one of the multitude of needy causes nearby. Africa does not struggle when it comes to charities and needy folk, unfortunately.

The purge is also spreading to my man cave/office which is chock full of my stuff….this includes all the coolest stuff (posters, guitars, Hifi amps and speakers) and all the junk I have collected over the years (old battery chargers anyone?)

If you are looking for something to do to start the new year right, I’d highly recommend a purge.

Happy New Years chimps!

Research and writing

If you want to write a good book, you need to know something about the subject matter. This sounds silly and obvious, but it’s not. The question to ask is when do I know ENOUGH about the subject?

Enough to teach a 4 year old? Enough to give a speech? Enough to pass the exam?

The search for enough is the most fruitless search and it never ends. Research never ends. We need to be able to handle that truth if we want to be an expert at anything.

Rather focus on the process itself. The contribution to the culture. You need to enjoy the research and creation process, rather than obsess over the result being enough of anything.

Easy to say, hard to do.

Happy Wednesday chimps.

3 things a day

Here’s a thought experiment – if you could do three things for an hour every day to achieve your goals, what would they be?

Personally, if I could exercise, read and write each day for an hour, it might make a huge difference.

However, today was not so productive. If you took today as a representation of my long term goals, you might think that my life goals are to get fat, to buy as much new tech and apple products as possible and to write emails.

I’m getting good at those three activities.

Tomorrow is another day. I plan to carry on reading my book about interior design and well being, to write the blog and to do some sort of exercise.

Happy (late) Tuesday, chimps.

Writing habits

Do you remember the first time you fell in love? Of course you do. Kind of like discovering chocolate for the first time, you just wanted more and more.

My first proper relationship was notable in that it was mostly long distance. Soon after we met I went overseas to study and decided to pour my heart and soul into keeping the relationship going. And a writing habit was born.

We were prolific. The amount of words written in letters, emails and text messages was at an almost Shakespearean quantity. Every single day, for months on end. Quality was highly questionable, but quantity was admirable.

This laid the groundwork for blogging and writing regularly for the rest of my life to date. I’m thankful. Thankful for the habit, thankful for this blog, and thankful my current relationship is in person.

What are the origins of your habits?

Happy Monday chimps.