Monday Seven No. 021
Daily Routine, Life Dinner, and Lebanese Jazz
Hi Friends 👋🏽
Welcome to Monday Seven.
Last week’s email had a 57% open rate. Top links were an itinerary for a Canadian road-trip and a book titled Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution by Nikki R. Keddie.
I’m at peak energy levels and producing at my highest levels this year. Largely attributing this to a strict routine I established last week once we got back to Toronto. This week I cover my daily routine and Life Dinners with Christine amongst other interesting things from around the web.
No. 021
1 — Life Dinner
To balance work and life, Christine and I started Life Dinners last week (inspired by Brad Feld). Our Life Dinner is a standing dinner on the first night of every month. It’s not a date night in the romantic sense. We use the time to reflect on the past few weeks and talk about our priorities for the month ahead. Here are the questions:
What went well?
What could have gone better?
What are our priorities for the month ahead?
It gives us the chance to catch up deeply and reflect on what has been working in our relationship. It also gives us the chance to bring up anything that’s been bothering us without interrupting our daily flow. For example, if I’m frustrated about X I don’t need to bring it up at that moment. I know I’ll have a channel to do this in the near future. And if I forget by then, it means it probably didn’t matter. The small stuff slides.
2 — Daily Routine
Here’s how it goes:
7-7:30 am Wake Up
Morning Route
- Meditate 15 min, Stretch 10 min, 18g of coffee, end with 15-second cold shower
- Read for 30 minutes
9 am Start Work
- Standing desk with a balance board
- Lunch for 30 minutes, followed by 15g of coffee or Pantry Magic Mind
- Exercise for 60 minutes
8 pm Stop Work
- Dinner at 8
- Read for 30-60 minutes, end with 15-second hot shower
11-11:30 pm Bed Time
On weekends, I’ve been following a digital sabbath from Friday evening to Sunday morning. Saturdays are for pleasure only. No work and no errands. Sundays are spent catching up on work and setting up the week ahead.
I fast for 12-16 hours on weekdays and throw in a few Moments of Heaven for endurance. The Moments of Heaven are small pleasures like are making a cup of coffee in the morning, stretching, lunch with Christine, the last 15-seconds under a cold/hot shower, going for walks on calls, and lifting weights.
I keep some version of this routine year-round but this is definitely a more strict approach I’m using during this 12-week sprint towards the end of 2020.
Pantry Magic Mind is my homemade version of Magic Mind, a supposedly awesome productivity drink I have yet to try. It’s not available in Canada so I’m experimenting on my own and so far it gets me juiced. If I get the recipe right, I’ll share it here.
3 — Better questions
I’ve read that the quality of your questions determines the quality of your life. The quality of your questions also determines the quality of your conversations, particularly when you want to go deeper.
Justin Marres posted these questions in his excellent newsletter The Next Brand.
If you had someone following you around all the time what would you have them do?
What is something you've never told anyone, not because it's a secret but because you've just never told anyone?
If you could be guaranteed one thing in life (besides money), what would it be?
If you could live life over again, would you sleep with more people or less? Why?
Someone gets a text message from you and for whatever reason they're not sure it's actually you. They're worried someone stole your phone. What could they ask to make sure it's actually you?
What's something you used to strongly believe that you now think you were fundamentally misguided about?
What’s a compliment someone gave you years ago that you still think about?
His 15-year-old brother took 90 questions like these ones written by Justin and turned them into an iPhone app. I gave it a try and it’s a lot of fun. You can download it here.
4 — Idea evaluation
I previously wrote about idea generation. The other side of the creativity coin is ideation evaluation. Ness Labs provides a good framework.
5 — Watching
Rock climber Alex Honnold free solos El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. Free solo climbing is rock climbing without ropes — it’s lethally dangerous. El Cap is a 3,000-foot summit and this story is nuts. Alex’s dedication to his craft is inspiring.
6 — Song of the week
Been really into Lebanese jazz this week and recently discovered Toufic Farroukh (Spotify, Apple Music).
7 — Quote of the week
The thing is, anybody can be happy and cosy. Nothing good happens in the world by being happy and cosy. Nobody achieves anything great because they’re happy and cozy.
— Alex Honnold (@alexhonnold)
Last Words
Thanks for reading!
If you’re new here you can read previous editions and subscribe here.
I’m taking next week off to be fully present with my parents who are in town for a few days. I’m reminded of Tim Urban’s The Tail End.
The next time you’ll hear from me is October 19.
Until then,
Yashar