Dear Diary
A sleep in, stress, and getting more of what you love done
9:10 am Holy dishevelled batman, what just happened.
Hello internet friend (and hopefully real life friend, too)
I could’ve sworn I set my alarm last night to 6:30am, but I guess I didn’t. So you can imagine the confusion and slight horror when I rolled over this morning and saw that it was 8:30am… oops.
After the initial panic settled down and I realised that I have a fairly flexible and free morning and that a sleep in would be of little consequence, less for the fact that Thursday Thoughts would be late.
The last three weeks, I’ve written purely from my kitchen dining table. Well, my mum’s. If you’ve been following along, you may remember that Billie and I have been living at my mum’s since we got back to Aus (over five weeks now). But more on that later. Last night, I told myself it might be nice if I take myself on a mini excursion to do TT. Get out of the house, do something different. So the plan was to be up at 6:30am and at Starbucks by 6:55am to start typing. Well, regardless of such a sleep in, I’ve made the excursion anyway so here I am sipping a latte grande (anyone else hate that Starbucks insists on tall/grande/venti naming structure?") and a plain bagel, ready to word vomit to the internet.
The last week has been… tough. Challenging, maybe. You may have seen on the news if you’re in Australia how hard the rental market is right now, with queues stretching down the street at inspections and what not. Well, yeh. That’s not an exaggeration. It’s been fucked. Billie and I put in an application for two properties that we really liked last week. One we liked more, the other we were more certain we would get. We visualised how we would set up the place and what our routines would be like. We kept our schedule clear for this week ready to move in, we were emotionally invested and convinced that this would be the week that we get a place. Aaaaaand we got declined on both of them. In the space of a few hours. The toll that takes on a person.. man.
This is maybe the 7th property that we’ve applied for and still haven’t gotten anywhere. It’s weird because I know once we do find a place, it happens really quickly. Suddenly you’ve got the keys and suddenly you’re in. What’s killer is the ongoing uncertainty. Are we in for another week or two defendant of searching, or another month or two? Or will it be worse than that. I’ve written before about lacking our own space, having my own desk, having my own bathroom and my own couch and tv. But what I’ve also realised this week is that you can’t live a temporary life in a permanent world. I’m set up at mum’s as if I’m there temporarily. I haven’t really made any space my own. Because I didn’t feel I had to, knowing we would be out soon. So a part of us now is considering doubling down and staying put for the next few months. Setting up camp and just accepting that we’re stuck here for a few months and making things more comfortable for ourselves. I don’t know, it’s just a pain really. All of that on top of constantly going to inspections, browsing real estate dot com, submitting applications (which is damn time consuming might I add)
(By the way, this plain bagel from Starbucks SUCKS. And so does the coffee. If you’re a coffeee snob please forgive my caffeine choices, it’s just so convenience and the space here is very open and bright and comfortable, and I know I can sit and work/type for 2 hours and not be in anyone’s way).
So, more inspections this week, I guess. I’m trying to go in with the mantra of “I haven’t lowered my standards, rather being open minded. I’ll keep you posted of course.
Stress
Nothing is more present and pertinent in my life right now more than Team Champs 2024. In case you’re not following, it’s the Powerlifting Competition that I’m running and hosting at TSF in March. It will easily be the biggest and best event we’ve hosted at the gym after over 20 meets. In a previous life, I was coaching in the gym 25 hours a week. Among online coaching, my own training and managing operations in the business, time and resources I could dedicate to running our events was slim at best. However now, I’m coaching in the gym 10 hours a week, and my online coaching roster has been trimmed down. I’m living conveniently enough across the road from work (literally a 5 minute walk door to door) and so I’ve freed up for myself all this time to dedicate to projects and, more specifically, meet directing. Which is awesome — I’ve set up my schedule to be like this on purpose. But all I can think about is team champs. Now that I think about it, I may have said this last week? (I don’t actually read my own posts once I’ve hit publish, so I may end up repeating myself week to week). That it’s impossible to turn off the creative part of your brain and it often is the most creative when you least want it to be so. While driving, while watching a movie, while reading a book, while talking to a friend, while writing Thursday Thoughts, while literally in the middle of a working set while training ideas come to me. And further than than, stress. Angst. Anxiety that I’m gonna forget something, or miss something. Don’t get me wrong, I have a master spreadsheet with to do lists and time lines and everything. But many of the ideas don’t exist on the timeline because they’re yet to come to me. Early in the week in particular, I felt almost shackled by my own inability to disconnect from thinking about team champs. I’m so damn excited to put on what will be the best powerlifting comp of the year. But holy shit it’s stressing me out. I’m optimistic that that will slow down in the coming weeks. Once the major pieces fall in to place. Once the medals and trophies arrive, once I’ve ordered and received all the bits and pieces. But in the meantime, it’s stressful. I’ll give you an example. I bought a dual-speaker system for the announcer to use so they can be heard better. Previously, we’ve used a small single speaker, and I “upgraded” to two, larger speakers. Thinking they’d be clearer and louder. They turned up yesterday and after some testing and fiddling, they suck. I’m either doing something wrong with the settings (which I don’t think I am because I tested these with Billie and Ronnie) or they’re just not the right tool for the job. So it’s one of those things where you thought “ok, job done. Tick it off the list” whereas now, I have to go to the hassle of returning them, doing some more research and buying another set all over again. Sigh.
Actual flow state.
The primary night for chess at the Melbourne Chess Club is Mondays. Mondays is when they host their principal tournaments, their most serious tournaments. In the past, I’ve always had to work Monday nights so I could never go. This year however, with some more flexibility in my work schedule, I was able to go on Monday. It’s super unorganised and a little bit chaotic. I made the effort to go because I told myself this year that I wanted to take chess a little more seriously, because more than ever I needed my hobbies that took me out of the house/gym ecosystem.
When I was in Barcelona, I took up swimming as a bit of a hobby/skill I wanted to develop. The gym we were training at was a bit of a leisure centre that had a weights room as well as pool, so it was super convenient. What I quickly discovered that I loved about swimming is how present you have to be. It was very meditative tbh. It was one of few activities really where you are truly off your phone. Even in the gym when I’m training, I can get distracted on my phone and get caught up by notifications or jobs and tasks. On Monday, I was able to find that kind of flow state. For the first time since at least being home, I felt like nothing else mattered than what was in front of me. With the clock ticking and the 64 squares in front of you, I was so focused on the task at hand. Ironically, I even noticed that I was so focused and noted to myself how good that felt. To be totally absorbed in what it is you’re doing. It’s hard to find that I think, especially in a world that’s desperate to get your attention with ads and clicks and happy noises. It felt good man. I’m looking forward to more chess this year, and hopefully better chess lol.
9:50am
How to use your calendar.
A few weeks ago I referenced Ali Abdal on here. He’s the doctor turned content creator and youtuber. He recently wrote a book, actually. Anyway, he has a video about using a calendar and in the video, he talks about I think three or four “levels” to calendar use. The bottom level is where I was at (I can proudly say I’m working up the levels atm lol) where you basically don’t use a calendar at all. Next level is putting in important dates and appointments. Next level is like putting in all important dates and appointments as well as non important or even assumed commitments like work. And the last level is scheduling into your calendar the things that you want to be doing, ahead of time, and treating them as importantly as an appointment anyway.
I know it’s a little ironic considering I’m horribly late today, but kind of like what I’ve done with Thursday Thoughts. I mean, it’s in my calendar. Every Thursday morning, this is what I’m doing. What’s that, you want to go for coffee on Thursday morning? Sorry, I can’t, I’m busy. I know it’s only my fourth week of doing this and, I know that I’ve already mucked up today somewhat. But it actually has felt really good to have this commitment in my calendar to follow through with. When I was more actively improving at chess, I was doing a lesson once a week with a coach. It was, funnily enough, every Thursday morning (albeit at 10am) for two hours. Of course the coach helped me a lot, but in hindsight, I think a lot of the value I got was having this time commitment of two hours of active study/practice every week. Two hours where I was super focused on one task with my phone off. When I eventually discontinued those lessons, I tried to tell myself that I would continue the time commitment of “two hours of dedicated study at this time”. But soon enough, that fell away. Of course, having that time commitment with someone else is really powerful. Having that appointment.
The challenge is setting that appointment for yourself. Weirdly, I feel like this TT project I’m doing kind of is an appointment with someone else. It’s with you guys. If you tell yourself you’re gonna start reading a new book tonight for 30 minutes, and that doesn’t eventuate, nobody is gonna know about it. But if you have an appointment with your coach, you can’t so easily get out of it. Similarly, I feel like I kind of have an appointment with you, dear internet friend. I think that’s one of the powerful things about posting this. I could easily make this a private experience. Many people do journal privately right? I’ve even had a snarky comment pointing out that it isn’t necessary that my thoughts are made public. But, similarly, it isn’t necessary that you (or anybody else), read them. So like what difference does it make? The difference is that I think if I was doing this in private, I would’ve stopped after the first one or two weeks. But here we are in week four, going strong. Because I feel like I have this commitment to you already friend. Because I promised I would.
So going back a second, how can we become better and making these commitments to ourselves. Of course, one great step would be relying on others. Making those appointments with others. “Accountability” buddies. Hiring a coach or making an appointment with a tutor. The other, maybe more accessible (but perhaps less potent) is scheduling it in your calendar. Schedule in reading, studying, exercise, budgeting, cleaning, groceries, quality time with cohabitating partner, whatever it is. Put it in your calendar and make that commitment to yourself. I know, all very rich from someone who struggles to use their calendar. But I’m trying ok!!
10:20am
I’ve been sitting here for like five minutes trying to think of something else to share. A little short of where I would’ve liked to finish today, but I think I’m all thought out.
So to round out the week, let me share with you one little video that I loved this week.
That’s it from me. As always, thanks for reading me and joining me on this journey dear internet friend (and hopefully real life friend too).