Contrast keeps you sane

While talking to a colleague last week, I went on a rant regarding cognitive work. I sometimes have a strong urge to work with something where I can just turn on the autopilot and cruise for a while. But it seems like that day never comes to me. I am a specialist consultant, and I find my work very difficult most of the time. And every time a palette drops, and I finally figure out how to solve a specific problem, you might think that life should get a little easier. But no… the only thing that happens is that the difficulty setting increases even more. It feels like mental tractor pulling.

Engineering, HabitsRikard ÖqvistMay 3, 2024work, job, engineering, health, musicComment

Dreams and stress

I just exited a streak of around ~100 work hours in nine days. It has been quite high stress level in general and intense periods of focus. It is fascinating how the body enters a high alert state and how I have been able to function in a state of sleep depravation with sometimes down to 4 hours per night. But today, when I finally lowered my guard and rest mode activates, I was unable to stay awake at all. The mental realisation that the crunch is over for now, takes a bit of time to process into a physical realisation. It is a damn nice feeling though when it happens.

DiaryRikard ÖqvistMarch 29, 2024stress, burnout, work, healthComment

Lifesaving habits

It’s been a couple of weeks now with late work-nights. A temporary reduction in sleep hours is usually no problem, but it is annoyingly easy to get stuck in a loop where you are active later in the evening or night, which both makes it harder to fall asleep and reduces the quality of the hours you get. Consequentially, it will be increasingly harder to get up in the morning and/or you will lose focus during the day, which will reduce productivity. And then you will need to work even longer hours to compensate, which only adds yet more gravel in the delicate machinery. It is a dark spiral. How do you break it?

Diary, HabitsRikard ÖqvistOctober 30, 2023health, habits, stress, dogs, musicComment

Breakfast is BS

Yesterday I had one of the most memorable meals in my life. A perfectly prepared medium/rare entrecote steak and a glass of water. There’s a Swedish saying that “hunger is the best seasoning”, and few truer words have ever been spoken. My spice of choice was a 26-hour gut-rest fast with only H2O to hydrate and nothing else. I don’t think I have ever been without food for so long before, and that made my meal a religious experience. The fasting put a whole new perspective on eating, and I was not aware that a piece of meat could ever taste that good. It opened up a whole new dimension.

DiaryRikard ÖqvistSeptember 19, 2023fasting, health, food, habitsComment

I failed

For the past ten years, I have been practicing a musical instrument for 15 minutes per day. But in the past couple of days, I finally faced conditions too challenging to prevail. On the night between Wednesday and Thursday, both my boys decided to reenact Gary’s puking scene from Team America simultaneously. It was without a doubt the worst I have ever seen with regards to stomach sickness. And shortly after the boys had re-generated, it was my turn to do my own interpretation of the classic scene. As horrible as stomach sickness can be, I had a real eye-opening experience.

Diary, HabitsRikard ÖqvistJuly 10, 2023meditation, focus, health, habitsComment

Dreams never lie

On the night between the 1st and 2nd of June, I dreamt that I could play the drums exceptionally well. It felt as if a very important lock snapped into place. I have kept a daily dream journal since around 2017, so by now I have a pretty good idea of what happens when I sleep. With this dream journal, I have seen strong correlations between dream and reality in that important milestones are often presented in a dream. It is as if my subconscious mind has figured something important out. The feeling is like learning to ride a bike. Certain things you learn are life-altering. Once you have figured out how to ride a bike, you cannot un-learn it. I am soon in my fourth year of daily drum practice. And after this dream, I have played better than ever before, with a big margin. Coincidence?

Habits, PhilosophyRikard ÖqvistJune 5, 2023dreams, sleep, health, music, journalComment

Lessons from man’s best friend

Recently, my sister had to put one of her beloved dogs to sleep abruptly. Things can change fast. What seemed to be a healthy guy and ran 15 km on the spring ice in the archipelago, was gone a couple of days later after an extremely aggressive cancer diagnosis. It wasn’t really expected because he was only seven years old and hadn’t shown any suspicions signs. Sad as it is, it is also a healthy reminder that the same rules apply to us humans, albeit over a somewhat more extended timeframe.

HabitsRikard ÖqvistApril 25, 2023dogs, health, life, habits, focusComment

It’s not over till the fat lady sings

For weeks on end, our home and office has been like a construction site. But today, our last (planned) renovation project – a brand new office air heat pump – was installed. This calls for celebration indeed, however, I don’t think we have earned it just yet. There are still plenty of extremely small things that I think needs to be taken care of before we can claim “mission accomplished”. Things like scanning the lawn for leftover screws and nails, small chunks of insulation, packaging materials, leftover wood etc. And finally, a proper house-cleaning. One should be careful to claim a project is over prematurely.

Acoustics, DiaryRikard ÖqvistOctober 25, 2022noise, heating, health, workComment

Silence

The shoemaker's children go barefoot. In my case, that was exceptionally true up until today. I’m an acoustician, which means I have devoted my life to improving the world by improving sound quality. That’s why I have been so embarrassed by my own personal living environment. We had in our kitchen one of those old kitchen cupboard FTX ventilation units including a kitchen fan with the suction power of an asthmatic sucking air through a straw. But that’s not even close to the real problem: The noise. The old unit produced an earth-shattering 42 dBA and 62 (!) dBC in our kitchen. Throughout my whole career, I have never come across anything worse in any dwelling. It was up until today the literal definition of how to NOT practice what you preach.

AcousticsRikard ÖqvistSeptember 26, 2022acoustics, ventilation, sound quality, noise, health, sleep, annoyanceComment

Take a walk

Last Saturday, I was going to take my dog out for a short night walk before we all went to bed. It was the last task of the day and everyone else had already gone to bed. Me and my dog were the only ones awake. We started walking towards the forest and everything was illuminated by a full moon, and the temperature was around zero degrees – very comfortable. Once my eyes got used to the moonlight, I didn’t really need my headlamp to see so I turned it off. We kept walking and after a short while we had entered a forest road with no houses or civilization in sight. The short walk ended up being the longest walk I’ve had in a long time. We just kept walking and I loved every minute of it.

Parenting, HabitsRikard ÖqvistApril 18, 2022work, family, health, rest, mindfulnessComment

Tread your steps carefully

I will never forget the final couple of months when I was finalizing my PhD thesis for the print. Several years of extremely focused work was reaching its conclusion. And the thing I remember best is that feeling of “I understand this topic now!”, that you can only get when you are close to the finish line. Everything kind of snaps into place and it feels like you can write the perfect thesis. However, when you finally reach that stage, the time is almost up, so you will only be able to write a fraction of all your ideas. It’s a wonderful and frustrating paradox.

EngineeringRikard ÖqvistApril 11, 2022work, health, burnout, iceland, growth, wisdom, learningComment

I prefer the stick

To make real progress you need both the carrot and the stick. I have got plenty of carrots, and last week I finally got a proper batch of stick. It’s amazing how much productivity boost that can be achieved by a feeling of impending doom. My to-do list had been growing steadily for quite some time, perhaps for a couple of months. I was adding things faster than I was ticking them off. Problems like these are appropriate to consider the saying “How did you go broke? Little by little then everything at once.” So, when you get that feeling that you are inching slowly in the wrong direction, be careful. Be very careful. Because then suddenly everything might twist and turn at once and you don’t want that.

Diary, HabitsRikard ÖqvistMarch 14, 2022health, productivity, sleep, focusComment