Posts in Habits
Progress is like a puzzle

When laying a puzzle, I usually start with the edges and create the frame. Those parts are the easiest to identify and combine, because it is obvious where they should go. After the frame is completed, I then pick out some key part of the motive. A couple of years ago me and my wife built some geography puzzles of a world map, and one such key part could have been to “let´s build Africa”. And then the other components. Finally, we laid down the oceans, which are all blue and thus by far the most difficult. That’s why they came last. Because without a framework it is almost impossible to place them at all. A very interesting fact about puzzles is that the closer you get to the goal, the speed of the building process accelerates. Just think about how quick you will lay down the final three pieces compared to the first three!

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Creative starvation

Isn’t it paradoxical that to stimulate the creative process, you need to increase the difficulty and make it harder for yourself? Time constraints are especially useful in this regard and works very well for me. I.e. unconditionally write and publish a blog post in 30 minutes max. Like I just did with this one. Whatever you do, do not choose the “When it’s done”-approach. Because if you choose that road, the probability increases that you will remain stationary.

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When is the optimal time to practice?

I always practice a musical instrument 15 minutes per day and have been doing it every day for the past seven years. In these years I have been experimenting with the optimal practice time, and I have tried all of them. What I have found, is that a habit like this works best first thing in the morning. When you open your eyes after a night’s sleep, your mind is fresh and feels like a blank slate. As the day goes on, more and more ideas enter your mind. And at the end of the day, the mind is so full of thoughts and ideas that a night’s sleep is needed to crystalize them, so that the process can start over the next day. That’s why I have found the morning hours to work best, but there are also other factors to consider.

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Unlimited willpower

I have heard that a two-year-old can have the willpower to hold their breath until they literally turn blue. Today I witnessed something similar with my two-year-old son. Since last week, we now go on daily dog walks together, and he insists to handle one of our two labradors even though it is twice as heavy as himself. I have never personally witnessed determination or willpower even close to what I have now seen with my son. The dog is strong and pulls him in the wrong direction, he drops the leash, and he loses his balance and falls. A lot. And yet, he will NEVER let me take the leash from him. He shall do it his way, alone.

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The Grind

It is now 24 months since I decided to learn Bleed by Meshuggah on the drums, as a beginner drummer. This is a totally crazy project, because it is arguably one of the most difficult metal songs ever written. It is also one of the best, and a personal favorite. I can now play all the parts of the song one by one, in somewhat lower tempo. It took almost two years to just understand the riffs. But now the next phase begins, which I call “The Grind”. It is the final push to connect all riffs together and bring the tempo up to the original speed. And paradoxically, this is the easiest part of the whole process!

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Speed reading

When I came across the concept “speed reading” for the first time a couple of years ago, it kind of blew my mind. I have been reading books wrong my whole life. I have always read the book as if a voice in my head spoke the words to me. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but it does take a lot of time to read a book. Especially technical literature. I don’t know why it came as a surprise to me, but it turns our that it is no problem at all to simply read faster. A lot faster.

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A well defined problem

Have you ever felt the urge to mow your lawn? That’s precisely what happened to me this weekend. The month of May 2021 has been one of the most intense ever, work-wise. I have been developing a university course in Building physics with eleven lectures in the course of four weeks. On top of that I have my regular work as an acoustician. I do love my work, both of them, but there is a problem. They are both extremely cognitively demanding. I am always on the edge, slightly – or even a lot – outside of my comfort zone. That’s why I felt the urge to spend my time on a well defined problem. Like moving the lawn.

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Wax on, wax off

When I was a kid, I watched the movie Karate Kid where young Daniel wants to learn Karate and gets old Karate master mr Miyagi to train him. Miyagi lets Daniel clean and polish his cars using the “wax on, wax off” motion. He also lets him clean a terrace and pain a fence, always using special motions with his hands when appying the wax, paint or cleaning water. All in all, Daniel spends lots and lots of time with these activities until he finally snaps and goes furious – “When are you going to teach me Karate?!” It turns out, that is precisely what he has done. The special movements Daniel used in the activities are important Karate moves, and by doing restoration and renovation work, they have just killed two birds with one stone. A lot of works has been done, and Daniel now has the correct movements in his muscle memory.

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The definition of insanity

The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expect different results, a wise man once said. However, there is an exception to that rule: Computers. From my experience, trying the same thing and expecting a different result is usually the first thing I try when my IT gives up. And the success rate is high enough to keep doing it. Technology is wonderful when it works. I love technology. It might also be the thing that most effectively can send my pulse to 300 bpm while I am screaming on the top of my lungs (my kind of anger management). I suppose my family is grateful that I am often in another building when the glitch gremlin strikes.

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A little every day goes a long way

A couple of weeks ago I upgraded my computer screens to a triple 4k setup. When I was working with CAD drawings on my old lo-res (1680*1050) screens, it felt like looking at the world through a telescope, and my productivity suffered. The new screens are wonderful. I can now fit my entire old triple monitor screen real estate on just one screen! But anyone who has ever considered a triple monitor setup should also consider cable management. LOTS of cable management. Every screen requires a displayport cable and a power cable, so that’s six cables right there just to turn them on. I did some other upgrades as well. Let’s throw in a couple of active loudspeakers, camera, sound card, USB hub, conference speaker, mouse, keyboard, mic, Stream deck… the list goes on. And all this should be mounted on a sit/stand desk with a flexible length. This weekend I spent several hours doing cable management. And oh boy, did it turn out great! I was also reminded of a crucial life lesson.

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Time to change my blog schedule

There is a saying that “He who stops becoming better, ceases to be good.” That pretty much sums up my life philosophy. I currently have four daily habits and one weekly habit. Every day I practice French for a couple of minutes, draw a picture, publish a short video, and play the drums for 15 minutes. And every Saturday I write a blog post. I´m in my second year now of these five simultaneous habits. These last weeks my gut tells me that I need to make some changes in this schedule, especially the writing habit. For over a year, I set my alarm clock very early every Saturday and got up before my family woke and wrote a blog post. But now I feel that the sacrifice to get out of bed in the weekend is too great. My son just turned two, and he is so much fun to be around that I can’t describe it. That’s why I have chosen to prioritize that morning hour with my family instead. It is now more important than writing. That, and the combination that work has been exceptionally intense the past month or two, and in times like that, those cozy morning hours and a day where you are completely “free” is more important than ever.

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Slow and steady wins the race

Six years ago, I opened an account where I put aside ~50 EUR every month. The purpose of this account was to slowly build up a buffer so that I can buy musical equipment whenever a I come across a good deal of something I desire. I have been looking at a pair of Finnish Genelec studio monitors for about 15 years. They are called the 8050 and they are ridiculously expensive, and they are also quite rare on the 2nd hand market. I have been scanning the trading sites for years and have only seen them a couple of times and when I did, I wasn’t fast enough and someone else grabbed them before me. But if you keep your eyes on the target and are consistent, there are only two options: Either you will find a used pair, or you will save up enough money to go and buy them brand new.

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An amazing mistake

My greatest weakness is that I am a perfectionist. My whole life I have been obsessed with quality and it is a big advantage as a scientist/engineer. But it is also a curse. If the world were run by engineers, I don’t think anything would ever be accomplished. We would be too busy tweaking our products to improve it beyond that 99th percentile. Luckily, since a couple of years I have constantly challenged myself to produce content with low quality and instead go for quantity. This week I made an amazing discovery, which proves that I am now on a much better path.

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The perfect work week

After Covid, many of us have realized how much time we save by not travelling to various meetings. However, is it possible that we are now having more meetings instead? And perhaps they aren’t as disciplined? Yesterday I had a conversation with an architect and we both felt that some weeks there are so many meetings that it is difficult to clock in any productive work at all. In our conversation we did some brainstorming and came up with an idea that might work. What if there was an industry standard within civil engineering that looked something like this: Mondays – Internal meetings, Tuesdays – Client meetings, Wednesdays – Productive work, Thursdays – Client meetings and Fridays – Productive work again. Imagine how much easier it would be to focus and to optimize scheduling.

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New year's resolution 2021: Double up

We all have different personality profiles with corresponding strengths and weaknesses, and I have learned the hard way that one of my biggest weaknesses is my ability to gather and pack my stuff on a short notice. For example, a couple of years ago I was going to do a university lecture and record it for later YouTube publication. As you can imagine, it involves a lot of technology with microphones, cables, sound cards, cameras etc… My lecture was scheduled to start around 10:00 in the morning, and since we lived close to campus back then, I thought it would be fine to gather up my stuff in the morning just before I leave. My wife got home before me that day, and when she entered our little office the whole place was a complete mess. Cables and stuff were lying everywhere, and it is probably what a home burglary looks like. However, my wife knows me well so she could easily figure out what had happened.

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Get it done early

One of the most important lessons I have learned is that you should always do the important stuff as early as possible in the day. Take this blog post for example. I have been publishing my blog posts every Saturday morning for the last year and it has become a natural part of my week. At the time of this writing, the clock is closing in on midnight and every minute I spend writing is one minute less of sleep. I do not like to write as the concluding activity of the day. My mind is filled with thoughts and honestly, I feel a bit stressed when writing this. But on the other hand, if I do not write this post now, I will break a year-long habit and I will have to worry about it tomorrow instead. So, to sacrifice a little sleep is still the lesser of two evils.

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Acoustics and Men’s style

Earlier this year, my wife introduced me to Bailey Sarian’s Youtube channel. She produces a program called “Mystery and Makeup”, where she talks about True crime and Makeup. She is insanely popular with 3,4 million subscribers and I can understand why, even if I have only watched one episode. Her passion is apparent and shines through like a bright light. She is indeed a great storyteller. The episodes start out with Bailey completely without makeup and then she tells a story about some famous true crime while putting on a professional makeup. About 30 minutes later she finishes the story and by then the makeup is finished. Bailey Sarian is perhaps one of the strangest combinations I have come across and it works. She is the perfect example of when two seemingly unrelated ideas are synthesized and produce something new and greater than the sum of the parts. She planted a seed in me. If I were to do something similar on Youtube, what would it look like?

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The secret of successful New year’s resolutions

Most of us probably have probably struggled with new years resolutions of one kind or the other. It is all too common to fail on a commitment. We might show up a day or two, or a week, but even if we have some early motivation boost it often goes away after a while. It is like the first phase of a loving relationship. The initial period is filled with passion which fills us with energy. We feel that we can do anything! That phase cannot last forever, and neither can the initial joy of taking up a new skill. Honestly, it gets kind of boring after a while! (The skill practice, not the relationship ;) ). I have done several projects by now. New years resolutions are among the best things I know, and I never fail them. The secret? Keep it simple and be consistent. Do something every day for 365 days and it is physically impossible to not get at least decent at it. If you miss one single day, you will fail.

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Should you diversify or focus?

For the past 216 days I have created a painting/sketch every day. For the first months I used a timer set at 60 seconds, no more, no less. In the beginning I tried out some different techniques and tools, and I quickly settled with Autodesk Sketchbook on the iPad pro. Simplicity was the key. You can just fire up the iPad, grab the Apple pencil, choose an object to draw and then you do it. Indeed, extremely fast, and simple. But there is a drawback: When you are travelling, the iPad is too cumbersome. That’s why I went to Panduro and bought a small artist sketchbook, some graphite pens, an eraser and a sharpener. As an artist, my kit is perhaps as portable as it gets, considering the infinite possibilities on offer. I was planning to use it only when travelling and go back to my iPad when I got home. As it turns out, I haven’t used my iPad for weeks now. I stayed with the pen and paper.

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One year and 52 blogs later

Today is a one-year anniversary! This is my 52nd weekly blog post. A year goes by quickly. It is amazing how much easier the writing process is now, compared to the first one or two months. The friction is all but gone now. Writing is an incredibly useful and valuable skill, and I am glad I started this habit. I have now reached a point where I can decide to sit down, write a blog post, and publish it. Even if I start from scratch and no idea what to write about, I can produce something. And that is often enough. Something always beat Nothing.

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