Posts in Habits
I failed
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.

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Diary, HabitsRikard Öqvistmeditation, focus, health, habitsComment
Fifteen minutes a day keeps the divorce away – pt II.
Fifteen minutes a day keeps the divorce away – pt II.

A month ago I wrote a piece about our newfound morning routine; A coffee between 06:20 and 06:30 with my wife. By now, we should be around two months into the habit. It’s not like I would consider our marriage problematic – not even close – but the general improvements in life quality I have seen in this very short time is mind-boggling. I read many years ago that some Buddhist monk or something said that the last thing you do before you go to bed determines the quality of your sleep. And the first thing you do after waking up determines the quality of your day. This quote has stuck with me and pops up in my mind from time to time. The morning coffee must be a perfect example of the latter part of the quote.

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Habits, Parenting, PhilosophyRikard Öqvistfamily, routine, mornings, sleep, relationship, marriage, loveComment
Dreams never lie
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?

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Habits, PhilosophyRikard Öqvistdreams, sleep, health, music, journalComment
Fifteen minutes a day keeps the divorce away.
Fifteen minutes a day keeps the divorce away.

A couple of weeks ago, me and my wife introduced a good habit. Between 06:20 and 06:30 we enjoy a fresh cup of coffee together. At this time, the sun has just risen above the sea, bathing everything in golden light while the boys and dogs are sleeping. There is zero chance that you will be interrupted by a phone call or an email or just about anything. Those ten minutes per day will add up incrementally over time to something very special. A relationship is the sum of 10 000 atomized tiny actions.

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Diary, Parenting, Philosophy, HabitsRikard Öqvistroutine, ritual, habit, marriage, children, parenting, relationshipComment
Lessons from man’s best friend
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.

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HabitsRikard Öqvistdogs, health, life, habits, focusComment
Keep your eyes on the prize
Keep your eyes on the prize

When I became active on social media a couple of years ago, I discovered the phenomenon of so called “haters”. They exist both in real life and online, but it sure seems as if they are more common online. The pattern often repeats like this, the first weeks or months (depending on your virality), the comments section usually becomes active with people who try to bring you down. My best example is when I have been documenting my progress of learning how to play the drums. Negative comments were more common in the first year, but from year two and onwards, it feels as if they have vanished. I guess it is not that fun to harass someone who couldn’t care less even if he tried.

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Music, HabitsRikard Öqvistdrums, consistency, focus, inspiration, practiceComment
Rainbow barf boosts productivity
Rainbow barf boosts productivity

When I go on stage as a performing musician, my mind activates another setting. I get much more focused and find it a lot easier to enter the “flow” state. And when practicing at home, I often find my thoughts drifting away to irrelevant things. I’m probably not alone in this behavior and it’s also not surprising. There’s no “skin in the game” when practicing. There is no cost of messing up. But when you’re on stage, you will make a fool out of yourself if you don’t deliver. Hardcore, no extra lives when you mess up. I have found a very simple way to trick my mind that I am performing at a concert even when I am practicing at home.

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Habits, MusicRikard ÖqvistRGB, music, drums, studio, DIYComment
A sine wave shaped staircase
A sine wave shaped staircase

Any practicing musician knows that continuous practice over long periods of time will resemble a sine wave shaped staircase, with varying frequency. You experience good days and bad days, sometimes also clustered into good streaks and bad ones. Never has this been clearer to me than today when I am in my fourth year of daily drum practice of one single song: Bleed by Meshuggah. Any normal person´s gut reaction will probably be that a bad day feels like a failure. But a couple of weeks ago I realized that those bad days are the most important days of all. Because they reveal the truth. They show you what you can really do, without any sugar coating. Tonight, with a high fever, sleep depravation and a severe man-cold is a wonderful day for drum practice. Tonight, I will learn how far (or close) I really am to the goal of nailing this song.

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Music, HabitsRikard Öqvistmeshuggah, habits, practice, drums, bleed, incremental improvement, compound interest Comments
The snowball effect
The snowball effect

We are now (hopefully) in our last two week of renovations. Our houses have been in dire need of not just upkeep, but improvement. On the top of my head, I can think of two reasons why everything seemed to break down at once. Some of the broken stuff should have been fixed last year, but much of the schedule had to be postponed due to a little baby boy. That’s the obvious one. The not so obvious one is that we might have started a momentum of fixing things, that is hard to stop once you get it in motion.

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Diary, Habits, PhilosophyRikard Öqvisthouse, renovation, diy, momentum, incremental improvement, growth, progressComment
Scheduling accidents
Scheduling accidents

About two weeks ago, my three-year-old son broke his left index finger in an accident at kindergarten. The little guy went to the hospital and got patched up with a plaster. Two weeks, and then re-check was the verdict. Usually, he is like the Duracell bunny, which I solve with physical activity, especially biking. Now, however, he is temporarily disabled from our usual energy burning activities, and that means excess energy. A lot of excess energy. We could perhaps put him on a treadmill connected to the power grid and let him single-handedly solve Europe´s energy crisis. That’s why I realized quickly after he came home with the plaster, that this thing will not last two weeks. I’d be impressed if it would last the day. This, in combination with teaching an intensive university course, is a recipe for disaster. It’s very difficult to change the course schedule on short notice. My past self however, has been taking good care of us. When I scheduled the course, I added not one, but two reserve bookings in the end just in case. Tomorrow I am heading to the hospital for the second time to re-make the plaster which came off again. I would be beyond stressed right now if it weren’t for those reserve slots. Now I feel inner peace instead.

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Parenting, Habits, EngineeringRikard Öqvistscheduling, parenting, work, consulting, planning, pessimism Comments
My greatest mentor
My greatest mentor

Is it possible to know a person without ever meeting them in person? Without a doubt, yes. My family now live in my wife´s grandparents old house since 2019. I never got the honor to meet them because they both died before I met my future wife. The person I am referring to here is Kurt, her grandfather. By walking in his footsteps and observing his sometimes very creative and especially fast solutions to technical problems on the premises, I think I now know him very well. And the reason is that his approach to problem solving is as antithetical to my own that is humanly possible. The contrast couldn’t be larger even if I tried. And that is an invaluable lesson to a guy like me.

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Habits, PhilosophyRikard Öqvistpersonality, productivity, focusComment
Changing habits, changing focus
Changing habits, changing focus

A month ago, I passed a thousand published videos on YouTube with at least one daily upload for about 2,5 years. It was not only the video publishing that got put on hold, but also work. I am now on parental leave for the first time, and it has been very relaxing to combine it with a “social media de-tox”. The mind is a fascinating machine, and habit formation is basically how to rewire your brain into certain patterns, depending on what you want to achieve. The things you do every day become insanely powerful, no matter how small they are. It all adds up exponentially in the long run. It is a good thing that the video production gets some rest for now. I am way too busy creating new habits with my boys.

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Habits, ParentingRikard Öqvistfocus, parenting, work, aimComment
When to break the rules
When to break the rules

Last weekend we celebrated midsummer at my parents and all the relatives. Our boys put big smiles on everybody’s face, but especially my grandmother, who now has great grandmother on her CV. She also celebrated her 90th birthday on Saturday which coincide with Midsummer, which is a big Swedish holiday, so we had a nice celebration. When the dinner was over, and it was bedtime for the little boys, 3-year-old Elis was nowhere to be found. We looked and finally we found him with great grandma, who had already gone to bed. She was watching TV and Elis had cozied up in the double bed sofa next to her. And when I told him it was time to go to bed he just said. No dad, I am sleeping in THIS bed and watch TV. Great grandma had zero objections. We don’t see each other that often because we live in different cities. I noticed the biggest smile I had ever seen, literally, on great grandma’s face, when she finally had the opportunity to just be together with him. This was clearly one of those occasions when rules had to be broken. I just laughed and said, OK, you sleep here that’s perfectly fine. I also noted that Elis eyes were very tired, and minutes later he was snoring. It was the best 90th birthday present ever.

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Philosophy, Habits, ParentingRikard Öqvistparenting, rules, machine learning, habits, familyComment
I published 1000 videos on YouTube
I published 1000 videos on YouTube

“Yes” is a commitment and “No” equals freedom. I like that saying and seldom have it been more appropriate than yesterday when I published my final daily upload on YouTube after publishing at least one video every single day since November 2019. I had concluded that video is the medium of the future, and decided that I needed to get comfortable in front of a camera, and that the best way to get there was to publish at least 1000 videos with a minimum of one per day. It is physically impossible to not get at least decent at it if you do it one thousand times. Yesterday, after I pressed the upload button for the final time in my somewhat insane endeavor, I experienced a strange and very satisfying feeling of inner peace. A sense of freedom.

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HabitsRikard Öqvistvlogging, blogging, video, writing, podcast, habits, consistencyComment
Take a walk
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.

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Parenting, HabitsRikard Öqvistwork, family, health, rest, mindfulnessComment
Discipline equals freedom
Discipline equals freedom

The sun painted everything golden all the way to the horizon. As far as the eye could see, there was ice. My son Elis was riding his Stiga Snow Racer pulled by our dog Jussi. The three of us were on a round trip on the ice around a nearby island, with the sea as a backdrop. That morning, my son woke up at 05:44 which had interrupted my morning routine. But what an interruption! It was one of those mornings that you only get a handful of throughout a lifetime.

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Diary, Habits, ParentingRikard Öqvistnature, discipline, habits, winter, ice, spring, parenting, dogComment
I prefer the stick
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.

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Diary, HabitsRikard Öqvisthealth, productivity, sleep, focusComment
Am I on the path to Heaven or Hell?
Am I on the path to Heaven or Hell?

I have been visiting my mom and dad during the Christmas holidays, and the visit has clearly demonstrated the importance of routines and habits. When you are administering a two kid-two dog family, routines are very important to get anything done. But the challenge is to keep the routines going when you’re away for a couple of days. One of the habits that did work though, is the writing practice. I was about to go to bed, when it hit me “What a minute, it’s Monday and I haven’t written my weekly piece.” So, not allowed to go to sleep yet. This is the 108th weekly piece without interruption and I am not going to start tonight. My writing habit has become like a giant flywheel that is spinning at high speed. There is MORE resistance to NOT write, than what it is to fire up the laptop in the middle of the night and get going. How interesting!

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Habits, PhilosophyRikard Öqvistfuture authoring, planning, habits, consistency, dreams, vision, goal, hell, nightmare, regretComment
The worst days are the most important
The worst days are the most important

I’ve been publishing content daily for more than two years by now and this is the most important lesson that I’ve learned. Never pre-produce your content! The best blogs and videos are created on the fly when you’re in the zone. You cannot pre-plan flow. However, writing a blog or recording daily videos has a flip side. What do you do when you are all out of inspiration? Sometimes life sends you a curveball and it is all but impossible to create. Today is one of those days, and I now wish that I had some pre-produced content ready to publish. But I don’t, so here I am anyway. And I guess that might be an even more important lesson.

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HabitsRikard Öqvistblogging, vlogging, writing, thinking, consistencyComment
Order, chaos, productivity, and rest
Order, chaos, productivity, and rest

If you don’t have time to take a five-minute break, you should take a ten-minute break. I don’t remember the source of this quote, or even the exact wording, but there is a lot of wisdom in it. From experience, I have learned that when your workload increases until the point tunnel vision starts to kick in, it is critical do remember this simple rule. When it feels as if the to-do list grows faster than your ability, some of the first things to skip is breaks, exercise and decluttering. Last week was just one of those weeks. Really, the whole last month has been like that. I had so much stuff to do that I had to work the whole weekend. So, I applied the rule and spent two wonderful days with my family, took long dog walks and cleaned both my office and my home.

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Habits, PhilosophyRikard Öqvistchaos, order, productivity, rest, alcohol, declutter, cleanyourroomComment