How to get rid of unwanted ticks
How to get rid of unwanted ticks

Some common verbal ticks are: “like”, “right?”, “you know?”, “eeeeh…” and they are problematic. I cannot help it, but when I discover that a speaker suffers from a verbal tick, I start to count the number of ticks and calculate the “eeeh per minute” ratio instead of listening to the actual presentation. It even happened to me once that I got seated on the bus next to a couple of girls who said “liksom” (Swedish version of “like”) 37 times per minute. Yes, I measured it. When my measurement and calculation was finished, I looked up and realize that I had got on the wrong bus and heading away from my home. I was too focused on the verbal tick to even realize it. Clearly, we need to get rid of unwanted ticks to improve our own life and everyone around us.

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HabitsRikard Öqvistpresentation, public speaking, ticks, habits, behaviorComment
Why you should dress dapper while driving
Why you should dress dapper while driving

About two years ago, I was going to do a presentation the next day for some VIPs in another town about five hours drive away. I had prepared an exquisite suit combination and packed it in a travel wardrobe. Some two hours into my road trip, I realized that I had forgot my presentation outfit at home. You know that feeling when you realize something like this, it is like someone just poured an ice-cold bucket of water over your head. Should I turn around and get it, and loose half the night’s sleep? The presentation was scheduled early in the morning before the stores opened up so I had no choice but to do the presentation in my driving clothes. And then it hit me… Driving clothes! I was wearing an odd combination with a jacket, pocket square and a knit tie and I thought “just go ahead and do your presentation” and then I relaxed. At the presentation the next day, I still was the best dressed man in the room even with my driving clothes.

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Habits, StyleRikard Öqvistdresscode, style, dapper, travelling, casual, mensfashion, driving, habits, car, suit, pullover, knit tieComment
A beautiful home gives a beautiful mind
A beautiful home gives a beautiful mind

Yesterday I had an epiphany when I realized that I haven’t changed the air filters in our ventilation system since we moved here a year ago. The thought had never crossed my mind, even though I have lived in a house before and I should have known it. It was not until the rooms had been decluttered and made beautiful, that I could see what had been in front of me all the time. It is a testament to the power of cleaning one’s room.

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Philosophy, Style, Habits, ArtRikard Öqvistcleaning, cleanyourroom, jordanpeterson, beauty, focus, productivityComment
How a vlogging habit is formed
How a vlogging habit is formed

I have been vlogging daily since early November last year. I publish a minimum of one video every day on Youtube, Facebook and Instagram. Sometimes I vlog on Linkedin too, but I am much more selective with my content there nowadays. I just did a summation and realized that I have passed 300 vlogs now. Vlogging has been a very effective way for me to discover how a habit is formed. At first, there was a lot of friction every single time before I released that daily video. Now that friction is all but gone. It is because my focus has now shifted to the process instead of each individual building block. To get the ball rolling in the beginning, it can help to create certain support systems to make your life easier. Later, when you got the momentum, you can start to remove the support systems.

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HabitsRikard Öqvistvlogging, blogging, habits, productivity, schedulingComment
Can we hypnotize ourselves?
Can we hypnotize ourselves?

Many of you (including my past self), perhaps think of the entertainers on TV when you think of hypnosis. Not of something that you can use yourself daily. Have you ever experienced that feeling where you are so immersed in something that you are not aware of your surroundings any longer? People can stand right next to you, talking to you, and you don’t hear a single word of what they say. As a musician, I have had this experience several times, however I never chose to enter that state of trance by willpower. It was something that just happened. The idea of hypnotising myself came from a podcast I have started to follow called “Your mind is trying to kill you”, hosted by Alexandros Megas and Vincent Byrne. I was captivated by the thought of entering trance by willpower alone and have been experimenting with it for some weeks now. It turns out it works wonders!

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Habits, MusicRikard Öqvistmeshuggah, bleed, hypnosis, trance, flow, in the zone, learning, concentration, focus, 15 minutes Comments
It’s the small issues that will get you
It’s the small issues that will get you

Yesterday, I was microwaving my son´s lunch and forgot to put the protective cover on, which resulted in me painting the inside of our microwave with baby food. Later in the evening, I was preparing dinner for the boy again while telling my wife about the ordeal and how silly I was to forget the cover and what a mess I had made that I had to clean up. While we are talking, we hear the familiar sound of hot food exploding inside a microwave. I open the oven lid and witness the inside covered in food once again. The protective cover was lying right in front of me all the time, as I was telling the story of its importance. Isn´t it interesting how strange our mind works sometimes?

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HabitsRikard Öqvistsimplify, cleaning, stress, rest, vacation, focus, prioritiesComment
The best of two worlds
The best of two worlds

I have always stood with one foot in the private sector and the other foot in academia. These two worlds are like Yin and Yang. When working as an acoustic consultant, efficiency and rapid progress is the name of the game. Solve the problems as using the fastest and simplest solution, send an invoice and move on. In academia (especially with research), you thoroughly investigate all possible paths and strive for perfection. Quality over Quantity is the name of the game here. I have never felt comfortable living in just one of these worlds. My gut feeling has always told me to keep one foot in each camp, even though it typically involves more work. Well, until now, that is. It is a long-term strategy that is starting to pay off in a beautiful way. The marriage of two diametrically opposite worlds has the potential to create a lot of value.

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Acoustics, Education, Habits, EngineeringRikard Öqvisteducation, online education, civil engineering, video, iterative process, academiaComment
Maintenance is about sacrificing the present for the future
Maintenance is about sacrificing the present for the future

When something has been left in disuse for a long time, mother nature will reclaim it and return it to chaos. The longer left unattended, the more energy will be required to restore it. And leave it for too long, it might be beyond salvation and must be rebuilt. To keep something working properly, you must maintain it regularly. This is also the approach that will require the least amount of total time and energy and yield the best result. A complete restoration of something that has decayed, will require a lot more time and energy. Do a little every day is the way to go. Regular maintenance is about sacrificing the present for the future. However, there is also something extremely satisfying with cleaning and restoring disused things to their former glory.

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Habits, PhilosophyRikard Öqvisttennis, consistency, restoration, diy, maintenanceComment
Beneath the three pillars of sustainability
Beneath the three pillars of sustainability

Sustainability is often said to rest on three pillars: 1) Ecological, 2) Economical and 3) Social sustainability. When supporting a structure with pillars, we also need a solid foundation, or the pillars might sink into the ground. In today’s post, I explore what this foundation might look like. The foundation should consist of eternal values. Two such values instantly come to my mind: Beauty and Education. The primary difference between these two eternal values and the three pillars, is that the three pillars need to be optimally balanced against each other over time as the facts on the ground varies, whereas beauty and education unconditionally strengthens all three pillars at once.

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Education, Art, PhilosophyRikard Öqvistsustainability, educationforall, beauty, transformingeducation, architecture, future, equality Comments
What “less is more” really means
What “less is more” really means

I believe that the most effective way to achieve massive change in any domain is by incremental improvement. By doing a little every day, you will do a lot in one week, as my grandmother says. There is a lot of wisdom in these words. I am currently in my seventh year of learning new musical instruments, using my own motto: 15 minutes per day. The results of consistent practice every day have been stunning. Other musicians have told me they use the same technique with equally powerful results. A common recommendation seems to be that you should practice for at least 15 minutes every day, never less than that, and if you are in the zone, you can keep going. I am currently conducting an experiment to see if I can go even lower, and learn to draw with only one minute (60 seconds) of practice per day for a year. I want to know what effect the upper time restriction has. Some days ago, I discovered something that will change my life, if it is true.

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Philosophy, Habits, ArtRikard Öqvisthypnosis, trance, incremental improvement, growth, discipline, consistencyComment
Can you acquire a new skill in just one minute per day?
Can you acquire a new skill in just one minute per day?

“I want to learn this or that, but I don’t have the time.” That is an excuse I have heard too often. I personally believe that you have got all the time in the world to learn something new if you really want it. The truth is just that you want other things more and prioritize accordingly. There is no shame in that, and you shouldn’t fool yourself. However, I want to find out how little time of daily practice you must invest to learn something new and become at least decent. My hypothesis is that it is possible to learn a new skill in just one minute of hyper-focused daily practice. One month ago, I started an experiment to find out.

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Habits, Art, EducationRikard Öqvistart, painting, drawing, sketching, speedsketching, 60seconds, illustrationComment
Done is better than perfect
Done is better than perfect

A trait that is common among engineers is the desire to make things perfect. We find beauty in a system that is well-designed and optimized so that nothing is there that shouldn’t be there. The system does exactly what we want it to do. This desire is a blessing and a curse. Without it, buildings would probably collapse, and airplanes would fall from the sky. But the strive for perfection can also be the reason a building never gets built or an airplane that never flies. Have you ever worked on a project where you have done a perfect design only to realize when you are finished, that you have made incorrect assumptions regarding the foundation? Like proof-reading your doctoral thesis without detecting a spelling error in the title?

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Philosophy, EngineeringRikard Öqvistperfection, motorcycle, electrical, design, conscientiousness, personalityComment
When you know why, how is irrelevant
When you know why, how is irrelevant

Yesterday, I livestreamed and published the final lecture in my introductory course in building acoustics. When the dust had settled, I realized that I have never ever felt such a sense of meaning, in anything I have done in my professional career. There has been a lot of friction along the way, especially with technology. Yesterday’s lecture was a personal record in IT problems. First, I did not click the right button when the stream started, so I accidentally presented the first ten minutes of the lecture to an audience that could not see or hear me, and thus had to start from the beginning again. And then my computer crashed in the middle of the lecture and required a reboot. These are major setbacks, but I am amazed by how fast I could just snap back into it and continue the livestream with a genuine smile on my face. As Nietzsche said, “he who has a why, can bear almost any how”. My livestreaming lecture endeavour was a clear example that he was correct.

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Education, AcousticsRikard Öqvistpedagogy, elearning, teaching, online education, transformingeducation, educationforall, constructive alignment, livestreamingComment
What might work, might work better
What might work, might work better

The other day, I read a book by Michael Pollan, which described how the approach to solving a problem differs between children and adults. A child is more likely to use a novel and unorthodox approach whereas an adult is more inclined to choose a method based on previous experience, that likely works. Therefore, the child is better equipped to solve certain problems that require an unlikely solution. It seems to me that children are higher in openness than their adult selves because they have not developed their fear of failure yet. It is only when you embrace failure that success can truly be achieved. How many times did you fall when you were learning to ride a bicycle? Or who did not sink at first when they were learning to swim?

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Education, HabitsRikard Öqvisttransformingeducation, elearning, teaching, education, educationforallComment
Big change comes one step at a time
Big change comes one step at a time

A significant part of my teaching consists of lectures. They often take on the character of a monologue and are therefore the perfect place to start transforming your education to the cloud. Back in 2017 when I was just starting out with online education however, I still felt overwhelmed. There were so many new factors to consider. I wanted to record my lectures with great visual video quality with multiple cameras, crystal clear audio and a screen capture of my slides and preferably live stream it. I have always been interested in technology and find great pleasure in figuring out how things work. But to realize full blown video production in real-time while you are simultaneously giving your lecture was indeed overwhelming. Three years later and that is precisely what I’m doing.

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Education, HabitsRikard Öqvistelearning, teaching, education, transformingeducation, distance learning, livestreamingComment
Education is the ultimate investment
Education is the ultimate investment

Using your money to improve and educate yourself is the safest investment you can ever make. Because the knowledge within you, can never be taken away from you. It is eternal. No collapsing economy, stock market crash or housing bubble can touch it. No corrupt government or criminals can steal it. Not even you yourself can lose it even if you try! And the more you share it with others, the more of it you will have and the more valuable it becomes.

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Education, HabitsRikard Öqvisteducation, teaching, knowledge, value, investment, money, goldComment
Dress like the person you want to become
Dress like the person you want to become

One of the greatest lies I know of, is that it does not matter how you dress. Anyone who has ever worn a dark formal suit on a funeral agrees with this statement by their action. We dress up to show respect for the dead person. There is a saying that you never get a second chance to make a first impression, and by dressing and grooming inappropriately, you will have made your first impression long before the words start coming out of your mouth. Combine it with a bad posture and insecure body language and you have the perfect recipe for failure in just about any domain.

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Style, HabitsRikard Öqvistposture, mensfashion, workfromhome, productivity, dresscodeComment
Do you believe in God?
Do you believe in God?

As I learned more and more about physics, mechanics, mathematics, electronics, fluids, optics, etc, I became increasingly convinced that science could find the answers to our difficult questions. But later, when I started my PhD education and encountered the courses in philosophy, especially Philosophy of Science, something changed. When I got my PhD degree in 2017, I had found my way back to God again. I realized that God was the only rational, logical and coherent answer that would explain everything I had learned. Since then, every single area of my life that I can think of have improved. Massively.

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Philosophy, HabitsRikard Öqvistreligion, god, sustainabilityComment
Why I stopped drinking alcohol
Why I stopped drinking alcohol

I am now into my second year since I had my last drop of alcohol. I do not miss it at all. When we were expecting our son back in 2018, I needed to be ready 24/7 to get in the car and bring my wife to the hospital. Any responsible husband, soon to be father would do the same. When our son finally was brought into this world, there where a lot of new habits that needed to be established. We had plenty of new commitments as any parent can attest, and thus there where never any proper time, nor interest to have a drink. Not until I went on a business trip a couple of months later, on the 7th of March 2019. I was staying in a nice hotel and had plenty of time to eat a fantastic dinner. Better yet, I could now enjoy a beer to my dinner, for the first time in months!

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Philosophy, HabitsRikard Öqvistalcohol, food, hangover, drunk, incremental improvement Comments
Cultural nerve gas
Cultural nerve gas

The English language is a gatekeeper to wisdom. To information, to knowledge, to your health, wealth and relationships. I use to say that if you compare a person who knows the English language and knows how to use the internet, with a person who doesn’t know any of these two skills, they are so far behind that they might as well have been a different species. And the gap is increasing with exponential acceleration. Every. Single. Day.

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Philosophy, EducationRikard Öqvistlanguage, globalisationComment