For the second half of the month I got into a good rhythm with every-other-day running. I was even able to push almost 5 miles beyond the pace target to end the month. I started running with the kids again in the jogging stroller, which I haven’t done really at all since Elyse was little (2015-16). It’s good because it gets them out of the house, adds some cargo to push for additional workout, and gives Colette a nice break if I take them when I get home at the end of the day.

We’re still in the throes of prepping our old house for sale, so between that and work at the new house, that’s occupying a good bit of time. I have a goal to have the house listed in the next...

Month three is in the books. A seriously eventful month for us, so I’m surprised I was able to stay ahead of the curve.

We closed on the new house on the 15th, had an out-of-town trip to Jacksonville right after. Plus there was...

As I’ve been pushing onward with daily meditation practice on Headspace, the “streak” number has been climbing higher and higher. I have mixed feelings about this in terms of driving motivation. Is the desire to increase a number a healthy way to motivate positive mental health? Is it pushing the right buttons for the right reasons?

Headspace founder Andy Puddicombe recently wrote on exactly this topic:

Some people love this feature, viewing it as a source of motivation, a record of accountability, and a...

We just crossed month number two of the year, so here’s another pulse check on how I’m tracking against some personal goals for 2019. I’m tracking on all fronts, slightly better positioned against the pace marks than I was at the end of January.

With meditation practice I’ve widened my plus...

This is the first year I set some goals on a few things. I’ve never been strongly goal-oriented, so I thought I’d put some stuff down to hold myself accountable and see if it helps build some healthy habits into my routine. Also, I thought it might be fun, as long as the goals were aggressive but attainable.

For the month of January, here’s how things stack up with each area. We’ve got my progress in the first column, the pace mark I should be at to keep on target, the total goal, and “plus-minus” is where...

As I’ve been trying to bootstrap into a meditation practice, most of my learnings have been from various podcast episode discussions and a couple of books on the topic. My approach thus far hasn’t been to try and dig in way deep, but largely to kickstart a regular routine to form a healthy habit.

Since I already listen to Sam Harris’s podcast, I’d heard good things about his book Waking Up as a nice primer on meditation from a secular perspective — a neuroscientist’s view on the subject as a true contributor to...

Since late last year I’ve been keeping up with practicing every day. Mostly 10 minute sessions, but recently I’ve been upping that to 15.

One important thing I need to work in is how to fit it more consistently into the schedule. I don’t have a set time when I practice; sometimes its before work in the morning, but sometimes also late at night (when falling asleep is a hard competitor). Comfort level is rising with each session. Mindfulness doesn’t feel natural, so the repetition at least makes that part go away...

I’ve listened to a few of Peter Attia’s The Drive podcast episodes. This one was a stand-out conversation between him and Dr. Zubin Damania. It’s a wide-ranging discussion about the health care system, diet, creativity, and meditation (among other things).

I’ve spent a lot of time right in the thick of the health care system the last couple of years (thankfully with a good experience). Insightful thoughts on what’s wrong inside that ecosystem that ring true from first-hand exposure.

The nearly 2000 year old Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is likely the first ever entry in the “self help” publishing genre. During his last days as Roman Emperor, reigning from 161-180 AD, he wrote the 12 “books” that comprise the Meditations. It’s a personal journal he wrote to himself, never intended for publication, with thoughts, ruminations, reminders, and short stories from his life, all with the objective of serving his future self as a reminder of how to live and act.

There’s not much of a thematic arc from book to book — each numbered paragraph entry largely...

🔩 The Next Feature Fallacy

The vast majority of features won’t bend the curve. These metrics are terrible, and the Next Feature Fallacy strikes because it’s easy to build new features that don’t target the important parts.

This certainly rings true for me from experience over the years. It turns out that a single feature itself is far from the main problem halting people part way into on-boarding with a product. This falls into the category of focusing on what we know how to do already, rather than what’s important to do. What’s...