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Vacation 2023

Some time to focus on my way of being.

Look back at 2023 New Year Goals

My Analysis: "it seems like i can just read scifi, workout, and program c++ for the rest of the year, and work on my creativity process which is my top one right now."

Lose 8 lbs

  • need to start doing this, i know exactly what to do.
  • i can be done by october if I start by the end of vacation.
  • tentative start date: 2023-7-27
  • goals: don't eat any burgers/fries, indian, pizza
  • 1 cheat meal per week, historically do it on a wednesday
  • probably want to leave it up to me to decide when

Keep participating actively and doing recall on my personal training

  • TODO - add my new personal fitness goals to my 2023 goals
    • mobility - shoulders, hips, ??
    • compound weightlifting practice (squats, deadlifts, etc)
    • "at home" practice
    • better fitness "goalsetting"
    • what else?

Work on my creative process

  • TODO - eed to review my summaries for the Michalko books, and keep reading.
  • TODO - Write a "creative process" markdown / outline / cliff notes for reviewing
  • TODO - review the learning how to learn stuff in the context of creativity
  • ONGOING - Find creative applications in my every day life

Write c++

I'm not really listless here so much as "uncollected"

  • TODO: get collected in my c++ learning
  • TODO - review the learning how to learn stuff in the context of c++
  • TODO: consider if I should learn java this year based on my H2 goals.

Read scifi

Goal: none yet, keep reading what I am reading in the gym

Can I add a paper book? Do I have too much reading going on already?

I have had a lot of boring scifi misses or light scifi. I am missing the "ringworld" style mindbenders that dream up whole new possibiltiies.

I would like to:

  • maintain a clear mind
    • keep space in every thought and decision for innovation or creativity
  • maintain my practices for: diet, fitness, and meditation
  • focus on big lifts
  • not get caught in the weeds of a particular lift

Non Goals

  • No "catching up"
    • small projects fit in my regular life
    • don't waste big blocks of time on small projects
    • resist "catching up", it doesn't exist
  • No "catching up" with books
    • this is part of the regular practice
    • if there is a book, it should be related to my "vacation projects"
  • No discord / slack / hacker news / reddit
    • don't read the news, just take the time off
    • don't get on weird tangents
  • No code for the sake of code
    • I get enough of this
    • this fits in the "small projects" that fit in my regular life
  • No Dragonrealms
    • Spent enough time here, this is just for tinkering
    • This is tiny projects not worth a big block of time
  • No Home Network & Home Automation
    • This isn't important
    • This is fun to tinker with, but it's a good side project for smaller blocks of time
  • No Financial Planning
    • I have a full 10-11 year financial plan and it is on track
    • Any investment in this is overinvestment
  • No Apartment/Housing Pain Points
    • Discussing any housing situation changes
    • Materially improving our current apartment
  • No Professional Development
    • I can work on this after vacation
    • I just finished a major milestone and have room to breathe
    • this is doing fine

Goals

  • set SMART goals for my goals/visions
    • For broad goals/visions, set a few more specific SMART goals
  • have an optimized diet and improve my practice
  • impove my meditation practice
  • break the habit mold of my exercise repeatibly
  • leverage learning, pratice, and trainer

Vacation Projects

Question: how will I balance deep dives / "big blocks" with "new discovery"

Things I am interested in: 1. woodworking 2. c++ 3. cross compiling c++ - for esp32 - for openwrt 4. embedded controllers 5. leveraging llms - don't want to rabbit hole - i will have this at work when I get back, for free 6. self documentation - i have been doing this on the weekends - might be worth a big block to: 1. enumerate this stuff 2. write a basic gpt4 assisted doc for each 7. inventors and creativity

Documentation

List of things I would like to document

  • diet: just start with current practice, let it flow
    • not a huge priority, but want to get the draft down
  • meditation: current practice
  • learning: learning how to learn / habit forming + chunking + ?
  • exercise: practice, current, and some alternatives and swapping in
    • this is intended to be documented once then improved immediately and radically

Woodworking

  • Idea: focus on copying others' designs to offload goal setting workload
  • Goal: Less planning, more small scale executive, more with the hands

Personal Maintenance

Vision: Document what I am doing in terms of maintenance so I can improve over time in a directed way.

Overarching goal: Use my markdown outlines and openai to standardize my important personal management practices.

Daily Skill Building

  • Spend some time every day writing down all my practices
  • spend some time with the creativity books every day

Meditation

  • write down some core of my practice into markdown
  • consistent daily practice
  • improve daily mindfulness and awareness
  • find some new meditations to listen to
  • do some directed research

Exercise

  • everything i learn will be well documented to carry forwards
  • break out of my typical exercise routine
  • extra time in the gym
  • research adian's ideas and expand on them
  • decouple some exercise routine from the gym, using substitution and alternative goals

Diet

  • done eating by 5 PM
  • eat from the refrigerator
  • solid well planned daily diet
  • no special foods, really eat regularly and healthily
  • no upset stomach