sacha chua :: living an awesome life

I often think about what I want in life. What do I want to learn? What do I want to be able to share? What do I want to try? What do I want to do?

I think about life a lot because:

• I want to make better decisions: Planning my life allows me to deliberately try things instead of being limited to chance or what other people want
• Looking back makes it easier to go forward: Reviewing my life helps me decide what I want to continue doing, what I want to stop doing, and what I want to start doing
• Planning ahead helps: You can’t plan for everything, but a little foresight can make things a lot easier

Gaps are great for thinking about these things: biking to work, waiting in line, getting ready for bed, relaxing during a long weekend. I review my key priorities and brainstorm ideas for the next steps. I make lists in my notebook, tap ideas into my phone, type thoughts into my laptop, or think out loud (good for bike rides!).

Most of my notes are in scattered places, and that’s okay. I don’t need a perfect record of everything. I don’t need a well-organized outline. I don’t mind covering the same ground again. Every time I make a list, I learn from what I add, change, forget, or remove.

I revisit my plans regularly. Every week, I review the things I’ve accomplished, plan what I want to do the next week, and check how I feel about how I’m doing. Once in a while, I flip through my old mindmaps and notes, crossing out things I’m no longer interested in and adding new ideas.

Every so often, I sit down and flesh out the plans further, sharing them on my blog or adding them to my private notes. I think about what I want to learn, and I plan my curriculum for getting there. I think about the experiments I want to try, and I take the first step. I think about what I want, and I dig deeper to find out if I really want it or it’s something I think that I want. These plans change, and that’s good. The changes tell me more about myself.

I don’t have a firm plan for my life. I don’t have goals like “I want to be ____ by ____” or “I want to _____ by ______.” Many people have these bucket lists – things they want to do before they die. It’s easy to get carried away by these goals, though. Many people plan themselves into unhappiness by saying, “I’ll be happy when I…”. I try to not give in to the temptation to think that happiness is something external, something caused by events or reached when you get to a threshold.

I like to think that I plan out of curiosity. I’m curious about certain things, and I can make certain decisions that get me closer to understanding. For example, I’m curious about entrepreneurship and parenting. With a little planning, we can give ourselves as good a foundation as any. I can’t dictate the cards that are dealt, but I can stack the deck.

How would I like to get better at planning my life?

I’d love to learn more from other people’s lives. I read voraciously to learn about other people’s patterns, and I also ask people about their lives and their decisions. The more I learn about the different paths people have taken, the more I can explore and prepare for possible futures, and the more ideas I can pick up and play with.

I’m working on getting better at documenting and reviewing my decisions. I read a lot about decision science and decision management. I like the way that the practice of thinking through my decisions helps me understand future ones. I’m looking forward to writing about more decisions.

I’m looking forward to testing more of these plans. Many things take time. The wait is fun because I can periodically tweak my plans to try new ideas, understand things better, and get closer to what I want. Besides, there’s always the chance I’ll be surprised, and that helps me learn to think on my feet. (Many of these surprises are awesome!) Life is good.

Thanks to Soha for the nudge to write about this!

We’re settling into a routine of making pizza from scratch almost every week. It’s relatively quick and easy to make. I use the basic bread dough recipe from Jamie Oliver’s cookbook, "jamie’s kitchen". W- prefers it when we make a double batch of dough with just one batch worth of yeast, and let the dough rise overnight. This results in these really puffy, bread-like pizza crusts.

After the dough rises, it takes me just an hour to prepare four pizzas. I divide the dough into four parts, forming them into rectangles by stretching and rolling them out. I use practically all of the baking sheets in the house. While the pizza crusts rise again, I chop and grate the rest of the ingredients. Assembly is quick and fun, although I still tend to err on the side of loading the pizza up with too much food. Baking takes twenty minutes per batch of two pizzas, and then we have plenty of pizza to eat through the week.

We’re always looking for kid-friendly recipes that we can cook in bulk. Pizza is a great way to use up bits and pieces from the fridge: pepperoni, chicken, peppers, tomatoes, and so on. Other family go-to recipes include pasta and curry. Good to be able to make things ahead!

I moved the calendar to the fridge so that we can use it to plan the meals during the week. Another step towards even smoother everyday routines!

Technically not my decision – W- was the one who decided to get J- a kick scooter so that she can easily go to school or hang out with friends. Since J- stays with her mom during the weekends, the scooter’s fair game for trips to stores or libraries.

The Razor A5 Lux was $69.99 during a Toys R Us sale a few weeks ago. None of the stores we went to had it in stock, so W- got a raincheck. This week, we dropped by Dufferin Mall and bought the kick scooter. The box wouldn’t fit in my bike bags, so we tested the scooter and discarded the box when we were satisfied that we didn’t need to return it. Without the box, the scooter fit neatly into my bike bag.

My bike’s big and hard to lug up the stairs, so I’ve been trying out the A5 for short trips. It cuts the 750m walk from ten minutes to five, although there’s a bit more exercise involved. I don’t have the same carrying capacity that I have on my bicycle, but the scooter is a lot more convenient for short trips. Worth it, I think! We’ll see how it works out over the next couple of weeks.

I like superhero comics and movies because it’s fun imagining a superpower, seeing the kinds of appropriate challenges that could oppose it, and watching how the heroes creatively deal with the situation. Teams of superheroes are even more interesting, because the combinations of powers lead to interesting possibilities, such as Colossus and Wolverine’s Fastball Special.

Comics are also cool because they portray all sorts of dynamic situations you’re unlikely to find in real life. Like the way I’m beginning to appreciate the startling colours and juxtapositions of abstract art, I like the way comic books play with reality. I may never see someone flying through the air, but isn’t it amazing that the brain can recognize and make sense of these images?

So yes, I’m definitely looking forward to watching The Avengers.

The AMC movie chain is organizing a marathon viewing of Marvel movies for $40:

• Iron Man
• The Incredible Hulk
• Iron Man 2
• Thor in 3D
• Captain America in 3D
• The Avengers in 3D

Tempting, but that’s a long time to sit in a movie theatre. From my experience with movie marathons of Lord of the Rings or Star Wars at friends’ places, I know I need to get up and move. Besides, I rather like being able to watch with subtitles and do something else at the same time, such as fold laundry or draw or write.

So, W- and I have been putting together our own Avengers movie lead-up. He requested the movies from the library. We watched the Hulk last weekend, and this weekend we’ll watch the Iron Man movies. I’d recently watched Thor and Captain America in the theatres, which is fortunate as there are hundreds of holds for those videos. For my part, I’ve been requesting and reading Avengers-related comic books. Hooray, Toronto Public Library!

It turns out that when I have more control over my schedule, I don’t fill it with development. I haven’t been working on open source or personal projects, much less client websites or applications. This is a surprise to my 2010 self, who figured she would spend the whole day coding if she could.

I spend most of my discretionary time learning instead: drawing, writing, Latin, business, life. Maybe it’s because I’m in the fledgling stage of business and there’s so much to learn. Maybe it’s because 3-4 days of consulting a week takes up a large chunk of brainspace. Maybe it’s because development won’t get me where I want to go in this short-term search for a business that can survive unpredictable schedules and the primary care of young children.

Learning time. Yeah, that seems like the focus that fits me. If I imagine days and weeks stretching ahead of me – maybe in half a year, after this consulting engagement – I can easily see myself spending time exploring ideas and sharing my notes. I’d want to plumb this, deepen my understanding of this, before I focus on something like development.

Self-structured learning time is intimidating, but I want to see if I can get past the initial anxieties and figure out things that work. Writers have been able to do so for millennia. Things will be okay.

I’ll still build things, of course. Code is a powerful way to crystallize learning and make it easier for people to do better. It also helps me ask questions that would be hard to answer manually.

Okay. I give myself permission to focus on learning after this. I know I’ll probably feel that itch to do something that creates immediate or measurable value for people. That’s okay. I might feel insecure at some point. That’s normal. But there’s so much I want to learn, and I think I’ll be able to stay motivated even without outside drivers. Worth trying it out and sticking with it through at least the initial bumps.

This will be fun!

(Thanks to Mel Chua for the nudge!)

One of the things I really like about this business experiment is my new time flexibility. I work on a consulting engagement for three to four days a week. I spend the rest of the time on other things: meeting people, learning stuff, practising skills.

I’m still getting the hang of managing that time. It’s been a while since I’ve had large chunks of solo discretionary time to work with. It’s so different from weekend time. During weekends, we usually spend one day handling all the chores and getting the house sorted out, and the other day relaxing and hanging out with each other or with family and friends. These weekdays are different

The weeks will be even more different when I wrap up with this consulting engagement. I’ll probably refer consulting or freelancing gigs to other people for the next little while. I think that by August, I’ll be ready to make the most of full weeks, and I’ll have some ideas to focus on building.

It’s almost as if I’d set things up so that I can learn gradually, although I don’t think I could’ve engineered having such great clients right out of the gate. Instead of going from full-time employment to full-time experimentation, this transition period helps me learn how to manage my time and energy when there’s no one calling the shots but me. The consulting engagement gives me some structure, regular interaction, and a clear task list, and my discretionary days let me practise moving towards my own goals.

Looking at it on a day-by-day basis works well, but not amazingly. I feel energized and engaged throughout the day. When I make my decisions day by day, though, I find that some things keep drifting to the the bottom of my list. Between the habits I’m working on building (ex: study Latin for at least half an hour, draw for at least an hour) and the appointments I make, I sometimes don’t shift into the mood to work on some things, such as responding to mail or working on book summaries. It’s a little more embarrassing because I know time isn’t the limiting factor. It’s more about interest and energy.

If I plan my day more, I can probably shift into the right mindset easily. For example, I might make a short list of current projects using Org Mode, the Emacs-based organizer that I use. I can set aside small chunks of time to make steady progress on the kinds of projects that benefit from that, such as languages. For projects that benefit from larger chunks, I might dedicate a 4-hour slot for concentrated work, and choose different projects to work on each time. Planning will also help me make progress and track it even if I’m working with small steps, such as with habits.

Here are the current projects I’m working on, how far I want to take them, and why:

Ongoing habits:

• Write: If I don’t take notes, I can’t review them. Writing helps me understand, remember, and revisit ideas. Time commitment: At least 30 minutes a day. Chunks of 1-3 hours, the occasional quick note.
• Practise drawing: I want to communicate more effectively. Drawing is both fun and useful. This also includes learning how to use different tools. Time commitment: at least 30min each day, often chunks of 1-2 hours.
• Finish the exercises in this beginner’s Latin textbook: I want to learn Latin because it hacks my brain. Besides, schoolboys before managed to do it, so why shouldn’t I? Time commitment: 30min each day
• Garden: Water and weed the garden as needed; plant new seeds occasionally. Time commitment: 15 minutes a day
• Cook: Prepare bulk meals. Time commitment: 3-4 hour sprint.

Special projects:

• Quantified Awesome: Make this even better so that I use it to track and analyze more data.
• Miscellaneous work: Supporting a Rails site, etc.

I’d been looking for a wake-up alarm that was good at getting me up and out of bed. It turned out that I can solve a sequence of two-digit addition problems while half-asleep, so my previous alarm clock app still tempted me to snooze.

For the past two weeks, I’ve been trying a different alarm clock app. Morning Routine requires you to scan a barcode or a series of barcodes in order to turn off the alarm. After reading a Lifehacker post that mentioned it, I downloaded the app and set it up on my phone. I configured Morning Routine to require the barcode of a tub of cream cheese from the fridge. It turns out that the process of stumbling out of bed, stepping around the cats in the hallway, and opening the fridge is enough to wake me up and get me to start making breakfast.

The app doesn’t have a snooze button, so I can either wake up properly or shut down my phone. So far, I’ve been good at not shutting down my phone.

The developer’s blog post describes an even more fleshed out routine that involves barcodes in several rooms, with timers to get through the process. My morning wake-up-and-get-out-the-door routine typically takes an hour, but it might be interesting to set timers for the different components, or do a low-level time study of it. Hmmm.

Morning Routine is an Android app, and it’s currently available for free. Check it out in the Google Play store!