I picked up Tiny Habits: The Small Changes that Change Everything (BJ Fogg, PhD - 2020) after reading Atomic Habits (James Clear, 2022).

I like Tiny Habits's emphasis on celebration and cultivating that feeling of shine, which is something I've been thinking about lately because of parenting. It is much easier to help A+ grow when she's feeling good. In fact, it's nearly impossible to get through to her when she feels grumpy or stressed. Part of my job as a parent is to manage myself so that I can co-regulate when she's off-balance, help her improve her abilities, co-design prompts based on environment and actions, and celebrate with her.

I also want to spend some time thinking about pearl habits. There are some things that irritate me, like when A+ is bored in virtual class and wants me to interact with her when I want to focus on something else. I want to turn those moments into more positive things. She's looking for connection and stimulation. I'm also looking for stimulation and the satisfaction of getting something done, but it's not as important as parenting in that moment. I wonder how I can rewire this part of our day.

Related:

• My sketchnote of Atomic Habits, which goes a little deeper on the neuroscience behind the cue-craving-response-reward loop, the value of focusing on processes, and our feelings about progress
• This podcast episode on The Feel-Good Method of Productivity (The Art of Manliness), which also talked about how increasing willpower/motivation/discipline is rarely the answer, the importance of joy and play, and the examination of driving forces versus restraining forces.

I want to get better at making sense of things and sharing what I'm learning. Nudged by Chris Maiorana's post on Second Brain, Second Nature, I borrowed How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens (2017). Here are my notes.

The book goes into detail about Niklas Luhmann's Zettelkasten or slipbox system. Lots of people have written about Zettelkasten and various implementations. There's even a whole micro-industry around Notion templates. So I won't spend a lot of time right now describing what it is or what the key aspects are. I can focus instead on what that means to me and what I want to do with it.

It was interesting to read Zoe Chance's book Influence is Your Superpower (2022) with a focus on influencing A-, who is 6 years old and definitely more reachable via her Gator brain than her Judge brain. Shining is easier because I have to connect with just one person who really wants to connect with me. Creating space with the "No" challenge is a little tougher, since she's pretty wise to the way I try to soften nos. ("You always say later!") But I'm definitely going to try to practise doing aikido with her mind, accepting her resistance and exploring it with questions. I can work on using my relaxed voice most of the time, especially since she's sensitive to my tone. I also like the tip about using the Zeigarnik effect to invite her curiosity and get her to ask, maybe by using things like "I might know something that could help. Would you like to hear about it?" instead of jumping in with advice. Paying attention to how we frame things (monumental, manageable, mysterious?) and challenging ourselves to do bigger and better might be fun, too. She's old enough that I might even be able to ask her, "What would it take?" I'm sure she'll pick up that behaviour quickly and ask me that when she wants something, so I'd better be prepared for that!

I liked Oliver Burkeman's 2021 book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. It covered many of the things I've been working learning on for the past 10 years on this experiment with semi-retirement and parenting. Learning to sit with anxieties and uncertainties, accepting my limits and working with them, being here now… These are the lessons I find myself practising every day.

Some things have gotten easier. I've become comfortable with an ever-growing task list that I know I'll never clear. My default task status is SOMEDAY, and I treat the list like a buffet of ideas that I can choose from when I want to. Which is hardly ever, since I'm still living on kid time and have very little focused time for myself. Most days I'm okay with this, as childhood is fleeting and my main challenge is to really be here for it. This is tough. I've been learning that I'm very human. I turn into a hangry ogre if we're out too late. I grump at A- if I get too tired. I work on separating the shark music of my anxiety from what's really going on. We joke about my squirrel brain and find ways to deal with its limits. I've given up many of my illusions about control. Knowing that I still have lots to learn even though I'm almost 39 makes it much easier for me to appreciate A-'s being 6. My journal helps me see how the days build up into months and years. I'm still on the anxious side, but W- helps balance that, and developing resourcefulness and resilience will help too.

While the book is mostly about confronting and working with the limits of being mortal, it also had some interesting thoughts about the value of being in sync with other people. Tangling my life up with W- and A- has helped me learn about things I would never have stretched myself to do on my own. I can see how A- enjoys playing with her friends. We've decided to go with virtual school for Grade 1 to minimize COVID risks (and I've been keeping an eye on monkeypox news too, ugh). I wonder if we can get a full synchronous exemption again this year. It's been nice following A-'s interests. But we did kinda miss out on group experiences of music and dance, and I'm not sure I'll find outdoor classes for those within walking distance. Online classes exist, but then we'll need to sync up with someone else's schedule. Maybe someday, if A- wants it strongly enough. Here I remind myself not to worry too much about her future, not to try to orchestrate things too much. It is enough to observe, support, and join her in learning. Besides, we can still have fun with clapping games and tea parties.

Anyway. Mortality. Cosmic insignificance. I can attest that thinking about these things can be surprisingly reassuring. All we can do is what we can do, and that's enough. Tomorrow I will dress and eat and brush teeth and play and tidy and do other things that I do every day. Against this backdrop of mostly-sameness, A- grows. If I pay attention, I may even notice it–for just as unexpected lasts sneak up on you, unexpected firsts do as well. If I pay attention, I might notice I'm growing too.

A- wants to be with me almost all the time. This can be challenging.

A multiple-choice question is easier than a fill-in-the-blank one, especially when it comes to "What do we do now?" A- seems less grumpy throughout the day when she can go from one activity to another of her choosing. I like letting her take the lead. I also like not having to come up with stuff. During bedtime, I sketched this menu:

Here are my notes on Paul Tough's 2016 book Helping Children Succeed: What Works and Why. It turns out that he's made the book freely available online, so you can read the book with embedded videos and links.

The main thing I got from it is the importance of thinking about the environment kids learn in. A- has a pretty low-stress environment at the moment, although she might run into a few challenges later on. As I help A- learn, I also want to help her internalize these messages, which I've paraphrased from the book:

I can influence the development of non-cognitive traits through our relationship and through the kind of work she does.

When I read the section on home visiting, it reminded me of how much I appreciated the Healthy Babies Healthy Children home-visiting program run by Toronto Public Health. The nurse and the home visitor taught me more about playing with A- by highlighting small things I was doing well. Because they called attention to those practices, that made it easier for me to do more of those things. I like doing something similar with A-, noticing and naming the things she's doing well so that she gets a sense of her growth.

The book is okay, kinda light, but it isn't a must-read. It was a good nudge to think about what A-‘s picking up in addition to the things that are easier to measure and observe.