Current Light List – Spring 2019

by

Morning Routine

  1. Woke up between 5.45am and 6.15am
  2. Drank 1/2l water just after wake up, took a (partly) cold shower
  3. Worked out in the gym
  4. Did my knee-strengthening exercises
  5. Listened an audiobook — (I’m going through Will Durant’s History of Civilization, now in Volume IV. It’s fantastic)
  6. Journaled and wrote my affirmations 15 times (both in Danish)
  7. Did 10 mins of Wim Hof breathing exercises and 10 mins meditation
  8. Did 5 mins of Anki cards — Danish vocabulary for now
  9. Stayed out of the internet until 8.30am

At Work

  1. Started the workday by writing my “most important” tasks (in Danish)
  2. Worked 606030 in the morning — (I wrote about this in the book. It’s like razor-focused, no-distractions deep work for two hours with a short ten minute break in between.)
  3. Worked standing up for 80 mins
  4. Had a one-on-one informal coffee with a colleague (or, alternatively, with a friend after work).
  5. Finished the workday with a quick “daily debrief” of what went good, bad, etc.

Personal Projects

  1. Did the “6 Mins Networking” drill (more on it below) — e.g. reached out to an old contact to reconnect
  2. Did a 80 mins of deep work on a personal project after work
  3. Studied Danish for 20 mins (on top of Anki — usually preparing new Anki cards)

Evening Habits

  1. Did a second 10 mins meditation
  2. Did a second round of (evening) journaling (again in Danish)
  3. Played the guitar for at least 5 mins
  4. “Switched off” the internet from 8.30pm on

Meta Habits

  1. Didn’t check the news, limited to five minutes in social media
  2. NOMNOLATE — (A variation of Tim Ferriss’ NOBNOM)
  3. Completed all my pending Anki cards
  4. Took a “daily photo” — of something meaningful from that day (in that day, a selfie after a dip in the ocean)

(While I do change items on the list every month, the 25 items are by and large the same for now many years).

  • I get 80-88% of all the Lights on average — I almost always complete my morning routine and work habits, plus guitar, the photo, etc.
  • The big, tricky ones have always been the ones planned for the late afternoon/after work: the 80 mins of personal project (e.g. writing a newsletter like this), the networking drill and the second meditation.
  • Then, even in the days I complete all the “hard ones”, something small happens — e.g. no coffee with colleague (me busy, whatever), I’m late by two mins to get somewhere, or I’m too tired to play the guitar.
  • (By the way, I absolutely suck with the guitar — but at least I get the chords right XD)

+ I need to be home to work on this. (I don’t do Lights during my trips).

The 5 Min Networking — I joined the (free) course from Jordan Harbinger on networking here. It’s simple stuff, but effective. I’m using now the “reconnection” technique, which is to:

  • Reach out to old friends, contacts you haven’t talked in a while and check how they’re doing — like, two sentences and no commitments.
  • Do that by SMS (if you’ve their phone), or by mail/social media (secondary option).
  • + a lot of simple, similar techniques, too.

The 25 Lights Keep Changing — I’ve kept ~80% of them for a while now, but always tweak and add/remove Lights depending on my priorities:

  • Like, when I was writing my second book, there was as book Light.
  • I’ll soon switch all Danish Lights to Japanese.
  • (Thinking!) For May, I’m leaning to do outdoor swims in cold water every day — I’ve the “sea” (the Copenhagen canal) four mins walk from my place, and two crazy friends to join (they’re already doing it). Maybe!