Check-In Round
What has my attention?
How much traveling wrecks my daily habits. Last week I did a trip from DC to Tennessee for a few days, then drove to Kentucky for a few days, then flew back to DC for a day, and then flew to Orlando for a day and a half. These trips weren’t hectic or stressful but I still managed to adhere to almost none of my daily habits.
I gotta get myself one of these portable routines.
Main Topic
No main topic this week. You may have noticed that there’s been a longer than usual gap between issues and that has largely been a function of feeling like I didn’t have anything good to write about here. I’ve been accumulating links like crazy, though, so I’m going to let those carry the bulk of the work in this issue.
What Has My Attention
Everyone seems to be in the business of giving advice about how to avoid digital distractions. Now, medieval monks are getting into the mix.
Gosh, these principles that Gabrielle Hamilton and Ashley Merriman articulate for their restaurant are top-notch. Particularly this one, “be thorough and excellent in everything that you do, even when no one is looking. Even in the dark. You pull the chair out and clean the corner, even if no one is going to notice.” There’s a lot more that I could pull from this article, too. “That’s the joke of Prune, that we just pretend to be a restaurant. But we’re actually an institute for living. We hide behind the fried eggs, and we hide behind the marrow bones, but really what we’re doing here is trying to change the whole goddamn world, one lamb chop at a time.”
I bring a different kind of attention to my work when I do it on my iPad. I think there are a lot of reasons for that, but the primary one is probably the fact that I’m usually running one app at a time whereas an a desktop device I can have way too much going at once. I highly recommend exploring whether you can do your work using an iOS device. You may not be able to, which is totally fine, but it’s an interesting experiment in figuring out what is essential in your workflows. This article made me think about my own iPad-first journey.
I admire and envy folks with a rock solid daily routine so much. As Austin says, “set up a day that work and do it over and over again.”
A really honest and interesting reflection by an elite athlete who gave up Instagram and directly attributes doing so to her new level of success. There aren’t a lot of professional athletes in the world, but there are a lot of professionals out there. I want to be elite in my field, too, so even though I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve climbed in my life I found this article extremely relatable.
Having a “because” is a great indicator that you’ll be able to stave off burnout and find meaning in your work. “When it comes to work, we’re usually not searching for a job that makes us wildly happy all day, every day; we know that’s not realistic. What we’re seeking is work that makes sense in the context of who we believe we are. And because we have to give things up in order to do it — leisure time, rest, seeing our families — the grade-off has to feel worth it.”
On the one hand, this is just another article where a well-meaning old man raises concerns about the spread of digital and social technology. On the other hand, it offers this great framework about what’s tough about getting old: It’s not that you become incurious about the new things that are happening in the world, but that it’s hard to get used to the fact that old things disappear. The stuff I take for granted now, like someone who was born before the rise of automobiles, may become like horses as a primary source of transportation. Namely, absolutely removed from my day-to-day life. That’s weird to think about. Also, this is written by Oliver Sacks shortly before he passed away and it’s hard not to take the writing of someone who knows he doesn’t have long to live extremely seriously.
Closing Round
Eating: I felt like I was in a bit of a rut with my grocery shopping and cooking recently so I literally made a list called “Extremely Healthy Food That I Also Love.” This reminded me that I love mangoes and that I can buy mangoes and eat them whenever I want. Although, I haven’t mastered how to cut a mango so I mostly buy them pre-cut, which fills me with shame.
Working: Gave a talk recently that went fairly well (self-assessed as a B+). It reaffirmed for me that I want to build out the speaking aspect of my career as much as possible. On the personal front, I’m still trying to integrate all of my various writing into one place, SamSpurlin.com/blog. A lot of formatting broke when I imported some of my old writing so it has been a slow process.
Listening: There’s a new Tycho (Apple Music/Spotify) single which means there is a new album not far behind. I’m ridiculously excited.
Reading: I just finished listening to Betterness by Umair Haque and I thought it was really, really good. I also inhaled Robert Caro’s new memoir/advice about writing book called Working the day it came out. Currently reading /The Importance of Living/ by Lin Yutang.
Creating: I’m in the early planning stages of a new podcast project with my brother, Max. If you know about our two chosen career paths you might have a sense of what it’s going to be about. Stay tuned...
Yours in intentionality,
Sam
