First Master the Night

I have a really tight morning routine that runs on autopilot during the 108s. Here it is, I have it memorized.

1. Make the bed
2. Drink water and take vitamin B complex
3. Put away and do dishes
4. Check for laundry
5. Do the litter boxes (if it’s the day)
6. Meditate
7. Journal

What would make my routine “perfect” is if I did it at the same time each day (Monday to Friday). I usually enjoy the fact that I don’t need to be up early, so I wake up whenever I want to. This cycle I’m going to master my evening routine and get skilled at sleeping early so I can get up early (the same time as Magda).

My evening routine is pretty simple.

1. Meditation
2. One line journal
3. Take meds
4. (Transition from cell phone games to) Reading

The “mastery” will mainly consist of starting the routine early enough to have time to do it before bedtime.

Run almost every day

I want to run at least three quarters of the 108, or 81 days. I’ve run every day for 108 days straight before as it feels great BUT it ends up unnecessarily being the focal point of days that are exceptionally busy. I’m still going to keep the mindset of daily running but when days come where running is an unnatural fit for the day, I’ll just skip it. When I ran every day for 108 days straight there were many days where I was running after 10 pm. Running that late at night would conflict with “mastering the night” so I’m going to prioritize getting to bed early over running late at night.

Slowly Timebox the Day

I have a list of things that I’d like to do daily or Monday to Friday

• Study Chinese (daily, minimally using Anki, maximally doing some reading)
• Writing (daily at the computer)
• Working on Flow to Your Dream as a business (M to F)
• Working with my brother and a close friend (M to F)
• Working with a close friend for online business (M to F)
• Cleaning email (M to F)
• Practicing the taiji form (daily)

Timeboxing (or Timeblocking) is the act of setting a fixed amount of time to work on something. I’m going to experiment with different ways of doing this this cycle. There are three ways I’ll probably experiment with.

1. Set schedule
2. Flexible schedule
3. Scheduling the night before

September 1st (tomorrow) is actually a very busy day for me. I think I’ll try scheduling tomorrow timeboxing style. I don’t think I’ll have time to do all of the things I want to do so I’ll be forced to pick and choose the night before instead of trying to figure it out on the fly tomorrow.

Still in Recovery Mode

I had a major manic episode the last 108. It lasted from early June to mid-July. I’m still technically recovering from that episode. For this reason I don’t want the real focus for this 108 to be anything but fully recovering. Normally I would choose something to be my primary focus (or essential intent). I guess I actually am choosing a primary focus. My primary focus is making sure my recovery goes smoothly.

Casually Building My Flow to Your Dream Documents

There were four documents that I wanted to create during cycle 5 (before it was hijacked by trauma).

Extended About Me – I’m not sure how extended this “About Me” will be but I want to do a deeper dive into my history, experiences that shaped me, my beliefs about politics, religion, etc. and whatever else comes to mind. I’ll just write and organize the writing and see what happens.

Values and Principles – I’d like to write down my personal values and principles.

Dream – My vision for the future.

Lifeflow – My daily protocols, routines, and habits.

With timeboxing, I’d like to carve out a little time each day (M to F)to work on these. It may have been a little misguided making reflection the sole focus of cycle 5. This 108 is exciting because, for now, Monday to Friday I’ll have full control over my day sunrise to sunset. I would like to use these next 108 days to really refine how I spend my mornings, my days, and my evenings. I want to achieve a really nice balance between discipline and flexibility, never letting one overshadow the other.

(Rambly) Final Thoughts

I feel like I need a spot to end this plan. I have a whole life philosophy built around the concept of “Flow to Your Dream”. The key element of that concept is “flow”. Optimal flow is something that comes from a lot of trial, error, failing, and succeeding. In order to master the art of making life “flow” you need some kind of framework to track the trials, errors, failings, and successes (I think). Otherwise it’s really easy to create a false narrative about yourself. Optimal growing, for humans, is only possible with reflection. Optimal reflection is only possible with good data. I think there are certain careers, or ways of life, that have reflection and growth built into them.

What am I trying to say… what do I WANT to say…

I want to say that we’re all always flowing. Humans are designed to. Everyone is in a constant state of effortlessly responding to something. That something might be a situation at work, something that happens with your family, or just random thoughts while you’re sitting at home. Oftentimes things don’t feel effortless though. It doesn’t feel like things are “flowing”. Flow comes from the right combination of challenge and skill. It’s when we are over-challenged that we feel overwhelmed. It’s when we’re under-challenged that we feel bored.

Flowing to your dream is about empowering yourself with the ability to “adjust the difficulty setting” in life. The dream acts as a compass. It lets you know what you should and shouldn’t focus on. A fuzzy dream creates a fuzzy compass, a fuzzy compass makes it hard to adjust the difficulty setting for optimal flow.

As someone who has large spikes in energy I know better than anyone that it’s important to make daily adjustments to the difficulty setting in life. I suppose my dream is mastering it and passing the ability on to as many people as possible. Flowing to one’s dream feels good. It doesn’t make any difference if you’re on hour 1 of your journey of hour 10,000. Focus on the flow and you’ll eventually get there and you’ll enjoy most days along the way.