The thing I love about reading is the moment you come across a passage that perfectly articulates something you feel, or have experienced.

It's this sentiment that has had me writing journals for as long as I can remember. I've always been someone what introverted and somewhat inward-focused.

This week has been a very reflective week.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about the things I'm trying to achieve, how I manage my time and some of the areas I want to improve.

My process of building up a collection of good notes that can fuel my writing is one of the areas that I've been trying to refine every year. One of the big missing pieces was the actual output--the writing.

One of the bad habits that many new chess players develop, particularly with chess online, is playing too many games of blitz or bullet chess. These games are fun and there is still a lot to be learnt, but they pale in comparison to longer games and deep study.

In their book Make Time, Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky point out that our culture dictates the norms of being busy or distracted and that it’s because of this that much of our time is spent by default.

The alternative is to choose to spend time intentionally by reevaluating the default activities that take up our time and by paying attention to and making time for the things that really matter.

Just over 10 days into this daily blogging practice, I've been thinking a lot lately about how I might improve my writing process.

I don't want this to become too formalised or make it a big task. I'm writing for myself, not an audience. But I am finding I want to delve a little deeper into things that I've been thinking about.

I had an interesting interaction with my neighbour who is a keen gardener. She often will come over to our side of the fence and point out all the noxious weeds and plants we should be removing.

I, on the other hand, am not a keen gardener. I like a nicely kept garden though and every time I look at our overgrown garden, I get a little anxious at the thought of where to start with this runaway project.

It's the end of the week and I've just been out for dinner with my wife. And as I sit here searching for something to write, I ask myself some prompting questions: What have you noticed today? Was there something that happened that made you think differently or triggered some kind of realisation? What do you notice in this present moment? What thoughts or feelings arise?

The world is complex and it's often much easier to reach for the lowest hanging fruit (or the first page of google) when it comes to forming our view of the world.

While I believe in thinking for yourself, I also believe it is important to be open to the ideas and opinions of others.

I’ve been going through my notes each day. Looking at the things I’ve highlighted, the articles I’ve saved and the ideas I’ve paid attention to. Even going through my journal there is a recurring theme of the daily struggle to coexist with technology.

In the book The Shallows, the author talks about how the tools we use become mental and physical prosthetics. I'd add that some of our digital tools have become social prosthetics, but more on that another day.

As we come to rely on these tools, they change how we see and interact with our environment. The tools I have become most in have been the tools we use for thought and intellectual inquiry. Apple famously sold us on the promise that the computer was the bicycle for the mind.

One of my personal favourite books I’ve read multiple times in the past few years has been Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life by Zina Hitz.

The book perfectly articulates an attraction I have to foster a quiet and contemplative intellectual life for its own sake. Upon thinking about this book today I decided to listen to an interview with Zina while I worked.

In this interview, Zina discusses the pain and suffering often associated with intellectual life.

A common critique of Ai art is that there is little or no effort involved. And while I've often spent hours getting a Midjourney output that is close to what I have in mind, I think this pales in comparison to the time it would take a talented artist to achieve.

While there may be an element of truth to this critique, I think it overlooks a big part of what we value in art.

I've spent a lot of time obsessing over my Personal Knowledge Management system (PKM). This made a lot of sense when I was at university and needed a way to wrangle the vast amounts of information I was consuming. But I've continued this obsession with finding perfect tools and systems for notetaking.

In his book Essentialism, Greg McKeown talks about how the word priority didn’t become pluralised until the 1900s.

language often changes to accommodate and reflect cultural shifts.

Today we find ourselves in a world where we talk of competing priorities as if many things can each hold the highest importance at the same time.

The daily act of anything, when compounded over time, contributes to growth and development. It’s hard to point to any one day or any one single act to define ourselves. Rather, it’s through the many small steps and daily habits that we become something else.

In an article by John Sellars titled ‘Shaftesbury, Stoicism and Philosophy as a Way of Life’ he examines the private notebooks of Shaftesbury. These notebooks are Shaftesbury’s own personal accounts of the “Socratic self-care” he advocated.

I recently listened to an interview with Seth Godin in which he comments on why he blogs every day and why he believes everyone should.

” If you know that tomorrow you have to say something about something you noticed, about something that might help someone else, about an opinion you have that might stand the test of time, you will form those opinions, you will notice those things, you will invent that idea.”

Simplicity has become a central principle in my life. And it’s something I’ve spent a great deal of time thinking about. Initially, my interest in simplicity was sparked by the minimalist movement, the central premise of which is to reduce your belongings to only the essentials to pursue the things that matter. The promise of this voluntary simplicity is the sense of peace, clarity and focus that it offers amidst the chaos of life.