So We Row

A couple of things before I run off to bed again.

The About page has a little more info on what to expect. In short, just about anything, so long as it’s interesting, at least to me. Or technical. Most things probably tend not to be both to you.

One of the pillars of the personal stuff for a while is going to be The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People. I’ve been reading it for only a few days, but it’s saying exactly what I need to hear in exactly the right way. I’ll be reviewing each of the habits in time, but the second (which I’m just digging into now) is to “start with the end in mind”, to know exactly what you want in the long run and to work with that in mind every day. It seems so obvious, even cliché, but who really does it? He makes clear things like the futility of misdirected efficiency, and the universality of it; its application to personality, parenthood, and organisations. It really seems like one of those chapters that’s going to spawn a lot of jotted notes and sketchily-imagined futures.

I’m also starting to feel out which will be the first habits to be locked in, and we’ll see how they go. Healthy sleeping, eating and exercise patterns, and general proactivity to get the little things done. It’s all about building up a string of small, private victories. Private victories must precede public victories. There are no shortcuts to the Character Ethic. It holds a long-term focus, like a sensible investment, and has the same kind of accumulative, compounded returns. Life is always going to be work, so living smart is working right and having fun doing it.