Reflection: Why self-focus? →

Published January 2, 2021  ·  All posts on Jan 2

In this, our journey of small steps, reflection means self-reflection. That requires self-focus.

When you are self-focused—I’m talking about the small time you’re using right now to read this—you are the most important person in the universe.

You focus on you. I focus on me. They focus on themselves. Each of us self-reflects.

We know that other people are not resources for our consumption. It turns out that the best way to change the world… to be happy, to serve others, to be fulfilled… is to work on improving ourselves. Then we can each best do whatever it is we’re called to do.

Our experienced universe is not zero-sum. That means that it is possible for me to improve myself without causing other’s loss. In fact, my self-improvement improves the world. My relationships with others are a part of myself. Improving myself improves my relationships, which—since those relationships are also part of others—directly improves the people with whom I am interrelated.

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Arrived in the middle? Visit the first post, Where to begin?
(The entire series is available to download as a PDF ebook.)

Reflection: Where to begin? →

Published January 1, 2021  ·  All posts on Jan 1

It took me many years to develop my personal habit and routines around reflection. On this blog, I’ve written a lot about the changes I’ve attempted in my journey of self-improvement, including a post in particular detailing what my morning reflection looks like. However, I’m not going into great detail of my habits and routines.

What are you thinking right now, after reading that paragraph?

(Sit with that question for a bit.)

What do you think about what I wrote?
Are you curious to know my story in more detail?
What do you think about being reflective?
Are you curious to know more about yourself?

Whatever you’re thinking, that’s perfect.

What you’re going to do—now through March 1st, is practice being reflective. You’ve done the easy part: You’ve decided to practice.

The first three posts—this one, January 2, and Sunday January 3—are going to explain how this works. In this post, I’m simply introducing you to being reflective upon being prompted.

That’s all for today.

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As a PDF — You can download Practicing Reflection as a single e-book.

Practicing-ReflectionDownload

Practicing reflection →

Published December 31, 2020  ·  All posts on Dec 31

My intention is to show you how to develop the skill of personal, self-reflection. I am excited that you are joining me for a journey of small steps!

Today is the best time to share this with your friends. Those joining later can access everything they missed, but experiencing each morning’s post is a key part of showing you how to develop your ability to reflect.

As a single PDF…
If you are, (or were at the time,) subscribed, you’ll get each post daily. But you can also download Practicing Reflection as a single e-book.

Practicing-ReflectionDownload

What is this?
This is a sequence of posts which will appear on my blog early each morning through March 1, 2021. (At which point my blog will go back to its usual daily routine.)

There’s no catch. Everything is free.
There’s no sales pitch at the end either. This is simply my gift to you.

Simple.
Each day’s message has something to spark your reflection. You can simply read it. And you’re done.

Also now as a little digital book…
As part of the ever-expanding Movers Mindset project, these posts are also presented as a little web site titled, Practicing Reflection.

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A journey of small daily steps →

Published December 30, 2020  ·  All posts on Dec 30

Starting on Saturday, January 2nd you and I will be going on a journey of small daily steps. Today’s post is a preamble for you, my cherished regular readers.

I’ve prepared 60, daily posts designed as a journey of reflection for your new year. The final one will appear on March 1st. Tomorrow (Dec 31st) and Friday (Jan 1) will be two preliminary posts that set the stage for the sequence through March 1st.

The tone of these coming posts will be familiar, so I think you will be delighted. My hope is simply that these posts help you find tranquility as we head into 2021.

As always, I’m just a Reply-button away. I’m always delighted by any thoughts, feedback or conversations these posts instigate.

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Some current projects →

Published December 29, 2020  ·  All posts on Dec 29

A while back I reworked the front of my web site, https://constantine.name If you’ve not seen it recently, it used to be a list of recent blog posts, now it’s an overview of the various things I’m working on.

My work in the podcast space
I’ve updated my creator page on Podchaser. Podchaser is a web site that helps you follow shows or specific creators, hosts, guests, etc.. My latest appearance, (in a podcast as a guest,) is in Vivian Carrasco’s Within (U) podcast, in an episode titled, Cultivating Curiosity That Leads to Compassion.

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Perfection →

Published December 28, 2020  ·  All posts on Dec 28  ·  ,

[I] will not be better than Socrates; but if I am not worse, that is enough for me. I shall never be a Milo, and yet I do not neglect my body; nor a Croesus, and yet I do not neglect my property: Nor, in general, do we cease to take pains in any area, because we despair of arriving at the highest degree of perfection.

~ Epictetus

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Walled gardens are always a trade-off →

Published December 27, 2020  ·  All posts on Dec 27  ·  

To serve relevant ads and, in return, increase its CPM for advertisers, Spotify needs to know its users intimately. This means that Spotify needs its users to spend as much of their digital lives as possible in its walled garden. The quickest way for Spotify to enable this is to build a podcast streaming capability and stream all available podcasts through its music app.

~ Kay Singh from, How Spotify is Killing the Open Podcast Ecosystem

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In the end, Spotify has managed to create a large garden and they’ve enclosed a large portion of the revenue.

The beauty of the Internet—for as long as this remains true—is that it is open. Open technology, open connectivity, open space. That means no wall garden can ever completely contol the thing it encloses. And that’s not even what Spotify wants to do. They’re simply trying to run a business.

And anyone who wants to be an independent podcaster, that too simply goes on.

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Looking back →

Published December 26, 2020  ·  All posts on Dec 26  ·  

I’ve started thinking about a touch phrase for 2021. (2020’s was the superbly helpful, “Get less done.”) As part of the thinking, I was browsing the old blog, and wondered when I last missed a daily post. That turns out to be November 18, 2019. It’s simply a random day with nothing posted.

For a few weeks leading up to that 18th, there’s a post on each day. But October of 2019 is Swiss cheese—actually, it’s more hole than cheese. But early to mid 2019 things look mostly solidly-posted. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I also know that in the very beginning of this blog I wasn’t even intending to post daily; In the beginning it was just a place for me to put things that I felt I needed some place to put. Unsurprisingly, character by character this blog was built like a drifting sand dune. In 2021 this blog will turn 10. Hello World was posted on August 13, 2011. If I continue, and I see no reason to stop, post number 3,000 should appear in late December 2021.

I bring this up because this time of year is traditionally a time for wrapping things up, and striking out anew, perhaps with a fresh start or a new commitment, into the new year. meh. That never works for me. But you know what has been working well—year-round, not just during this completely arbitrary calendar roll-over point—

LOOK BACK!

Look back at some of the things you’ve accomplished or experienced and think: “Well if that isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.” Seriously. I’m not going to end this post on a, “but if you don’t like what you see…”. No.

Take some time during the arbitrary end-of-the-year machinations to look back and think:

Well if that isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.

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Application and capacity →

Published December 25, 2020  ·  All posts on Dec 25  ·  

Application and capacity. Eminence requires both. When both are present, eminence outdoes itself. The mediocre people who apply themselves go further than the superior people who don’t. Work makes worth.

~ Baltasar Gracián

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The promise of future discussion →

Published December 24, 2020  ·  All posts on Dec 24  ·  

Only recently did I become aware of the key point of a Slipbox: It can capture your thinking and enables you to have a discussion with your own thinking. I’m aware of this key point, but I’m not entirely certain it will work. I am convinced that the only way to find out is for me to try the experience.

There are many ways to do capture, and those ways are useful for various things. For example, capturing information with the context necessary to use, or do, the thing captured:

GTD is based on storing, tracking, and retrieving the information related to the things that need to get done. Mental blocks we encounter are caused by insufficient ‘front-end’ planning. This means thinking in advance, generating a series of actions which can later be undertaken without further planning. The mind’s “reminder system” is inefficient and seldom reminds us of what we need to do at the time and place when we can do it. Consequently, the “next actions” stored by context in the “trusted system” act as an external support which ensures that we are presented with the right reminders at the right time.

From, Getting Things Done

Other examples are: A collection of books (at personal or institutional scale); personal journals; note-taking (think school studying); at-scale capture of information (Evernote, and ad hoc ways of doing that oneself). There are many more: Personal or team Wikis; Online collaboration systems (Miro, Emvi, et al).

I’ve tried all of the above. Some I’m still using—big time using! Collections of books, notes, journals, Wiki’s, and others.

And yet, something was still missing. The first problem was that I could only sometimes sense there was something missing. The best I can describe it: It’s like hearing a sound and not being sure you heard it. Later, in a very different location, you think you heard the sound. Eventually, you know the sound, without being able to describe it. It’s a sort of pattern in my mind, into which something should fit.

So the current experiment with a Slipbox is my attempt to place a ‘something’ into this pattern— this concept-shaped hole. I will continue to write about this as I go along. Today I wanted to try to take a snapshot of the hole.

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