3 Dec - 9 Dec 2018
I’ve been rather too late to bed most nights for one reason or another, making my morning routines a bit shaky, in particular I’ve been struggling to get back into a stricter fitness routine now that we’ve got the space to swing some kettlebells again. I need to take some ideas from Atomic Habits to make it easier and more attractive to start.
We spent Saturday morning at Birmingham Children’s Hospital for an MRI scan for one of my children. I’m mostly mentioning this purely to thank the staff who made the whole experience as calming and stress-free as possible for all their little patients and their parents.
For the remainder of the weekend, we had some good quality family time, learning to play a new board game, Spice Road and finishing our Christmas LEGO display.
Reading Progress
I’ve started two new books. For our December Book club, we’re reading It doeasn’t have to be crazy at work. So far, I’m not that impressed. There’s a few nuggets of interest but I’m finding the style and assumptions a bit off-putting.
The other book I’ve started which I’m finding far more interesting and engaging is 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I’m wishing I’d read this book many years ago, and I can see myself gifting it to plenty of people in future.
Finally, I’m continuing with Sleepers. Ironically, given the title, it’s not a good book to go to bed with. I couldn’t put it down and get to sleep during the section about being abused.
A week in Stoicism
It was the second week of the SMRT training course. This week, it focused on the Stoic virtues and clarifying your values.
I’m already noticing a positive shift in my responses to stimulus via the daily self-monitoring sheet. In general the number of instances have reduced since the first week.
For I go around doing nothing but persuading young and old among you not to care for your body or your wealth in preference to or as strongly as for the best possible state of your soul, as I say to you: “Wealth does not bring about virtue, but virtue makes wealth and everything else good for men, both individually and collectively.” Socrates
weeknotes