Staying honest
A young girl takes a toddler to see a doctor in Gayan, a town hit buy the recent earthquake in eastern Afghanistan, July 2022
Hello again,
Found something I made up when I was being very efficient and thought I’d share it here incase it helps you. It’s a system to make sure that I’m actually building the future I want rather than wasting time. I do this each day to make sure I’m on track and once it’s done I go see friends, watch a film, read a novel, something and feel no guilt, because I know I’ve worked. My screen time has gone from 8 and a half hours a day down to around 5.
It’s called HOWL.
Here’s what it stands for and usually I do it in the order it’s written, but change it if say I get an early morning meeting, I had a breakfast meeting with a TV exec and came back from that to workout so my H started after my W, but it’s more important to do something physical in each category than the order.
H - Health
O - Organisation
W - Work
L - Learn
Let me break it down. Yesterday I did it in order.
H - Health
I woke up at 6am and was in a gym thirty minutes later, leaving an hour later after a whole body workout, on getting back to my flat I meditated, then had a cold shower, after this I had coffee and read the news. Reading the news belongs in L, to learn, but this is when I do it. Then breakfast. I’m going to try intermittent fasting. I’m using an app called Days Since to help develop better habits, it’s working for me, try it.
O - Organise
I then looked at my to do list, which is Tasks by Gmail, I have trips to book, forms to fill in, emails to answer. Tasks sits right next to Gmail and works well for me. Previously I’ve used TeuxDeux but needed something simpler. I did around an hour of this before I needed to set off for a meeting.
W - Work
I don’t just want to be a consumer, I want to produce. Most of your work day isn’t spent working, the data is there. One day I got up at 7am, late for me since most days it’s 6am, and was reading and finishing off a proposal till 11pm. Usually I try to get my work done in around 4/5 hours of the day which makes me realise how lucky we are, to be able to work for so little for so much.
I make something each day, and many days it’s a small part towards something bigger. Currently I’m writing out an idea which I’d like to make as a photo essay, there’s no guarantee it’ll get commissioned, but it’s helping me read more around my interests.
L - Learn
Every day is a school day. I want to be better than I am. I’ve managed to stop using physical paper books and moved to ebooks and Audible. I’m not a rigid robot so at times I spill out of things but this structure here brings me back sooner than I used to do on my own. In the Learn box, I put reading, languages, podcasts and those long conversations you have into the night with people.
I’m lucky to have friends working across the world and the stories they share help me know more about the world. Also those friends of mine who stayed in the north have insights on how their lives are which are equally enlightening.
I aim to read an essay a day , to make me think. It’s not just the news.
And that’s it. Once this is done I don’t feel guilty for switching off. I left my flat without my mobile phone once for an evening out with friends and the world did not end.
If this works for you, use it. Let me know how it goes. Please share this email with your friends, it’d be nice to meet more people here.
Thank you,
Adnan
p.s. I’m in London for a few months, coffee?