Hey friends
I’m a day late and trust that this week’s installment of Three Buller Thursday is worth the wait!
Juggling some new life responsibilities at the moment, which is fun and bringing some new learnings to the table.
Let’s get into it!
Business
Patience.
Thats the key takeaway I learned from this week.
As I mentioned in last week’s newsletter, I’m starting a new online business venture and I’m currently learning A LOT of new strategies, tactics and tools which take time to implement.
Patience is my watchword at the moment. My motto of 1% progress every day = 365% growth at the end of the year.
One of the first steps I’ve had to take with this new venture is posting my first video on my new YouTube channel - check it out.
If you can hit the subscribe button while you’re there and help me get closer to my first milestone of 500 subscribers as well that would be great!
Fitness
My focus this year is to bulk up. I’ve been hoovering around the same weight for the last 5-6 years (around 89-90kg) and the aim is to get to around 95kg. Two reasons for doing this 1) my missus keep telling me that I looked to skinny and 2) as I move through my 40s it’s important to build muscle mass and strength now for health and longevity into my 50s, 60s and 70s.
In January, my focus was on increasing my load with bodyweight training, which moved needle slightly. In February, I reviewed my caloric intake and realised that I wasn’t eating enough calories, so I increased my eating window for intermittent fasting and started to eat some more food. That moved the needle a little more.
For the last week, I’ve been drinking protein smoothies (something I’ve never done before) right after finishing my workouts, which has resulted in me gaining about 1kg in weight - awesome!
The lesson? This process has been and continues to be about marginal gains. Small incremental tweaks and changes, which when added together, will make a significant improvement in me bulking up.
Life
One commitment that I made to myself this year was to finish everything that I start - whether that’s a new hobby, a new business or a new habit.
One of my reflections at the end of last year was that I’m very good at starting new things but I’m not great at finishing them. I’m a self starter and find it relatively easy to start things that I’m interested in.
However, I tend to start a lot of these things around the same time, which means that I never really immerse myself in one or a handful of things long enough to get to the Dip. After a while my interest wanes and I leave things incomplete, resulting in a lot of open loops.
By finishing something, this doesn’t mean bringing it to it’s natural conclusion (i.e. reading a whole book I don’t like), but making a conscious decision to bringing that hobby, business or habit to an end after trying it for a period of time and realising it’s not for me.
BTW - You should check out The Dip by Seth Godin, great little book which I read at the end of last year and have started to implement.
Favourites of the Week
Book: Getting Things Done by David Allen. This book has cropped up a few times recently on productivity podcasts and YouTube channels that I’ve been checking out. GTD is essentially a work-life management system that helps you get stuff - ideas, thoughts, tasks etc - out of your head and into an integrated system of stress free productivity.
The system is based our 5 key steps - Capture, Clarify, Organise, Reflect and Engage. I’m only half way through the book but over the course of this last week I’ve already started to implement the system and it’s working a treat!
Quote: “The beginning is half of every action” - Greek proverb.
I came across this quote in the GTD book and it resonated with me because it’s so true. Every action has a beginning, whether it’s a thought or a trigger in the next step of a process. The key is being able to manage your actions, which is the fundamental aim of GTD.
Tech: My favourite app right now is Notion. I’ve been using this app for the last year after switching form using Evernote. Notion is an all in one workspace that is super customisable and endlessly flexible in terms of use. Essentially, it’s built for endless uses.
I use Notion for everything from tracking my habits to drafting this newsletter, creating a content calendar, building a template repository to share online and soon it will be hosting my blog as well. It’s free to use and there are a number of paid options as well. As an added bonus, here is a YouTube playlist from Notion power user Thomas Frank which will help get you started.
Funny: Use this site to send someone a “big-ass message”