Ben’s Bulletin Issue #2
My notes and thoughts on strategic productivity for getting more of the things done that are most important to me in business and life.
On Gratitude 🙏
With the devastation the floods have caused and are continuing to cause in Eastern Australia I can only feel so ever grateful for not having lost our house or life in this catastrophe.
The water rose quickly from Sunday to Monday, so much that access roads were cut off. However, it was far off ever being a risk to our property or livelihoods.
It troubles me that so many families have lost everything from one day to the next and that it hit so close to home.
And if you thought devastation couldn’t get any worse, it takes on unimaginable scales in Ukraine. No matter what idealistic and political view one holds, war in 2022 should be avoided at all costs, not only because of the atrocities it commits but how swiftly the scale can escalate in modern warfare times.
It’s sad proof that principles of power and human nature will bend but never break. That makes Robert Greene’s books, such as War, The Laws of Human Nature and 48 Laws of Power - everlasting masterpieces.
Look at the bigger picture and understand the true scale of your problems. I reckon that’s a worthwhile exercise this week.
Towards better health 🌿
- Starting weight February 2022: 118.9 kg
- Last week’s weight: 115.9 kg
- Today’s weight: 114.7 kg
- Loss: 4.2kg
I’m now about one month in, which averages 1kg per week. Not bad for simply skipping breakfast and tracking my calories.
Noticeably, my focus and energy improved whilst I feel less fatigued at the end of the day. I wonder what it’ll feel like at my target weight of 95 kg.
My challenges remaining are to eat not only less but overall healthier and to exercise.
One issue I had in previous tries to lose weight was the scale, using it as the ultimate indicator of success. I now see the scale only as a trend indicator, not as an absolute daily measurement. I have days where I’m up by 0.5 kg and days where I’m down 0.5 kg. Neither is an indicator of trending performance but an indicator of the previous days’ foods, sleep and exercise. As long as the weekly trend is falling, I’m good.
Weekly Win 🏆
This week I published my first newsletter, I’m almost ready to publish this one and in the process of editing my second YouTube video.
And I tell you: this whole YouTube thing continues to be great fun despite:
- getting up at 3.30 am every day to find time outside of family and 9-5 work commitments so I can write, shoot, edit
- an elongated editing process of anywhere between 4-6 hours for a 10-minute video (steep learning curve)
- the miserable storytelling that I bore myself to death with but am excited to learn more about
- the audio drifting on my recorded second YouTube video, which takes half a day to find solutions. I can’t resolve the issue, which makes me want to quit the whole YouTube thing (yet 5 minutes later I’m back at it because getting another video together is just fun!)
Weekly Challenge 😒
Review of last week
I challenged myself to become more aware of my nutrition. Tracking every meal through MyFitness Pal definitely helped. Checking my remaining kJ balance before eating anything has become a habit. It teaches me to be more mindful of my meal’s macros.
For the first time in a long time, I seem to have an understanding of appropriate portion sizes. And that size is far smaller than what I ate before.
Outlook on next week
I struggle with exercise. I’ve never been keen on it and have used that as an excuse for not doing it. And it’ll come back to bite me. So, next week I want to turn this around: on days I work from home (Tuesday and Friday) as well as Sundays, I’ll use my lunch break to do some strength training.
I’ve come to enjoy 45 to 60 minute morning walks. However, with spending my mornings now writing for YouTube and my newsletter, there seems no time left. The morning hours are precious to me as this is often the only time in the day that I can work without any interruption, whether that’s family, personal business or work. So, shifting my (yet non-existing) exercise routine to lunchtimes should prove effective.