You know what is crazy about running? It’s that every run I make makes me understand something new. Every run I make makes me realize something. Which is crazy and which is also very frightening. Because if I don’t run, I don’t realize things, I don’t understand things — and it’s scary.
What I understood today is pretty much complicated, so please bear with me. But if you understand what I’m talking about, it will probably shorten your path to your happiness or at least to a sense of calmer belonging to this Earth.
You know, when I stopped using a smartphone and started using a dumbphone, I started using a lot of notepads — paper notepads — to write things by hand. If I could suggest one change, it would be to use more analog things and less digital things in your life, both in your relationships and also in your planning.
I had a very hard time to find a pocket notepad small enough to be able for me to actually put it in my pocket, but also equipped with a kind of paper that would be of a good color, of a good thickness and that would allow me to write with my fountain pen, because I love writing with my fountain pen.
The additional purpose of this notebook was to note the tasks I have for the day, because it’s a ritual that makes me prioritize better and that serves my productivity. When I do that, I get accustomed to what I will be doing during my day and I’m less anxious. It’s a positive habit, but the notepad had to be pocketable, because for a long time I was taking it with me as the only plan for my day, as something I have always with me and it had replaced my habit of checking my smartphone. Instead, I learned to check my pocket notepad!
I understood during today’s run that I should actually not be looking for a notepad that would be pleasant to note the tasks for the day, because the action itself is not really a productive one.
Those tasks are unfortunately not the most important things I could be doing in my day and in my life.
I should actually be looking for a good notepad for my journaling and my long form written content — for my idea of development. Today’s tasks are 80% bullshit. They are the things that in five years will not matter.
My long term note taking and idea development, if it does not matter to the world in the future, well — at least it will matter to my kids.
