Tag Archive for: Habits

Five Books That Changed My Thinking in 2024

A grand library interior with tall, ornate wooden bookshelves filled with neatly arranged books. The shelves are framed by decorative columns, and the ceiling features a series of curved wooden arches with metal accents, creating a symmetrical and majestic architectural design. Warm lighting enhances the richness of the wood and the historic ambiance of the space.

As a kid, I was never far from my children’s encyclopedia; I was a voracious reader and especially loved non-fiction. However, as an adult, I do most of my learning through audiobooks, podcasts, and YouTube. That is until a few years ago when I started rebuilding my reading habit by switching from scrolling social media to reading ebooks.

Even more recently, I have come full circle back to physical books. Mainly because I realized that reading on a phone just looks the same as scrolling social media and doesn’t help me model the reading habit I want my son to build. As a bonus, I got to experience these five books, which have significantly shaped my thinking. Perhaps one will resonate with you too.

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Year of Execution

An inviting pathway meanders through a lush forest at sunrise, with the early morning light casting a warm, golden glow over the verdant surroundings. The path symbolizes a journey of personal growth and the pursuit of goals, enveloped in the tranquility and beauty of nature, embodying optimism and inspiration for a new beginning.

Coincidentally, right at the start of the pandemic lockdowns in my area, I declared 2020 the Year of Healthy Habits. While there were plenty of health-related events going on at the time, not a ton of them were being generated by me.

I mostly spent the time trying not to freak myself out, supporting my wife, who was basically working 24/7 at our local hospital, and being (essentially) the sole caregiver to a kindergartener. So, the Year of Healthy Habits didn’t quite have the impact I had hoped.

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FoodNoms

This is a digital graphic featuring an app icon set against a wavy brown and white abstract background. The app icon is bright orange with the image of a bar chart that transitions into a fork on the right side, symbolizing a focus on food, nutrition, or dining metrics.

Growing up, I was a jock who was secretly a nerd. I played sports year-round and even conned my way into having an independent study gym class my senior year.

That level of physical activity plus a teenage metabolism meant that there would be no consequences for having a three-course cheesecake meal at The Cheesecake Factory with my friends.

Unfortunately, after my athletic career ended and my metabolism changed, my eating habits didn’t, and I gained approximately 50 pounds over the next 15-ish years.

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My Morning Routine

An illustrated scene of a serene morning view from a window. The window frames a landscape with lush greenery and distant hills under a soft sunrise sky, in hues of orange, yellow, and blue. On the wooden window sill, there's an open notebook with a pen resting on it and a white cup of coffee, inviting a peaceful moment of reflection or journaling.

I like magic tricks as much as the next person, but I usually find effective magic tricks to be frustrating.

I know there is a trick; some secret, technique, or special tool that lets the magician perform the trick. The trick is effective because I don’t know how it works, and it frustrates me that I can’t figure it out.

Sometime over the past two years, I figured out how to perform a magic trick on myself; and I am frustrated because I don’t know how it works, just that it does.

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Single Threading

A stylized image depicts a person at a desk with a laptop, surrounded by an explosion of colorful paper cut-out layers representing data, documents, and technology symbols, symbolizing information overload or multitasking in a digital work environment.

Except for the contexts of my high school students’ minds and technology, I am probably too young to be considered old. However, when it comes to personal computers, I am something along the lines of an Ent.

The first computer I have memories of using had a single 75 MHz processor. An iPhone 12 has (essentially) six processors in it, which total (at least) 13,400 MHz of proceeding speed.

My formative years using a computer were colored by having to choose the one thing I wanted to do with my computer, which on that computer was usually the MindMaze game in Microsoft Encarta.

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