Schedule
June 15th, 2025
A coworker showed me her schedule, and how meticulous it was. I won't go into detail here for fear of doxxing myself, but it was pretty color-coded and organized. She had time blocking out, sorting out everything she had done, and particularly what was on the plan to do next.
It was wonderful. I can't believe someone could be that organized -- so much to the point, well, I guess I can put the detail here, she optimized the time of day she did laundry to incur savings on her part.
I recall I stopped doing this because I would get emotionally frustrated when I deviated off schedule, but now, I am older, and I recognize the need for it. I am too overwhelmed in my life, and this is the reason why. She also mentioned she was the same; hearing that made me less lonely and more accepting of myself.
Charlie Munger
I'm reading Poor Charlie's Almanack by Charlie Munger. I'm impressed by the simplicity Munger approaches life, about keeping his word, and to take careful care and tact when making a decision. He says it really is just a few good decisions that can make or break a deal or life, and that investing the time to really view a problem from many different frames of many different domains will get you the many different (unconventional) results we all want.
I'll always keep close to me the image of a ticket with 20 etches in it -- each investment in your life you punch a hole in the ticket. When you reach 20, that's it, no more investments. When I think of that image, it makes me realize that yes, in our lives, we may get to make more than 20 decisions, but the fact is that the number of decisions we get to make are extremely limited. We should be very careful about what we buy and sell, and not only that, but do and don't do.
Munger's children described him as with always a book and always deep in thought. My key takeaway here is that Munger possesses such great skills of focus that he can be entirely in a different world while still sitting beside his children. I think that's a virtue there, maybe not neglecting the children, but to give something undivided attention, thought, and focus despite anything physical misaligning the focus.
Whiteboards
I think a lot better with printer paper in front of me, and me writing out my thoughts. It'd cleared out my mental models of the world, and how I want to view the world going forward.
I think emotional management is really just expectation management. You can manage emotions easily by having low expectations (the common equation is `happiness = reality - expectation`.)
To give a good example of how this applies: what is the meaning of life, and what is the meaning and implication of asking that, is it in my expectation that life should and is to provide said meaning? What are my expectations here?
Munger also mentions that to psychology is an important framing to keep in mind, since it affects our rational processes first and foremost. It determines which train of logic we'll take, so being aware of the emotions at play can help us make more level-headed decisions.
Whiteboards sort out my thoughts, and let's me "play the field."