Update on long-term projects, plus content round-up

I’m writing this while listening to Beethoven’s Symphony #1. I have been listening to the selections on the calendar for The Complete Beethoven this year, and we’ve finally reached the first symphony. Yesterday was a pretty amazing piano concerto so it’s been a good listening week. I’ve really enjoyed the little historical snippets that accompany each selection. We learn how Beethoven built his career as a 18th and 19th century content creator. I’ve particularly enjoyed learning about the economics of life as a composer and the different income streams one might set up.

Speaking of economics…I’m also reading through Anna Karenina, Tolstoy’s other epic novel. As with War and Peace, which I read in 2021, I’m reading this through at a pace of one chapter each day. I read the book many years ago (mostly on the metro while commuting to my internship in 2001…) but on the first read through it was mostly about the plot. What’s going to happen with Anna and Vronsky next?? I skimmed a lot of the other stuff.

But at this pace, I am not skimming and so I’m getting some flavor of Russian life in the 1870s, and the big issues people would have been discussing. Serfdom had been abolished in 1861, but that was within most people’s lifetimes. Tolstoy devotes several chapters to landowner Levin’s attempts to modernize his farm. He is frustrated by his workers’ slow pace — though of course during the serf era, a slowdown was about the only way people could resist. So alongside paying wages, he tries to align his interests and theirs through profit-sharing (a percent of the harvest). They are intrigued by this idea, but distrustful, and people who have very little can’t really take risks in the way a wealthier landowner can, and so they’re very conservative about introducing new technology or new ways of harvesting. Without innovation, agricultural yields will likely fall over time, so Levin spends a lot of time trying to puzzle this all out — hence all the heated conversations he has on this topic. I totally missed all this on the first read through.

And another long project — time tracking. In mid-April, I passed the 10 year mark on continuous time tracking. I began in mid-April 2015, thinking it might be helpful to do a month, with a long-term goal of hitting a year. It wasn’t that hard to do, so I just kept going. These days it takes me just a few minutes a day. I check in 3-4 times, less than a minute each time, and write down what I’ve done on my spreadsheets.

I’m probably not learning anything big at this point — but it is helpful on the margins for accountability. It’s easy to slip into certain habits, like not thinking through evening intentions (hello Golden Hours). Or scrolling instead of reading before bed. Or not doing anything interesting and just marching through the paces of work, kids, sleep. But since I review the logs each week, I at least see this. I don’t think I’ll be stopping anytime soon. Will it be another 10 years? We shall see! I don’t think I was looking 10 years into the future when I started…

This week’s content: Over at Before Breakfast I suggested that to make friends, one might “Plug into an existing group.” If you want to adopt new habits or get better at something, it might be helpful to “Choose your Joneses.” I also have a reminder that if you’re trying to do something big, “Today isn’t the only day.” It’s possible to spread tasks out over a while. For the interview, I talked with communications expert Lisa Camooso Miller, who talked about how to share your story.

At Vanderhacks, I suggested that it’s wise to “Know when you won’t get much done.”  I wrote about “How to make time blocking work for you.” Even if large blocks don’t work, sometimes more flexible and smaller blocks can. And behind the paywall I shared “A few thoughts on writing a book” — nine observations on my latest book deadline.

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