Last week’s challenge report:

I took this one seriously. I did some “office” research first. Apparently, everything nearby is either a coffee shop or a restaurant.

So I expanded the search area.

That’s how I learned Pepsi was born in North Carolina. There’s even a Pepsi birthplace in New Bern, which is a few hours away. Even I couldn’t defend that as local.

Then I found the almost 150-year-old Buchanan's Store.

And because I am apparently very committed to activities I invented one week ago, I drove there.

One hour each way.

I’m counting it as local. Challenge me if you want.

Nice solo trip, too.

The surprise lockpickers meetup destroyed my original plans for this challenge in the best possible way.

And I would like it officially noted that I wrote this challenge before I knew the meetup existed.

I ended up talking to a bunch of cool people.

One fun detail: the current club president, or whatever title a lockpickers club gives its leader, works in cybersecurity.

So the guy somehow managed to bring his digital security obsession into the physical world.

Meanwhile, I’m still waiting for someone to invent digital snacks so I can move my food problems online too.

I did not overthink this one.

I deliberately skipped it.

A challenge I invented myself does not get to boss me around.

For the next week I picked:

Report in a week.

And then I said: “Enough is enough”.

I took my wife’s slippers, the ones she puts on after coming in through the garage, and moved them as far away as possible.

To the main entrance.

Yes, we still behave like proper Eastern Europeans and take our shoes off inside the house.

And I’m trying to be generous by calling them “slippers”.

They’re Crocs.

Those ugly, indestructible Crocs clogs.

Anyway, the problem is that my wife is obsessed with tidiness.

She likes everything stored exactly where it belongs.

Who decides where it belongs?

She does.

Does she consult me?

Please reread the previous sentences.

For years, the shelves by the garage door were for everyone. Shoes came off there. Shoes stayed there. Simple.

Then one day, apparently, that rule changed.

Her reasoning was solid, at least according to her: I work from home. She goes to the office. Therefore, she uses the garage entrance more often.

The shelves were reassigned.

I was not informed.

So I kept coming home through the garage, taking off my Nikes (yes, this newsletter is sponsored by Adidas), and leaving them where I had always left them.

A few hours later, I’d need to run an errand.

I’d walk back to the garage.

No Nikes.

Just a beautifully organized collection of female footwear.

For the first couple of days, I genuinely thought I was losing my memory.

Maybe I had taken them off by the main entrance?

Maybe I had walked through the entire house in socks without noticing?

Because who would voluntarily move someone else’s shoes from one door to another?

Then one day I caught her.

My extremely detail-oriented wife was carrying my Nikes from the garage door to the main entrance.

Pretending to be calm, I asked if we could bend the new rule and let my shoes stay by the garage.

She resisted. Then she agreed.

What I didn’t know was that she had only agreed for a few days. Her secret plan was to wait until I calmed down and then move my shoes again.

Three days later, my Nikes were back by the main entrance.

I even admired her persistence. After I stopped crushing things around me.

So I decided:

Enough is enough.

The next day, I moved her Crocs to the main entrance.

From the garage door.

To the main entrance.

I may have been taking this personally.

That evening we had a very short conversation.

Wife: “Hey, my love you! WTF?”

Me: “Pretty inconvenient, isn’t it?”

Wife: “Oh. Now I see what you meant.”

And that was it.

I’m even still allowed to sleep inside the house..

Which brings me to a rule I like:

Before you remove a “stupid” rule, find out what problem it was solving.

In this case, it was solving a mental health problem.

Mine.

Till next time.

5 Rules for a Second Brain You’ll Actually Use - 6 min read.

Apparently, the goal of taking notes is not to have more notes. Westenberg suggests saving less, deleting more, and organizing notes around questions questions you’re trying to answer.

Extreme brainstorming questions to trigger new, better ideas - 18 min read.

We do this in everyday life too: keep solving problems inside the same old rules. This article shows what happens when you remove a few assumptions and ask slightly ridiculous questions instead.

Intentional Curiosity: Get your Brain to Focus on What Matters - 5 min read.

Some distractions are worth following. Just maybe not while you’re trying to finish something else. An interesting take on staying curious without losing focus.

This book is about getting better at noticing when we might be wrong. Julia shows how to question our assumptions, spot our own excuses, and change our minds when the evidence changes. Impractical for me, unfortunately. Perhaps I should start being wrong a little more often.

If you’ve been around here for a while, you might have noticed my obsession with large desks. This one definitely goes into my envy collection, although I’m still puzzled by the need for so many keyboards.

Six Weeks in Europe: Harrison McCain sent George McClure to Europe for six weeks with a broad assignment: find out whether McCain Foods had a business there. McClure visited six countries, recommended the Netherlands, and McCain backed him.

Four People at Headquarters: In 1988, McCain said the company's world corporate staff in Florenceville was essentially him, Wallace McCain, a finance person, and a chief engineer. His reason for keeping it small was simple: decisions happened faster.

Pay Tied to Performance: McCain Foods compared factories, companies, competitors, and costs such as labor, packaging, and raw materials. Acquired companies were quickly put onto the same information system, and the results affected promotions and pay.

The Black Notebooks: McCain kept roughly 100 small black notebooks filled with potato costs, plant assessments, commitments to executives, notes about people, and possible business opportunities. Employees remembered him updating them after trips. Apparently, "I'll remember that" was not part of the process.

Fix the Hiring Mistake: McCain believed a few hours or a couple of days with someone could tell him a lot about their values and habits. He also told his nephew Scott there was no shame in hiring the wrong person. The problem was keeping them after you knew.

Nine No's for One Yes: McCain Foods grew heavily through acquisitions, but McCain wrote that a useful rule was to reject roughly nine opportunities for every one the company pursued.

The Pound Changed, So Did the Plan: When Britain devalued the pound in 1967, exporting Canadian fries there became less competitive. McCain changed course and moved toward local production, eventually opening a plant in Scarborough.

The McDonald's Mistake: McDonald's wanted to inspect McCain's plant because it had detailed production requirements. McCain refused because he believed his company already knew how to make fries. The discussion ended, and other executives spent years rebuilding the relationship before McCain Foods became a major supplier.

Useful for meetings, interviews, and those moments when someone asks you a question and your brain decides to improvise. A simple trick for giving better answers on the spot.

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