Working from home comes with a few minor downsides. Yeah, believe it or not.

One of them is how quickly every day starts to feel the same. So I wanted to get out of the routine and try something new.

The inspiration came from a post where people were sharing unusually interesting monthly checklists.

I liked the idea, but 10 a month felt like too much.

So I’m starting with three things a week. (I’m hoping my brain doesn’t notice anything suspicious about that math).

Here are mine for this week.

Next week, I’ll tell you how it went and share three more.

How many times have you sat down to work on something and suddenly got stuck?

Not avoided it. Not procrastinated. Actually started.

And then the next step is just missing.

I have accidentally described my usual day in different ways.

It does not matter if it is work-related, personal, or as innocent as the newsletter.

Especially the newsletter.

At work, there is at least some structure.

Clear enough.

Say the expected thing - receive the expected salary.

M - motivation.

But a newsletter is different.

There is no obvious “if this, then that”.

I can have the idea. I can have the concept.

Then I open the draft and every sentence gets stuck somewhere between my head and the page.

That is when I know nothing useful is coming.

So I usually have two options.

Option one: keep pushing and punish readers with vague thoughts that are technically sentences. You may have noticed.

Option two: switch to something else.

I cannot believe I am writing this, because “switch to something else” sounds so close to multitasking.

But I have noticed something.

Different projects require different energy, and I can basically recharge while moving between them.

With the newsletter, if I cannot finish the main story, I move to something easier.

Digital findings.

A book blurb.

A workspace I envy.

After that, I sometimes come back to the main piece and it works.

Sometimes.

Most often - still nothing!

Then I might switch to something else sitting on my to-do list, letting the loose ends untangle somewhere in my brain.

Today, that “something else” was 3D printer maintenance.

I quickly oiled and greased the moving parts as if I absolutely knew what I was doing, despite watching one video.

And then the obvious thing hit me:

And then I realized: why don’t I use this as a real example to make the point

Done. Easy!

But here is the warning label: this approach is risky.

Especially for me.

Because “I’ll switch projects for a bit” can easily become “I need inspiration”.

And “I need inspiration” can become YouTube.

I always lose track of time when I open YouTube. Not to my advantage, obviously. So I try not to use “inspiration” as my backup plan.

Instead, I found a better interim project for when I am stuck.

I do nothing.

Not “nothing” while checking news.

Not “nothing” with a podcast.

Not “nothing” while reading.

Actual nothing.

I move to the armchair in the corner.

No screens.

No books (as if I own physical books).

No music.

Five minutes feels fine.

Ten minutes starts to feel a little torture.

Ten minutes and more starts to feel like a little torture.

So yes, obviously, I started doing it for more than 10 minutes.

Because five minutes is only enough time to stop twitching.

It is not enough time to reset.

My personal record is 90 minutes.

In the middle of the day.

With a to-do list full of things I did not want to do. (I suspect my current boss has not discovered this newsletter yet, so I feel safe oversharing.)

I gave myself two options:

Apparently, I wanted to see how much nothing I could do.

I could do 90 minutes of personal hell with itching brain.

How would I describe it?

Unpleasant.

But!

I came back fresh.

Or maybe less irritated.

And apparently, there is a name for this.

Kierkegaard called it “the rotation of crops”.

The idea is simple: stop exhausting the same part of the attention over and over.

Change the kind of task.

Or remove the task completely. Preferably for a while.

Till next time.

How I Turn My Brain Dump into Notes and Tasks using AI - 7 min read.

Good use of AI: dump your messy notes during the day, then let it sort the boring parts later. Still your ideas. Less cleanup.

New psychology research suggests a brisk walk can boost your creativity an hour later - ZERO min read.

Replace reading this article with a brisk walk. The title already did most of the work. Read the rest only if you want the research details.

Student Engagement: Identifying the Illusion of Learning - 4 min read.

This is worth reading if you’ve ever confused activity with progress. Students can follow along, submit the work, and still freeze once the instructions are gone. Honestly, same.

Charlie Munger spent decades getting rich mostly by avoiding stupid decisions. Poor Charlie’s Almanack collects his best ideas on investing, business, psychology, and life. Worth reading.

Light sets the mood. As long as it is not the ceiling light. The last time I turned on the ceiling light in my office was about a year ago. I needed it to install shelves for the wall lights.

This image made the cut mostly because of the desk lamp. The orange one, of course.

4am Standard: When Murakami writes a novel, he wakes at four, writes for five to six hours, runs ten kilometers or swims fifteen hundred meters, then sleeps at nine. My brain is also cleaner in the morning.

Ten-Page Stop Rule: Murakami writes about ten Japanese manuscript pages a day, roughly sixteen hundred English words. And then stops even when he wants to continue - the point is to make tomorrow easier to start.

Nothing-but-the-Novel Rule: Before starting a novel, Murakami turns down new projects. Focus gets much easier when the answer is already “no”.

Deadline-Free Translation Rule: While writing novels, Murakami sometimes translates other books, but only at his own pace and without deadlines. Switching the tasks gives him a mental reset.

Draft First, Fix Later: Murakami writes long novels without a fixed outline, then uses revision to clean up contradictions, timelines, character changes, cuts, expansions, and new scenes. The first draft is only for finding the story.

Pass-by-Pass Rewrite: After finishing a first draft, Murakami takes about a week off. Then he rewrites in stages: first for big changes, then for details and flow, then for small fixes. Again, focus: each pass has one job.

Two-Week Distance Test: After several rewrite rounds, Murakami leaves the manuscript alone for two weeks to a month. Then he reads it again with a clearer eye and catches problems he missed before - waiting is part of the editing process.

Post-it Feedback Loop: Murakami’s wife is his first serious reader, and he has said she may return a draft with about two hundred Post-its, then another version with about one hundred.

Profitable Distraction Test: Murakami sold his jazz club to write full-time even though the club made significantly more money than his books. I am curious if I would pass that test.

No-Delegation Distraction Rule: Friends suggested Murakami let someone else run the jazz club while he wrote, but he refused because he believed he had to commit totally to one thing.

Desk-Work Training Rule: Murakami started running after becoming a full-time writer because sitting all day, gaining weight, and smoking sixty cigarettes a day made the job feel unsustainable. The work only lasts if the person doing it does too.

Limited-English Constraint: While stuck on Hear the Wind Sing, Murakami wrote the opening in English on an Olivetti typewriter, then translated it into Japanese. His limited English forced shorter, simpler sentences, which helped him develop the style of the book. As a non-native English writer, I find this encouraging!

This video explains dimensions from 0D to 7D without making your brain melt. Clear, visual, and genuinely mind-blowing.

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