The Games We Play

Welcome to Saturday, March 678th, 2020 (according to covid standard time); I sincerely hope you had a wonderful and safe holiday season and that the start of the new year finds you in a good place. I hope you enjoyed the massive “Things I Like: 2021” edition - it was by far, the most read article of the year.

Over the break, I read an article from James Clear (who wrote the fantastic Atomic Habits), talks about 25,000 mornings:

That’s what you get in your adult life. 25,000 times you get to open your eyes, face the day, and decide what to do next. I don’t know about you, but I’ve let a lot of those mornings slip by. Once I realized this, I started thinking about developing a better morning routine. I still have a lot to learn, but here are some strategies that you can use to get the most out of your 25,000 mornings.

From that, oddly enough, I decided that I needed just a little bit of “fun” added to my life. There have been many studies around the cognitive benefits of playing games and how playing games reduce stress. And it’s just fun.

Every morning, Things reminds me of a simple routine called (uh) “Play games for 10 minutes”. Here’s what it looks like:

• Play The New York Times mini-crossword.
• Play a round of Wordle.
• If I finish both in under 10 minutes, then I play something like Crossy Road or Mini Motorways.

Boom. I move on with the day.

If you haven’t already discovered Wordle, the Times recently had a story that highlights its backstory. Here’s the scoop:

It’s been a meteoric rise for the once-a-day game, which invites players to guess a five-letter word similarly as the guess-the-color game Mastermind. Its popularity has grown from 90 people playing daily at the start of November to 300,000 last week. After guessing a five-letter word, the game tells you whether any of your letters are in the secret word and whether they are in the correct place. You have six tries to get it right.

I’ve already really enjoyed seeing my friends and family get equally addicted to the ‘daily game’. Serious: give it a try. Play a little. Have some fun. You’ll find that it sets your day up for some early wins and puts you in a great mood.

If you enjoy these posts, you can buy me a coffee ☕️, or if you’d rather keep up with my daily ramblings, follow me on Twitter or keep reading my posts on this blog.

Forward Thinking

I loved this short clip from the wonderful folks over at The Do Lectures entitled “Two Films”.

Imagine on your deathbed you were able to see two films of your life: One showed highlights of what you actually achieved. And then the other showed highlights of what you could have achieved with your ability, your talent, the opportunities that came your way…

Thought of the week

This weeks “Deep Links”

Here are a few of the articles and videos that resonated with me over the last week:

• Stories like this bring a smile to my face - ‘Drivers were stuck on I-95 when one saw a bakery truck. Soon, stranded motorists were breaking bread together.’. It was nice to read an inspiring article around hope and kindness, something that there’s far too little of these days. - More
• This one I enjoyed as I spent a ton of time over the break tweaking my own personal Creativity Faucet. Read more about ‘How to generate more ideas’ and the process of idea iteration - More
• Wrapping up the holiday posts, ‘Santa is a monster.’ takes a look at the monster known as Santa: ‘how he is an enabler of addiction and a manipulative creep’ - More
• A perfect 2022 manifesto for anyone leading technology teams: ‘Choose Boring Technology’ is a classic article which I come back to time and time again; you shouldn’t confuse ‘boring’ with ‘bad’ - More
• ‘How a tiny startup built a true Final Cut alternative for the iPad’ takes a look at LumaFusion; which is probably the closest you’ll come to having a full Final Cut Pro video editor on your devices - More
• I appreciated Tim Ferriss’s podcast in which he talks about his process for doing a past year review. In ‘I tried out the ‘past year review’ recommended by author Tim Ferriss,’ they look at the 5-step (but quick) process to breaking down the last twelve months - More
• ‘Giles Duley’s last letter from Kabul’ is one of those super important ones to read. ‘In words and photographs, he recounts what he saw and reflects on a 20-year history of senseless suffering’… - More
• I’m probably (for a good reason) overly obsessed with the potential of personal health tracking. ‘Does Your Resting Heart Rate Determine How Long You’re Going to Live?’ looks at RHR and the latest trends in biometrics and longevity, but more importantly, understanding where fitness tracking should be more of a guidepost than a ‘touchstone of health’ - More
• This was a fun one: ‘Flatware art: Mary Courtright turns forks and spoons into something unique.’ Meet an 88-year old who decided to turn pandemic boredom into a business of bending silverware into ‘other things’ - More
• In ‘Inspection and the limits of trust.’, a fascinating read about the relationship of leadership, trust and effective management. There’s a great toolkit in here as well to leverage on inspection - More
• ‘Seek The Edge’ explores that place where ‘what is needed most for growth: new sights, experiences and challenges aplenty’ - More

Fin

Wrapping up this week with a quick video from Brie Larson. She’s decided to make 2022 about “being fun”, and I’m with her - make fun serious.

Be well. ✌🏻