Podcast #77: Aristotelian Self-Portrait

An everyday system, TM, is a simple, commonsense solution to an everyday problem, grounded by a pun or metaphor. Propose/discuss new systems here.
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reinhard
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Podcast #77: Aristotelian Self-Portrait

Post by reinhard » Thu Aug 31, 2023 8:04 pm

On time (in the nick of time!) this month:

Aristotle: "You are what you repeatedly do." Well, what do you repeatedly do? In this episode, an exercise for finding out.

https://everydaysystems.com/podcast/episode/77/

Enjoy!

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Re: Podcast #77: Aristotelian Self-Portrait

Post by NoSDoc » Sun Sep 03, 2023 4:16 pm

Dear Reinhard!

Thank you very much for this episode and sharing details about your daily routine. This episode resonated a lot with me. I also sometimes struggle with the amount of systems I chose to commit to. I seems to me that there is a sweet spot where habits/discipline/commitments create more freedom in life and then there is a point where I perceive it as building a habit prison. It becomes so time demanding I easily get off track with some social events, friends visiting or other changes of routine. Which to me seems "too stiff" then. I want to be able to live life and use these systems to support my life and not use my life to support the habits. You know what I mean?
Perhaps a third category of days, E-Days aka Emergency Days with defined habits for those days could be a solution. I will think about that.

May I ask you a question? It seems your sport routine is more than just 14 Minutes on N-Days. Is that right? If yes: why did you chose to do more?

Again: thank you very much, all the best

Stefan

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Re: Podcast #77: Aristotelian Self-Portrait

Post by reinhard » Tue Sep 05, 2023 9:05 pm

Thank you for your thoughtful response, Stefan!

A "habit prison" is indeed a danger for people like us. :-)

I've gone through many periods in my life when I find I've loaded too much on -- and then something like Aristotelian Self-portrait helps me whittle it down again.

Shovelglove per se easily fits within 14 minutes for me these days (especially since I've knocked off two movements). I do the routine of sevens twice, with a set of pushups and squats tacked on usually.

What makes it more time consuming is the warmup stretches and exercises I've had to since I got my golfers elbow injury two years ago. Those use to take a full 15 minutes +, but now I've usually got them under 10 minutes. Still, significantly more than I'd like, but I think it's just the cost of doing business when you're pushing 50 like I am and still want to keep swinging sledgehammers around :-)

The running can take a bit more time -- not because I run very far, but because I am very slow. Three miles/5k will take me close to 30 minutes, more when a few minutes or warm up and cool down walking are factored in. On days when I run for that long I usually have to squish some of my other routines to make up for it.

Reinhard

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