The glass-is-always-half-empty angle of losing weight is worrying about gaining it back. This hobgoblin of the mind assails you most notably before a vacation, where you might not be able to exercise in the mode to which you have grown accustomed (read: addicted), and where you will probably eat and drink more than you would at home.

This happened to me for the first time when I started cycling; I knew I wasn’t going to take my bike on vacation back then, and was loathe to disappear for the 90 minutes to two hours most rides take.

The second time this happened, I had gotten into rowing, and again, knew that I wouldn’t be able to row. I did get a list of bodyweight exercises to try and did those on the beach.

This summer I once again found myself worrying about giving up my hard-won gains: would not exercising cause me to gain weight? Would I lapse into old habits?

Happily, though, I managed to do two things: keep it light on the food and drink, and exercise.

For the latter, each morning began with a walk, up the beach, then back up to the hotel. That was usually 2.5 miles. So 300-400 calories to start the day, minus some coffee on the way back. Easy and not surprising.

But the new discovery for me, thanks to the Apple Watch: swimming. Specifically, treading water.

In the hotel pool, on the first day of swimming, I saw that my watch was trying to record an outdoor swim. Once I told to watch to go ahead and record, I learned that just putzing around in the pool was burning around 100 calories every ten minutes. So a half hour was 300 calories, and you can do the math.

I actually got more exercise on vacation. Fear: unfounded.

I came home after one week in Ocean City, NJ, and after a hard 10k row, I weighed exactly what I weighed when I left.

When imposed on us, boundaries can feel upsetting. Because many people view happy relationships as problem free, a request to behave differently can feel like a rejection. Some people—out of trauma or other wounds—interpret a “no” from a loved one as the end of a relationship. But boundaries are supposed to help preserve relationships, not destroy them. “People typically believe that boundaries are to control people, and in actuality, they are safeguards for yourself and for peace and comfort in your relationships,” says the therapist and Drama Free author Nedra Glover Tawwab.

THE MOST MISUNDERSTOOD CONCEPT IN PSYCHOLOGY

Your attachment style is not so much a fixed category you fall into, like an astrology sign, but rather a tendency that can vary among different relationships and, in turn, is continuously shaped by those relationships. Perhaps most important, you can take steps to change it. So Arriaga could give her concerned students good news: Attachment style isn’t destiny.

ATTACHMENT STYLE ISN’T DESTINY

Fans of the Blade Runner film know well that this gritty sci-fi noir is based on Phillip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (which, like many adaptations, differs in significant ways from the source novel). I never knew, though, why it was called “Blade Runner” (although that was the title of Rick Deckard’s job, in the movie). The film’s name was cribbed from another novel for which no one less than William S. Burroughs had adapted to a screenplay:

No film was produced from the Burroughs treatment, but Hampton Fancher, a screenwriter for a film based on Philip K. Dick‘s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), had a copy. He suggested “Blade Runner”, as preferable to the earlier working titles “Android” and “Dangerous Days”, for the Dick adaptation.[3] In the film, released as Blade Runner in 1982, the term is never explained, and the plot has no connection to the Nourse and Burroughs stories.

The Bladerunner

One of OmniFocus’s best features is its structuring of a weekly review. OmniFocus basically makes a to-do list of your to-do list, and presents your projects to you for review, which you then tick off as done. This review is saved as metadata, so you can keep yourself accountable about reviewing your open loops.

I would argue that, besides capturing your commitments, the most important part of effectively using GTD is reviewing, weekly, your open loops: projects, tasks, calendar items, and notes.

So using Todoist requires you to create your own review, set a reminder, and dedicate time to doing so. There’s no GUI prompt as there is in OmniFocus. (You can, however, use one of Todoists’s templates.)

 

Todoist’s Weekly Review Template

There’s no reason you can’t just work your way down your projects list, and of course your inbox, as part of your weekly review. But I didn’t want to do that. So I created two filters:

My Weekly Review Filters

These filters show me what would be the equivalent of what OmniFocus would categorize as “active” (as opposed to deferred), and grouped by Home and Work projects.¹ (I otherwise create future projects as a subjproject under a project called “Future.”) Within these two projects, I use filters to show me available tasks, grouped by project. On one scrollable screen.

^{Home Weekly Review}    

 

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¹I’m jumping the gun a bit here, but I essentially created two projects: Home and Work, and then create specific projects under each area. This is because Todoist doesn’t (yet) support separating projects with a higher-level filing option (like areas of responsibility).

The Pete Plan alternates steady-state distance rowing with two different kinds of intervals. Just when you think you’re stuck on one mode, you find something like the Pete Plan.

Also: this morning’s 5k took me 20:25.8. Almost intermediate for a 45 y/o.

The Pete Plan

There are many articles on the Eisenhower Matrix, but here’s a handy infographic from Asana:

I’m trying out Todoist’s rather fixed priority setting thus:

Priority 1 = Important and Urgent (or what I call “Do it”)

Priority 2 = Important but Not Urgent (or what I call “Plan it”

Priority 3 = Not Important but Urgent

Priority 4 = I should probably either prioritize or junk these tasks

GTD has you avoid prioritizing tasks, but I never found a large body of tasks, even properly organized into projects and contexts, deferred or active, to be useful for getting through a day. I can’t say for sure that this scheme will work, but I do find myself working off of Todoist’s Today filter and then my “Do It” and “Plan It” filters each day.

Do It filter syntax:

    @important & @urgent | @Today | Today | p1

Plan It filter syntax:

    @important & !@urgent | P2

FDA Approves Drug to Fight Alzheimer’s:

Leqembi targets and reduces amyloid beta plaque in the brain, which slows progression of the disease. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid has previously said it would pay for the drug — at a cost of $26,500 per year — upon full authorization.  

Q&A: What to know about new Alzheimer’s drug Leqembi

Another great video from School of Life, philosopher Alain de Botton’s explainer for existence, examines self-esteem.

Where does self-esteem come from? His answers are surprising:

• Self-esteem has almost nothing to do with your particular achievements (“verifiable benchmarks,” as he calls them)
• How you compare to your same-sex parent has a lot to do with it: have you achieved more or less than mom or dad?
• How you compare to your age-peers has a lot to do with it: how are the people with whom you were educated, are about your age, and who live near you?
• What kind of love did you receive as a child? Was love conditional on achievement? Do you consistently pine for parental approval?

The degree of relativity is fascinating in this analysis: a person who is- by all conventional indications-successful, might feel less self esteem than a person who is monetarily poor but who is more well off than his father. And having attended college with a Bill Gates or Elon Musk doesn’t predispose you to healthy levels.

Self-esteem is a “prize of psychology,” not a fruit of something we achieve in the economy.

Self-Esteem