Year of….

It's been a few weeks into 2024, and I've started to do something CGP Grey and Mike Hurley's Theme System from the Cortex Podcast.

This year I'm doing a Year of Accomplishment, or starting small, A Quarter of Accomplishment, which doesn't sound as cool. But it's something I've mulled for a few days going into 2024. One of the fruits of the theme is I've finally finished reading a book I've struggled to finish.

Atomic Habits by James Clear.

It's a great book and its not on the writing why I haven't been able to finish it but the way I keep getting distracted from reading the book.

But this year I found Alex Wieckowski of Alex and Books's youtube and his advice on how to read a book a week.

He also gave me permission to stop being too precious about books, because it is your or my book. (On the other hand, I don't think I'll do this to hardbound books, except for special circumstances!).at

Atomic Habits by James Clear with multicolored tabs for each day of the week.

As Alex advised all you have to do is have three things:

A pen
Post it notes
A book.

Flip to the last page of the book and then divide it by seven days, and then put your post it notes.

For Atomic Habits, it had 306 pages and I divided it by 7 days = 43 pages.

And then added the tabs for every 43rd page.

And then every paragraph that resonated with me, I underlined and took a note of on the front cover of the book:

handwritten notes on the front matter of the book.

It really does help when someone gives you permission, and to remember not to be too precious about things. Being too precious or wanting something to be too perfect can paralyze people into inaction.

Or as someone wise once said: “Don’t let ’Perfect’ be the enemy of Good.”

So, that’s how I’m going to attack this year, I’m going to start to do things even if it’s not perfect or best. It’s not going to be easy but it’s better to start than not start at all.