Simple Mind, Simple Life

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Leonardo da Vinci

After not having worked out for a week I decided it would be a good idea to ease into the working out. On Monday and Tuesday I took little bike rides and did low key muscle activation to see how I felt. It was okay, even though I felt that my physical state had taken a hit with the sickness. On Sunday I decided to go biking for real with a whopping 61 kilometres. It was not the greatest decision since I do not think I have ever biked that kind of a distance. Nonetheless I powered through and managed to stay alive!

On Tuesday I had an amazing conversation about blogging with my sister. We talked for 2 and a half hours on FaceTime about why we do what we do and how to make things work. She is a food-blogger and has a lot more hands-on experience than I do. Thanks to my sister inspiring me I worked a lot on how to market myself this week. I was brought to thinking about what it is I am "selling" and more specifically to whom I am "selling". It was a great change of perspective since I had never really looked at this blog-thing as a product of any sort.

On Thursday, while going for a walk, I was listening to Ali Abdaal's podcast with Oliver Burkeman (which I enjoyed a lot and highly suggest) and caught the idea of "Just One Thing" or JOT for short. Of course I had heard of the method beforehand but I had never really applied it. I decided to apply it when I got home and I was amazed. I got everything on my to-do list done in a matter of a few hours and even went ahead and completed some of the following day's tasks. I was so productive and I was extra happy with everything in life! I got 7 very different tasks done and still managed to do a 35 min tech house mix!

The JOT method is very simple. It goes without saying that it is the simplest changes that can bring the greatest results. As I said last week, having a to-do list is great and important but it can be very frightening to look at a to-do list with over 10 tasks. The work seems unsurmountable. That's when JOT comes in handy: you take a piece of paper and write down the most important task. Then you proceed to complete said task since it's just that one thing. When done, cross it out. Then proceed to write down the next one et cetera. This is great because it renders our overwhelming workload down to one single task at a time.

I was still in isolation this week so I decided to set myself a challenge: record a mix every day until I can get out of isolation. The inspiration came from Belgian producer and DJ Primate who did a series on his Instagram called “Making loops until I can play shows again”. The point is to try new things and experiment with different genres. The reason also being that I can easily count on my hands the times I have mixed since the start of the school year and I wanted to change that.

I posted all the mixes on SoundCloud and they are all available at the time of this post going live. Here's a little rundown of the week, where I put in order: the number of the day, the genre and a little explanation of said genre or why I decided to choose those.

Making mixes till I can get out of isolation:

1. Organic House (Relaxing coffee house music)
2. Bass & Dubstep (Proudest mix and most fun to play around with)
3. Belgian Jump Up (My roots and probably the most challenging one)
4. Tech House (Funky Fun Time, it is THE new age disco in my opinion)
5. Rap (The first time mixing this genre, so complete novelty which is always great)
6. EDM (Real nostalgia)
7. Dance-floor Drum and Bass (Recent favourite)

On Thursday I randomly started filming a B-roll, which is funny since I have not done any video production for the past two years. I usually really get into it for a few months and then I proceed to forget about it for two years. Since I filmed all my mixes I decided to make quick overviews of each day, so I suggest you keep an eye out for those on my Instagram next week!

I advise that this week You set yourself a challenge to complete every day of the week (to train consistency). It does not have to be something crazy like doing Insanity workouts, but just something that You want to achieve: write more, read more or something trivial like not ordering food for a week to force oneself to cook. Take action!

Examples of challenges:

• Read 30 pages every day.
• Write 500 words per day.
• Do not order any takeaway.
• Drink 2 litres of water per day.

That is it for this eventful week!

Have a lovely day!