Today I want to write about discipline. I think if you were to ask your mum or any of my friends about my character I’m pretty sure they’d say I’m disciplined. Rather than answer the question of ‘why are you disciplined?’ I think it’s better to answer the question of ‘why are you not undisciplined?’. To answer this question I’m going to write about six areas where I think I’m not undisciplined and why: exercise, diet, sleep, internet, reading and AI.
Exercise
I go for a 6 km jog once or twice a week at night. I ride my bike to school and back everyday – about one hour round trip. There are times I dread the thought of a 6 km run. Maybe it’s because it’s a weekday and I’m tired or maybe it’s because there’s something I want to do on my computer and I can’t wait. But I never let these feelings stop me. I always push through the mental barrier and go for my run. I do this because I love the feeling that comes after exercising – a feeling of accomplishment, of strength, of good health. I do this because I know it’s (running) good for my health and gives me the stamina I need to survive the working day. I do this because it resets my mind and this can be useful when you have important decisions to make or big problems to solve. Oh and it gives me a great night’s sleep.
Diet
I haven’t eaten breakfast in years. I don’t eat breakfast because I want to keep my weight at about 75 kg. Lots of people think breakfast is the most important meal of the day and they might be right. But I disagree. I think dinner is the most important meal. I think a good dinner will give you all the energy you need the next day. When you don’t eat breakfast you’re extending your nightly fast. And fasting (not eating) is good because it forces your body to create energy by burning off body fat. Usually your body creates energy by burning off the food and drink you have recently consumed. Funny enough I feel more energetic nowadays in the morning than seven years ago when I used to eat breakfast. I think this is because processing food and drink requires a lot of energy by your body and this can make you tired.
Sleep
Every night I go to bed between 10 pm and 10:30 pm and every morning I wake up a 6 am. I try to get eight hours of sleep a night. It’s needless to say but sleep is super important. I feel calmer and in control of my emotions when I’ve had a good sleep. On the other hand if I don’t have a good sleep I’m more likely to snap and I have less energy too. In about my third year of fatherhood it occurred to me that to be a good dad I needed to get good sleep. It occurred to me that if I wanted to have the energy to play with you (my daughters) and not get mad all the time then I needed to get good sleep. Now I don’t go to bed every night at 10 pm – sometimes it will be 11 pm or 11:30pm – but most of the time it’s 10 pm. In fact, and contrary to what you might expect, I get some of my best ideas when I’m sleep deprived. Just don’t make it a habit. Stay disciplined.
Internet
A couple of years ago I deleted every social media app on my phone – Twitter, Discord, Telegram, Reddit. The only apps I use on my phone now are Gmail, BBC, Weather, Google and a few others. The problem with social media apps is infinite scrolling. It makes it hard to put down your phone. The apps I have on my phone now don’t have infinite scrolling. This means there comes a point where there’s no more new content and I have to put away my phone. Why’s putting away your phone – or your laptop for that matter – a good thing? First, it keeps your internet addiction under control. Controlling your addictions is discipline. Secondly, it sets your mind free. I can’t think of any good ideas that have come to me while churning through content on the internet. On the other hand many good ideas have come to me when disconnected from the internet.
Reading
I try to read a couple of times a week. By ‘read’ I mean sitting down on the sofa and reading a physical book or a book in my Kindle. Reading the news or an article on your phone doesn’t count. Reading has many advantages. First, it exposes you to new words and new sentence structures that you might use in your own writing at a later time. Tolkien, for example, has given me sentence structures that I now use in my writing. Secondly, reading gives you new ideas. A lot of the rules and models I have pinned to the wall in front of my office desk, which guide me in the running of my IT department, have come from reading. And thirdly, it’s fun. Reading can take you on adventures.
AI
I use AI a lot. I ask it technical questions, such as ‘What’s the typical URL for the blog of a WordPress site?’ After giving it my own content I ask it to create slides. I ask it to provide me with the steps to accomplish something, such as the steps I need to follow to create a statutory declaration. But something I don’t use AI for is writing. When you write you should want to sound like you. You don’t want to sound like AI. Because the way AI writes is boring and plain. I fear everyone’s going to use AI to write in the future. I fear a lot of what we will read will be AI manufactured and therefore boring and plain. I think, in the future, a skill that will be in short supply is the ability to write. And skills that are in short supply can sometimes be highly sought after. Furthermore, writing is fun. It’s fun to write and have it sound like you.
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