Day 10 | Daily Dose of learning
This project is inspired by the ‘100-day project’, a challenge consisting of committing to doing an activity everyday for 100 days.
I have decided to write about one thing I learn everyday for the next 30 days. This can be a skill, a deep concept to elaborate on, or a mere life lesson that made me become aware of something I consider relevant.
The decision is based on the belief that “we are what we repeatedly do”, as Valentin Perez put it.
Content Cards in HTML and CSS
Today I worked on designing content cards using HTML and CSS on codepen.com.
a screenshot of a content card designed.
I feel like it is possible to improve a lot at HTML and CSS just by doing. I started from a template found on codepen at ‘bootstrap cards responsive’ and built the card from there. Still want to make some tweaks to the design in order to make the aesthetic more pleasing.
Day 9 | Daily Dose of learning
This project is inspired by the ‘100-day project’, a challenge consisting of committing to doing an activity everyday for 100 days.
I have decided to write about one thing I learn everyday for the next 30 days. This can be a skill, a deep concept to elaborate on, or a mere life lesson that made me become aware of something I consider relevant.
The decision is based on the belief that “we are what we repeatedly do”, as Valentin Perez put it.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is a psychological intervention process aimed at identifying the reasons for which we feel a certain way and figure out whether or not our feelings have to do with distorted automatic thoughts, which are very influential on our mental health.
A great thing about CBT is that it is a topic which has been widely studied and proven effective in many cases when it comes to improving mental well-being. What’s more, it can be learnt and practiced by oneself and all that is needed is pen and paper.
The book “The coddling of the American mind” briefly describes CBT and lays out the basic steps of the process. Below I report them as written in the book.
When you feel anxious, distressed, or whatever you are feeling, write down what you are feeling.
Write down your level of distress (score it on a scale of 1 to 100 for example)
Write down what happened and what your automatic thoughts were and when you felt the pang of negative feeling.
Look at the categories of distorted automatic thoughts below, and ask yourself: is this thought a cognitive distortion? Write down the cognitive distortions you notice.
Look at the evidence for and against your thought
Ask yourself what someone might say who disagreed with you. Is there any merit in that opinion?
Consider again what happened, and reevaluate the situation without the cognitive distortions.
Write down your new thoughts and feelings
Write down again, using the same scale as before, how anxious, depressed, or otherwise distressed you feel.
Day 8 | Daily Dose of learning
This project is inspired by the ‘100-day project’, a challenge consisting of committing to doing an activity everyday for 100 days.
I have decided to write about one thing I learn everyday for the next 30 days. This can be a skill, a deep concept to elaborate on, or a mere life lesson that made me become aware of something I consider relevant.
The decision is based on the belief that “we are what we repeatedly do”, as Valentin Perez put it.
Specificity in sport programming
Specificity is one of the foundational principles for programming training sessions and training cycles in sport.
“If you want to get good at something, your training should be focused on that something and should look at least somewhat like the sport/ability itself or its components. You don’t just do distance swimming if you want to be strong.”
This principle tells us that in order to reach an objective in sport (e.g. becoming stronger than you are right now), we need to focus on training to become stronger (e.g. using weight training, calisthenics). This applies to every sport, although specificity does not mean that we only practice sport-specific skills related to the discipline we compete in.
As a matter of fact, often times there is cross-sectionality in sport training. For instance, american football athletes work out a lot in the gym, not because that makes them become better at sport-specific skills, but because developing strength and muscle mass are very relevant attributes in order to be more complete players.
Specificity also implies that trying to achieve different objectives at the same time is not optimal, because the energy is dispersed among more than one discipline, which means that recovery is lower and, consequently, effort is lower in a given sport/ability. Which means that we can be mediocre at more than one ability, but very good only at one, generally speaking. So, focusing on becoming strong and increasing endurance at the same time is possible, but definitely not optimal.
Day 7 | Daily Dose of learning
This project is inspired by the ‘100-day project’, a challenge consisting of committing to doing an activity everyday for 100 days.
I have decided to write about one thing I learn everyday for the next 30 days. This can be a skill, a deep concept to elaborate on, or a mere life lesson that made me become aware of something I consider relevant.
The decision is based on the belief that “we are what we repeatedly do”, as Valentin Perez put it.
First Principle Thinking
First principle thinking is the “first basis from which a thing is known”, as Aristotle put it. It is the idea which states that, in order to really understand something, we need to be able to deconstruct it until we are left only with the foundational truths of a situation. Break a situation down into the core pieces and then put them together in a more effective way.
The first principle goes against our standard way of perceiving situations, namely optimizing form rather than function. Innovation is often an iteration of previous forms.
“For instance, when criticizing technological progress some people ask, “Where are the flying cars?” Here’s the thing: We have flying cars. They’re called airplanes. People who ask this question are so focused on form (a flying object that looks like a car) that they overlook the function (transportation by flight). This is what Elon Musk is referring to when he says that people often “live life by analogy.” ”
Reasoning by First Principle fosters critical and lateral thinking, which are considered good frameworks and skills of working out solutions to problems and elaborating situations.
Day 6 | Daily Dose of learning
This project is inspired by the ‘100-day project’, a challenge consisting of committing to doing an activity everyday for 100 days.
I have decided to write about one thing I learn everyday for the next 30 days. This can be a skill, a deep concept to elaborate on, or a mere life lesson that made me become aware of something I consider relevant.
The decision is based on the belief that “we are what we repeatedly do”, as Valentin Perez put it.
Words are not Violence | from ‘The Coddling of the American Mind’
The Coddling of the American mind is a book by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. In this passage, the authors point out how we should not condemn speeches and spoken concepts that do not resonate with us as violence. Violence is physical, and we should be more prone to get exposed to wide arrays of arguments that do not necessarily belong to what we think to be true.
This can only bring benefits in terms of open-mindedness. In addition, recognizing this difference makes it possible to take full ownership and understand that, in the end, what really matters is our perception of speech and how we choose to manage it internally.
Some portion of what is commonly called political correctness is just being thoughtful or polite - using words in a way that is considerate to others. But students make a serious mistake when they interpret words - even words spoken with hatred - as violence.
In a 2017 essay in the New York Times, the argument that words can be violence was made by Lisa Feldman Barret, a well-respected professor of psychology. She offered the syllogism: "If words can cause stress, and if prolonged stress can cause physical harm, then it seems that speech - at least certain types of speech - can be a form of violence.
Just rerun the syllogism by swapping in 'breaking up with your girlfriend' or 'giving students a lot of homework'. Both of these can provoke stress in someone else, and stress can cause harm, so both can cause harm. That doesn't mean that they are violent acts.
But if you keep the distinction between speech and violence clear in your mind, then many more options are available to you. First, you can take the Stoic response and develop the ability to remain unmoved. As Marcus Aurelius advised, "Choose not to be harmed - and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed - and you haven't been." The more ways your identity can be threatened by casual daily interactions, the more valuable it will be to cultivate the Stoic (and Buddhist, and CBT) ability to not be emotionally reactive, to not let others control your mind and your cortisol levels. The Stoics understood that words don't cause stress directly; they can only provoke stress and suffering in a person who has interpreted those words as posing a threat.
The Internet will always be there; extremists will always be posting potentially offensive images and statements; some groups will be targeted more than others. It's not fair, but even as we work to lessen hatred and heal divisions, all of us must learn to ignore some of the things we see and just carry on with our day.
“I don’t want you to be safe ideologically. I don’t want you to be safe emotionally. I want you to be strong. That’s different. I am not going to pave the jungle for you. Put on some boots, and learn how to deal with adversity. I’m not going to take all the weights out of the gym; that’s the whole point of the gym. This is the gym.”
Day 5 | Daily Dose of learning
This project is inspired by the ‘100-day project’, a challenge consisting of committing to doing an activity everyday for 100 days.
I have decided to write about one thing I learn everyday for the next 30 days. This can be a skill, a deep concept to elaborate on, or a mere life lesson that made me become aware of something I consider relevant.
The decision is based on the belief that “we are what we repeatedly do”, as Valentin Perez put it.
Creating Lists in HTML
HTML stands for 'Hypertext Markup Language' and is the markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser.
Through a course on Skillshare, today I have learnt how to create lists in HTML. You can create unordered or ordered lists. I am aware that this is very basic knowledge of HTML, but I am in the process of learning the basics, so this is progress for me. 😃
This is an 'unordered' list (bullet style)
- Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.
- It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged.
<h3> This is the HTML for the 'unordered' list (bullet style) </h3> <ul> <li>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.</li> <br> <li>It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged.</li> </ul>
This is an ordered list
- flour
- sugar
- chocolate
<h3> This is the HTML for ordered list </h3> <ol> <li> flour </li> <li>sugar </li> <li> chocolate </li> </ol>
Day 4 | Daily Dose of learning
This project is inspired by the ‘100-day project’, a challenge consisting of committing to doing an activity everyday for 100 days.
I have decided to write about one thing I learn everyday for the next 30 days. This can be a skill, a deep concept to elaborate on, or a mere life lesson that made me become aware of something I consider relevant.
The decision is based on the belief that “we are what we repeatedly do”, as Valentin Perez put it.
ESSENTIALISM
Essentialism is about doing more of the right things.
Greg McKeown is the author of "Essentialism", a book about how focusing on a smaller number of very relevant things in our lives can make the difference.
Essentialism means letting go of those things in life that we do not really value. It is about narrowing down the possessions we have. But it is most importantly a way of living, a mindset that can be applied to many areas of our lives: productivity, relationships, decision-making, possessions.
Another great pillar of this concept is the recognition that is given to 'slow Yes and fast No'. As we usually are fast at accepting opportunities and saying yes to things we often do not really want to do or we do not have the time or energy to do, Essentialism provides a framework for being deliberate at saying No. The underlying idea being that if you want to deliver the most quality for what you do and you want to focus on only a small number of things in your life that matter to you the most, then it is crucial to being comfortable with saying No more often and accepting only those projects which you can give your best at.
What's more, doing things the mindful way is a pillar of Essentialism. Taking time to review past weeks, adjusting the next weeks accordingly and reviewing what's essential to you often is a fundamental part of this school of thought.
Essentialism: slow over fast; mindfulness over deliberate action; slow Yes and fast No.
Day 3 | Daily Dose of learning
This project is inspired by the ‘100-day project’, a challenge consisting of committing to doing an activity everyday for 100 days.
I have decided to write about one thing I learn everyday for the next 30 days. This can be a skill, a deep concept to elaborate on, or a mere life lesson that made me become aware of something I consider relevant.
The decision is based on the belief that “we are what we repeatedly do”, as Valentin Perez put it.
Writing Effectively | Leadership Lab
If you are writing following rules and striving to 'convey' a message, then you are doing it wrong. If your goal when you are writing is to try to bring up a new idea, then you are doing it wrong. These are some of the ideas presented by prof. Larry McEnerney in this lesson (available on Youtube).
The lesson is mainly pointed at graduate students and focuses on how to write in the academic world. However, I believe it has many interesting points. Here are some concepts I reckon are key take aways from the lesson.
Write for the reader: when writing, you do not want to think about how you can best convey your idea. Rather, understand the type and community of readers that will be exposed to your writing.
Produce something VALUABLE: this is a core concept stressed many times during the lesson by McEnerney. You write (especially in the academic world) to add value. You do not write to please the teachers (like we are trained to do in school generally). Nevertheless, the content must be valuable to the niche readers/researchers who are interested in that, not to everybody.
Writing is not about communicating your ideas, it is about changing readers' ideas. Which goes back to 'write for the reader' and the key idea of value.
Transition words such as but, and, because, unless, nevertheless help improve the organization and clarity of the content produced (content must be organized, clear, persuasive, valuable).
Start writing by stating a problem and then elaborating a valuable solution. Which is different from giving the 'background' and conveying a thesis. No one cares about the background and your internal drive that pushed you to write the piece at hand. Be persuasive, clear, valuable.
Link to video.
Day 2 | Daily Dose of learning
This project is inspired by the ‘100-day project’, a challenge consisting of committing to doing an activity everyday for 100 days.
I have decided to write about one thing I learn everyday for the next 30 days. This can be a skill, a deep concept to elaborate on, or a mere life lesson that made me become aware of something I consider relevant.
The decision is based on the belief that “we are what we repeatedly do”, as Valentin Perez put it.
How the Environment we design impacts our habits
Environment design (in terms of functional design, not necessarily aestethic) can have a great influence on the habits we have and the choices we make in life.
Most of the times, we think we have control over what we choose to do, and while I believe this is mostly true, the external environment we find ourselves in plays a role on our decisions, even if often subconsciously. This is a topic that interests me because it can be an important factor to manipulate in life, especially when it comes to establishing habits such as eating healthy. Exposure to calorie-dense and macronutrient-poor foods (usually very tasty and appealing) makes it easier to eat unhealthy, simply because this is the kind of food found in your house.
By not buying that kind of food and purchasing instead ‘healthier’, more ‘high quality’ options, we would be only exposed to good eating choices, therefore reducing friction and exposing ourselves to the good habit we want to establish.
On the other hand, what comes to my mind as a counterargument has to do with the fact that excessive restrictions can be detrimental in the medium to long term. What I mean by this is that eliminating the type of food that is usually very tempting and savoury, all at once, can lead to repression and deep need to eat high sugar, high fat stuff. Which can result in overeating when we find that category of food in front of us again.
So, designing the environment so to set up the optimal place to establish the habits we want is still crucial, in my opinion. However, this choice must first be preceded by a high level of discipline and self-awareness, which would make it ok for the person to actually enjoy the process and not suffer from excessive restrictions.
Environment design for healthy eating is just the most iconic example that I thought about; but I am aware that effective environment design has a role in many areas of our lives, whether it be productivity, creativity, or drinking alcohol and smoking.
Day 1 | Daily Dose of learning
This project is inspired by the ‘100-day project’, a challenge consisting of committing to doing an activity everyday for 100 days.
I have decided to write about one thing I learn everyday for the next 30 days. This can be a skill, a deep concept to elaborate on, or a mere life lesson that made me become aware of something I consider relevant.
The decision is based on the belief that “we are what we repeatedly do”, as Valentin Perez put it.
The Process
This morning I did some research and wrote down ideas and action plans. I discovered Valentin Perez's Re-Human project, which I found interesting and inspiring.
HTML and CSS for Web Design
Currently taking a course on Skillshare about HTML and CSS (Cascading Style sheet). Css is basically the second-step of web design after HTML, whose aim is to make the layout beautiful. I began to use Css a month ago or so, and I' ve become aware of many things just by doing. However, the course is bringing more clarity as for the structure and elements of CSS. I have only implemented some HTML seldomly on this website.
Today I have learnt the position element, the z-index and how to set margins.
Used this to make the first heading on the homepage of my website and to place it in the center of the page.
Also, downloaded Sublime Text and Git Hub, which are two programs for coding and (also) publishing websites on the internet.
