3x10 Report - 30 - 2026

 Garden.   

Guitar.   Gymnopedia  

Projects: in 10 days (10/21-31), I did __ 30-minute chunks:

Project 1: Fretboard Mastery.   

P2-Cookbook. ju 

P3-CSU! ju  

Things I do every day

 In July of this year I listed all the daily "projects" that I try to do each day...

1. daily log from yesterday in journal
2. daily haiku
3. daily blog (with specific goals on day 1, 2, 3, 9, 10)
4. daily quotation in 5-year journal
5. daily "note 10 things that you observe"
6. read 25 pp in physical book
7. daily strength training (alternate upstairs and downstairs, upper body/ lower body/ abs) (listening to podcasts usually)
8. daily walk/bike ride
9. daily med

July 2026 Journal and Blog Review

 July 2026 Journal and Blog Review

Things to remember

• House
•  Finishing basement project: daily cleaning, trim 2nd coat
• IKEA for bookshleves
• Assemble couches, order rug, buy Costco TV
• install insinkerator
• seal coat driveway; I used 3 buckets
• water through bathroom fan
• circuit breaker goes off July 25; it rebreaks after I reset it
• Garden - 
• heave wave followed by severe storms 
• wildfire smoke from Ontario creates hazzardous conditions in Chicago (air quality alerts for a week)
• install trellis for cucumber; begin getting a few tomatoes mid July; first heirlooms week of July 20
• daily tomato slices on sandwiches week of July 27
• midweek refills of HB sugar water
• 4 days of simpson garden salad for dinner
• JG/Family
• sick july 5 and 6 
• upset bc HG at cottage and M & C drive home when power goes out; HG decides to stay with relatives
• Joe Page's dad dies
• Health
• daily "weight training" of 3 sets different exercises alternate days; 14 days in a row (continues through entire month)
• decide with Dr. Gerard to go on Remicade; pretty normally 5-7 visits to toilets; usually with some urgency
• DRL
• list 
• Fun
• World Cup games
• With JG go to Art Institute
• Avanti with parents; Patio with Anita
• bike to Oak Brook under 293 - first time its been open in years of roadwork
• meet with Andy Jones and Mike at Antico Posto
• Hobbies
• guitar - learning Weiss, fantasia
• cooking - make arepas
• Ideas
•  thinking about how I did a couple hours of HW each day and how little I got done; I need to be more discriminating about what I tackle. Make quick and dirty versions. Get things roughly done,

Blog:

• Booknotes & Commonplace
• Measure for Measure (2)
• On casuistry (5)
• Broaden and Build (12)
• Cybernetics (15)
• Civility (24)
• JS Mill 'On Liberty' (25)
• Interesting ideas
•  begin doing "3 questions answered" #posts (2) (EVOO, meditation dose)
• #* phenophases* temp changes* moving averages* (22)
• Year of Systems (6)
• Midyear taking stock (Krech) (7)
• continue 3*: write a 500-word essay, email now or never, slow maxxing (13)
• *hope for rats *renkle: cling to beauty of world; *planted, cooked, found (erpenbeck)/presents*
• *eno: push medium to limit *sprezzatura* bellflower style
• 
  
• My ideas
•  "Praise for..." list (1-34) (I had been doing this on vacation 10x/day) 
• 2016: appetite for life
• thinking about creating "core beliefs" of several meditation people I follow (28) and an index (28)
• Index Index (29) - first attempt at creating an index of types of things in the blog
• Meditation
• Ta 
• Teaching ideas
•  The moment of change (16)
• This semester I invite you to learn (18)
• Useful Ideas
•  Jibun Techo (8)
• 2016 GTD* Eat the Frog* (17)

Who am I? Table View

Relationships	Career	Learn/Express	Home Manager	Physical Upkeep
dad friend husband son	teacher boss share-er networker colleague	guitarist writer learner reader	housekeeper landscaper food maker maintenance	exercise/weights cardio diet yoga

June 2026 Journal and Blog Review

 June 2026 Journal and Blog Review

Things to remember

• Events
• Ben Veatch's memorial service - I'm called to do the speech at the last second
• 3 days of summer PD
• chaperone 2 days of Yearbook camp
• watch lots of World Cup
• Door County trip with HG
• visit mall to find couches
• House
•  Basement: prime and paint doors and trim, install trim, install closet door; caulk and paint
• fill driveway cracks
• Garden - 
• cukes and zukes growing 
• JG/ family
• HG graduation party; Balke sleeps over
• end of month JG 68.8 K
• CCL has foot surgery (mom calls to say on 6/5); CCL asks for$75 again - I repeat my offer
• HDL responds to a text saying he's worn out from a job hunt
• Health
• begin 20 min workout every day inspired on instagram "get ripped doing jump squats" guy 
• DRL
• make little woodworking gift for anniversary 
• summer begins; do 90-120 HW each day
• Fun
• Madison and Door County (pick HG up from golf camp at UW Madison) 
• Hobbies
• guitar - learn La Grima
• Ideas
• begin journal page to list inputs (music, podcasts) and AM "work"
• begin (?) journal pages to list all books read -- monthly -- by genre categories
• p. 48 - for each "grateful" I begin to write a short note/ a "so what?" or "why is this important"... after "teaching ideas/Aleks Z" I write - cross departmental sharing is good; after "walk, get rained on" I write "exciting to be in elements; after "walsh tells me he can't afford to truly retire" I write - inspiration?
• begin while on vacation, a list of "praise for..." 10x per day.
• make a list of ALL poems I like (57)
• "make a music album - 1 per year till death!"
• begin new daily poetry - 14 lines per day
• do a weekly Thursday (?) library trip
• Teaching ideas
• teaching game - in class - what verbs can describe how someone walks?  glide, lumber, stroll, bounce... which are cliche? which are fresh? evocative?
• create a list of 5 Qs for each work of literature how does the past influence us? how can I decide what to do?  (what are the problems for the characters in literature?) what are they trying to solve? 
• role call questions
• "the poetry machine" - a slide deck with number 1-16 in a table.  Each one takes kids to a memorable line of poetry, representing the WIDEST resposes to the world
• Someone in the story reminds me of someone in IRL
• poetry - kids collect 10 poems - 1-5 can be from class; list them in order
• essay cover sheet - all essays, self-record how they're doing
• sonnet writing - begin with sentences +/-/resolution....  about something that you love... then colors on a page.  (primary, secondary)... maybe a google form?

Blog:

• Booknotes & Commonplace
• Use of Pleasure by Foucault 
• Against Breaking by Ada Limon
• Interesting ideas
•  "Meanness disguised by amused contempt"
• Columbian Breakfast Cakes (25)
• Cathedral Thinking (24)
• Can you really say it's summer (22)
• One of these will turn out (Humphries) 14
• Batman effect (13)
• My ideas
•  Nonshazamable (25) 
• 4 hours in the park (24)
• Who am I  table (15), 20x (6), Who am I with job description (8) who am I (learner) (2)
• You told me about that (3)
• Meditation
• We don't have to chase after them (Salzberg) 17 
• present/peaceful/joyful (3)
• Exploring/Voyaging
• 10 Things to recall from Door County Trip
• Teaching ideas
•  Types of Poetry (25)
• Questions for writing (24)
• Sacred classroom (13)
• That's not teaching/ forward chaining (5)
• Extraordinary mix of ideas and paradoxes (3)
• Useful Ideas
•  Updates blog schedule (23)
• Creating CSS tables (15)
• Identity based habits (clear) 4

10 TILF from Cal Newport's Deep Work

Time blocking - two columns for revision during day

 

10 Things I Learned from Deep Work

1. "Attention Residue": Multitasking leaves fragments of your attention on the previous task, wrecking your depth.
2. Time Block Your Day: Plan every minute so shallow tasks do not naturally fill your empty spaces. I call this planning method time blocking. I take time blocking seriously, dedicating ten to twenty minutes every evening to building my schedule for the next day. During this planning process I consult my task lists and calendars, as well as my weekly and quarterly planning notes. My goal is to make sure progress is being made on the right things at the right  pace for the relevant deadlines.This type of planning, to me, is like a chess game, with blocks of work getting spread and sorted in such a way that projects big and small all seem to click into completion with (just enough) time to spare.  you can ensure that you consistently dedicate time to the deep efforts that matter for creative pursuits;
3. Execute a Shutdown Ritual: Every evening, you review your task lists, ensure everything important is filed away for tomorrow, look at your scoreboard, and say a specific phrase (like "Shutdown complete") to cleanly cut off your working brain.... I quickly skim every task in every list, and then look at the next few days on my calendar. These two actions ensure that there’s nothing urgent I’m forgetting or any important deadlines or appointments sneaking up on me. I have, at this point, reviewed everything that’s on my professional plate. To end the ritual, I use this information to make a rough plan for the next day. Once the plan is created, I say, “Shutdown complete,” and my work thoughts are done for the day.”
4. The Whirlwind is the Problem.  knowing what to do is rarely the problem; the real issue is execution, because we constantly get sucked into what 4DX calls the "whirlwind"—the endless flood of urgent, shallow daily tasks. if you don't choose a "Wildly Important Goal" (WIG), your default state will be fighting the whirlwind (answering emails, attending low-value meetings, and tweaking small projects)
5. Lead Metrics vs. Lag Metrics: Newport argues that traditional goals (like "publish a paper" or "write a book chapter") are lag metrics—by the time you get the result, the time to change your behavior has passed. Deep work hours are a lead metric. They measure the specific behavior you can control today that will inevitably drive the lag metric later.
6. The Physical Scoreboard: He recommends keeping a literal, visible tally of your deep work hours. Whether it is a spreadsheet, a notebook on your desk, or a checkmark on a calendar, a physical scoreboard keeps you honest. Seeing a streak of successful days creates a psychological drive to keep going.
7. The Weekly Review: Once a week, you look at your scoreboard of deep work hours. You confront the data directly. If you had a bad week, you look at why the whirlwind took over and explicitly adjust your schedule for the upcoming week.
8. I batch and habitatize. Any regularly occurring work gets turned into a habit — something I do at a fixed time on a fixed date. For example, I write blog posts on Sunday morning. I do reading for my seminar on Friday and Monday mornings. Etc. Habit-based schedules for the regular work makes it easier to tackle the non-regular projects. It also prevents schedule-busting pile-ups.
9. I serialize my projects. I keep two project queues — one from my student projects and one for my writing projects. At any one moment I’m only working on the top project from each queue. When I finish, I move on to the next. This focus lets me churn out quality results without the wasted time of constantly dancing back and forth between multiple efforts
10. I’m not available. I often work in hidden nooks of the various libraries on campus. I check and respond to work e-mail only a few times a day. People have to wait for responses from me. It’s often hard to find me. Sometimes they get upset at first. But they don’t really need immediate access. And I will always respond within a reasonable timeframe and get them what they need. So they adjust. And I get things done.

1. Four Systems of Deep Work: Monastic, bi-modal (take a day or week or month off), rhythmic (fixed time slot each day) and journalistic (fitting it in when you can)

Discipline	Corporate Concept	Cal Newport's Individual Adaptation
Discipline 1 (D1)	Wildly Important Goal	Say "No" to dozens of good projects so you can say "Yes" to one or two massive, high-impact career goals that require intense depth.
Discipline 2 (D2)	Act on Lead Measures	Ignore lag metrics (e.g., number of pages written, papers published). Track hours spent in deep work blocks instead.
Discipline 3 (D3)	Keep a Compelling Scoreboard	Build a physical, visible tally chart on your desk or wall. Tick off every completed, uninterrupted hour of deep work.
Discipline 4 (D4)	Cadence of Accountability	Commit to a Weekly Review to analyze your metrics and schedule the next week's blocks, combined with a daily Shutdown Ritual to review tasks and close the day.

• 
  

• Setup: Construct a Project Page

  Using a single-paged document in your favorite word processor, do the following:

  1. Make an Active Projects List
     List 6 – 12 of the most important projects in your life. Pull from all three relevant spheres: professional (e.g., school or work related); personal (e.g., home, family, fitness); and extra (e.g., big projects like blogging, writing a book, starting a club).
  2. Label Each Project With A Completion Criteria
     To quote David Allen, to finish a project you must “know what done looks like.” Next to each project type a concise description of what action must be completed for the project to be completed. (When you do this, you’ll notice how easy it was for you before to think about projects in a much more ambiguous, impossible to complete style).
  3. Label the Bottom Half of the Page as a “Holding Pen”
     This is where you can jot down new projects that enter your life while you’re working on the active projects. They can be stored here until you complete the current batch.
  
  
• 
  

Middle Season 29 - 2026

 

Common sneezeweed (Helenium autumnale) is a North American native perennial flower known for bright yellow, orange, or red daisy-like blooms that appear in late summer and fall

Sunday Oct 11. 

Bemis 79*

1. The smell of dried leaves in the forest leaves twirling down through the air the sound of Blue Jay
2. Hawksbill mountain
3. Queen Anne Lace dry lots of poison ivy changing color, climbing tree
4. Some sidewalks covered. Sometime a carpet. Some locust trees mostly yellow showing beginning of tree skeletons. 

MK in day

Monday

1. Burning bush igniting
2. Deep work. Culling the shallow. Learn fast. Produce things. Deliberate practice. Attention residue. Serendipity   Lag measures. Leaf measures. Day within a day. How to live on 24 hours a day

• Acts of Allegiance by Peter Cunningham: A twisty, psychological espionage thriller that Keefe notes for its portrayal of an Irish civil servant caught in the cat-and-mouse games of British intelligence. [1]
• Good Friday by Lynda La Plante: Keefe highlights this procedural crime novel (a prequel to her famous Prime Suspect series) for its visceral depiction of the 1970s London bombing campaigns. [1]
• North by Seamus Heaney: While not a novel, Keefe heavily credits this 1975 poetry collection. The book’s title, Say Nothing, is pulled directly from Heaney’s famous poem in this volume, "Whatever You Say, Say Nothing," which captures the pervasive culture of silence and survival during the conflict

1. George packer. The unwinding

Oct 16. FB. 56*. 46* DP

1. Not many leaves left on the cottonwood trees and underneath it sounds like there’s rain falling
2. The Prairie grasses now are yellows and tans. The sound of the wind in all of the leaves here’s a Sycamore all of the time.
3. Lots of brown and yellow leaves down the edges of the path padded with leaves
4. They distinctive bright yellow, turning into brown Hickory leaves. Is it banana yellow not exactly but a distinct shade.  And a great blue heron flies down downstream above the bridge.
5. Following downstream, the water carrying leaves sometimes turning over sometimes spinning held suspended just below the top sometimes floating and Jay cries
6. A couple great big Sycamore leaves, cat size sculptural on the path and in the water ducks stay by the side
7. The dirt forest floor just all yellow and brown orange leave
8. They’re right berries that are deep, blue or black, and a dark stem above the dam from last week are now almost gone, the sky, a turmoil, sometimes the sun, sometimes cloud sometimes big gray clouds, sometimes yellow and red bright light trees against the Gray
9. Not all the leaves in the path below at once right now it’s just those up there, but not here. It’s like streams of water are crossing the path ahead.
10. Low afternoon sun filters thru forest that’s mostly pure yellow

Sat Oct 17

1. First night drops to 30s
2. Back yard scattered e yellow silver maples leaves. 
3. Service berry begins to blush red
4. Pine tree needles thick cover driveway. More fallen than you’d think. 
5. Eastern white pine has 5 bunch needles. Needles flexible. 
6. Red pine has 2 needles per bundle.  Firm needles that break like a matchstick. Both of them are dropping needles now.