Keeping promises to yourself

When somebody agrees to do something for you, you usually expect them to keep their word. Do you expect the same when you make a promise to yourself?

So what if I don’t keep that promise?

It may be deceptively easy to convince yourself that promises you made to yourself are like borrowing money from yourself – it squares out in the end:

• If I disappoint somebody, they will be sad and annoyed by me. I can pay some social capital
• But if I’m disappointing myself, then I can let myself off the hook and erase disappointment like it was never there. Look how smart I am!

But promises exist for a reason. They are a way of deferring obligations, so you don’t have to do them now.

It’s impossible to hide your track record from yourself, so if you are not keeping your promises, you know that you can’t trust yourself.

Without this trust, you won’t be able to defer those obligations when they really matter. Even when you are super busy, overwhelmed, and exhausted, if something really matters, you will have to do it now because you will not be able to put it off for later. Future you cannot be trusted.

This manifests in the following cycle:

1. Ah, I gotta get my shit in order
2. Huge changes, new me, stuff is working like clockwork
3. Tiny wrinkle puts the brittle life system out of balance
4. I’m missing all deadlines, constantly grasping for air, total anxiety.

There are 2 ways to keep promises

1. Make damn sure you do everything in your power to keep the promise you made, spare no expense, and put in the extra effort
2. Make only the promises you intend to keep.

The trick to reducing anxiety is being really honest about what is a promise and what is a nice-to-have. With yourself, and with other people.

Keeping promises as ADHD medication

I am diagnosed with ADHD, and the single best trick I can recommend is

1. Whenever you are beginning a sidequest, note it down for later
2. Make sure you are regularly browsing those notes

Once you can trust yourself to follow up on those great ideas, you can safely let them go to your notetaking system because you know the future you will return to them.

A thing I’ve read

Zone 2 Cardio

Ever since reading up on Zone 2 cardio in A Guide to the Biggest Thing Missing From Your Fitness Routine: Zone 2 Training by Brett & Kate McKay, I have been on a research, and it seems like I do not spend enough time at this level of exercise intensity. Here is a quick summary:

1. It’s a moderate-intensity exercise and an effort that is easy to sustain:“When you’re exercising in Zone 2, you can comfortably have a conversation, but will still sound a little breathy; you’re not able to talk as clearly as when you’re at rest, but you’re still capable of talking.”
2. Apart from being comparatively easy, It has the best intensity for burning fat because it’s still an aerobic exercise.
3. The more you exercise in Zone 2, the better your body gets at burning fat for energy
4. Exercising in Zone 2 improves your overall daily fitness while exercising in higher zones improves your peak fitness.

In zones 1 and 2, you’re using primarily fat. As you shift to Zone 3, you start using carbohydrates. When you reach zone 6, you use creatine phosphate to create ATP (…) In Zone 2, your exercise intensity is at a level in which you are stimulating your cells’ mitochondrial function the most. You can meet your body’s demand for ATP using only fat and oxygen in your mitochondria

The scariest part is that when we are “motivated” and decide to get after it, we tend to exercise in zones 3 and 4. These are called “Garbage zones” by Peter Addia Md. because you’re not exercising at a high enough intensity to improve your anaerobic fitness, and you’re not exercising at a low enough intensity to improve your aerobic fitness

Excercise zone alerts on Apple watch

On Apple Watch Workouts app, you can set alerts to inform you which zone you’re in during the workout. You have to set it on the watch:

1. Open Workouts
2. Pick a workout
3. Click (…) 3 dots in the upper right corner of the workout tile
4. Scroll down to preferences
5. Alerts
6. Heart rate
7. Pick Zone 2

You will have to set it up for each workout that you use the Workout app for.

Concentration of Castles in Europe

Massimo shared a fantastic map:

Concentration of castles in Europe. The country with the most castles is Germany. It’s estimated the country has around 25,000 castles within its borders. Wales is the country with the most castles per square mile. Despite its small size, Wales had over 600 castles. The French Ministry of Culture states there are currently 11,000 castles in France. However, Parisabout mentions that, if all the private residencies in some ways similar to a castle and historic ruins were considered castles, the number could be well above 45,000. That’s why the density in France.

8 years ago, I flew my bike to France, so I can cycle a stretch of the Loire valley. Here is a video and my ranking on Loire valley castles:

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