Dan's Daily

I’ve never regretted packing light.

I’ve often regretted packing heavy.

If I’m missing something, I can always pick up a few extras.

But throwing things out whilst on the road is a no-no. So we end up lugging around things we don’t need.

Discipline before we set out to make our packs lighter and lighter and lighter pays dividends every day on the road.

Few piano players need all 88 keys. The lowest notes can be muddy and overpowering, and the highest can be too bright to be pleasant.

Especially when playing in a band, there are frequencies occupied by other instruments, so a good pianist can fill the gap in frequencies. For example, there is often little need to play down low when a bass guitar is already filling that frequency.

Just because all 88 keys are available, it takes great skill and experience to know the right frequency range to play in. I think it’s the same the role we play in trams. Just because we can operate at a certain frequency it doesn’t mean we have to.

I took a 4-5 week break from playing tennis, and when I went back for my first lesson post-break, I could barely hit a single clean shot. My coach was gracious, but I’m sure he was scratching his head.

I should’ve tried to get a few hitting sessions beforehand, but I didn’t and paid the price of a mediocre lesson—entirely my fault.

I realised that in most skills or endeavours, we tend to get rusty quickly. We lose muscle memory. We overthink upon our return.

But that’s OK. We need a break from time to time. But it pays to build in a bit of ramp-up time when we’re getting back into the game.

Maru and I got engaged in 2019, but due to the pandemic, we only got married in 2023. And because we chose to do a familymoon—which was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made—we didn’t go on a honeymoon.

Well, this year is our year! We’re finally going on our honeymoon and spending a bunch of time by the ocean in South East Asia.

In an effort to completely unplug, I’m going to be pausing my daily writing. However, the streak is important to me, so I’ve written a number of posts ahead of time and have scheduled them to go out whilst I’m away.

I’ve never done this before, and I’m excited to see how a break makes me feel about, and reflect on, this daily writing habit.

I once heard that restaurant food tastes better than home-cooked food simply because they use more salt and butter.

Apparently that’s a myth. The magic is that chefs season at every step in the cooking process, tasting as they go, and making sure that each component tastes good before it becomes part of the larger dish.

There’s a metaphor in here for how we approach any project. A whole bunch of salt and butter added at the end won’t magically make the dish better.

If you walk into an unfamiliar kitchen and try cook a meal, it’ll take a while to learn the layout and what’s in each drawer.

There are a lot of unfamiliar kitchens out there. A new job. A more ambitious exercise program. Trying a new hobby.

Don’t stress though, the meal will still get made, even if it may take a little longer than usual and requires a bit more effort.

Maru loves having fresh flowers in the home, so for my UK readers, here’s a great flower hack: buy them from Tesco.

Yes, your run-of-the-mill supermarket has excellent flowers. They last for at least a week, sometimes up to ten days, and are often 20-30% of the price you’d pay at a florist.

A few times I’ve bought flowers for Maru from a dedicated florist thinking the quality would justify the price, and I have been consistently disappointed.

Maru now buys a few bunches from Tesco and makes her own arrangements. She often puts them in little vases she made at pottery. It brings a unique liveliness and colour to our home.

There is a strong correlation between the amount I’m reading, and the ideas I have for this blog. When I’m reading a lot, I feel like I have ideas coming out my eyes. But when I’m in a busy spell at work and I’m struggling to find the time, I’m more likely to spend time staring at a blank page.

When I get into an ideas rut, I remember the Charlie Munger quote, “In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time — none, zero.”

Perhaps there’s a reason why the saying goes, ‘Draw a line in the sand’.

Once we draw the line, the tide, the wind, and that dog running along the beach will all work to erase the line.

We have to keep drawing it to remind ourselves repeatedly of why we’re here, and what we’re willing and unwilling to do.

It’s not always about getting everything right.

Sometimes the real value is in making mistakes faster; enabling us to learn and change approach before we spend too much time on a dud idea.

I have a folder in my writing software called Emergency. The idea behind the folder is to have a few blog posts on hand in case I find myself in a pinch and need to post something quickly.

The funny thing is many of these posts have sat in that folder for years, and when I’ve gone to use them, I’ve found that the message either no longer resonates, or I would like to communicate the point differently.

It’s definitely something that sounds good in theory, but doesn’t really work in practice. It’s better to just sit down, think, and write a fresh post.

“It’s impossible for a person to begin to learn what they think they already know.”—Epictetus

I’m trying to increase my ratio of questions to opinions.

When an idea hits me for a post, I have to write it down, right away. At least the concept or idea.

If I don’t do it, I’ll typically find myself later in the day forgetting the idea, and spending a bunch of time trying to remember.

My blog posts are low stakes — I can always come up with another idea. But the principle of “write it down, right away” is especially useful for higher stake tasks.

I watched the Best Picture nominated film Conclave today. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The conclave is the process by which cardinals of the Catholic Church appoint a new pope after one has either died or resigned. It’s essentially rounds of voting that continue until a cardinal has a majority. The factions that form around the leading cardinals and how their support waxes and wanes over days is fascinating.

Ralph Fiennes is excellent as the Dean of the College of Cardinals, and following him as he runs the conclave is a unique—albeit dramatised—insight into a very secretive process.

I have a caffeine double standard.

Scenario 1: During Sunday-Thursday, when I have work the next morning, my last coffee will be around 15:00.

Scenario 2: If I’m on holiday, or say at a wedding, my last coffee could be after midnight. An espresso at the end of a meal, for example.

In scenario 1, I’m afraid of missing sleep.

In scenario 2, I’m less concerned.

Ironically, I’ve never had a problem with caffeine in scenario 2. But I have had problems with scenario 1 if I have a coffee too late in the afternoon.