Making a Pact With Myself

In my first blog post , I made a pact with myself:

I will write daily about what I have read the day before on my blog for the next 5 days.

I also promised to explain what a pact is: A pact is the fundamental instrument of Tiny Experiments, the book I am currently reading. It is “a simple and repeatable activity”, meant to enable experimentation. Its template fits into a single sentence:

I will [action] for [duration].

One of the ideas of Anne-Laure Le Cunff is that you don’t need a “big purpose” in your life. She even goes as far as calling it “the Tyranny of Purpose”. To be honest, I have felt this tyranny: Over the last years, I have focussed so much on finding “that one big purpose” that I have lost track of most other things¹. The author replaces the single purpose with a life full of sidequests and experimentation. As someone who feels the itch to try out new things on a weekly basis, this sounds like fun. 🥸

Like most self-help authors, Le Cunff came up with a clever backronym for her vehicle of thought:

• Purposeful
• Actionable
• Continuous
• Trackable

Purposeful instead of a single purpose. Actionable so you can just start instead of overplanning first. Continuous so you can actually experiment with it instead of having one-off experiences. Trackable with a simple “yes or no” instead of complex OKRs.

“Writing a blog about what I read helps me understanding the content”

An experiment is meant to validate a hypothesis. My hypothesis in question is “Writing a blog about what I read helps me understanding the content”. I have asked myself often whether I like writing. In the last month I have journaled daily. So writing a (somewhat technical) blog is the next step.

Tomorrow I will write about The Programmer’s Brain, a book I currently read in preparation of a new workshop concept. 🤓