As professionals, we’re often asked for our opinions on what’s possible in a given timeframe. Naturally, we look to our past experiences with similar problems, pair them with our  understanding of the systems in which we work, and calculate a response: _To do X, we’ll need Y months._

Too often, though, _Y months_ is not quick enough, so we’re asked how to do it faster. Thus begin negotiations of project scope, staffing needs, and more, which can leave us feeling frustrated and  guilty when we inevitably cut down the ambitious ideas of our coworkers.

Enter: “_What would it take to make this happen?_”

It’s a simple question—bordering on naivety—but one that we may ask to the world, earnestly and with the expectation of an answer. It allows us to dive into investigation lead by genuine curiosity instead of our preconceived assumptions.

Much of the work we do, especially in the consumer tech industry, is work that has already been solved by other people. The day-to-day work of building an app, for example: adding lists of media content, chat features, delightful animations—these are common in the ecosystem. We have the benefit of already knowing that what we’re building is, indeed, very possible. So we can view the problem as a puzzle, holding it in our hands and examining it from new angles. _How could I make this in only Y months? What it would it take to make this happen?_ We gracefully challenge what we know about what it takes to do something. 

The tech industry moves quickly, and it’s quite likely that there’s a simpler solution: an open-source library, third-party company, GPT4 assist, or whatever that we could employ to complete the project in a fraction of the time. Maybe there’s even been an update to the framework that we already use and we’ve missed it because we’ve been doing *X* the same way for years.

This isn’t a recommendation that we be unrealistic about our position, say yes to everything, or try to please all of our coworkers. Very often, _this isn’t possible_ is the correct answer. But we may find that there are creative alternatives that we’ve missed out on by treating our amassed cache of prior experience as the definitive end, instead of employing those experiences as seeds for new, curiosity-led investigation.

What happens when we do discover a way to make it work within our current system, and within the resource constraints of our business? We grow. Our skillset improves, our understanding of the problem space expands, and our project manifests as it was designed to be (and maybe even better). 

We also earn the repute as a coworker who can get things done: a valuable reputation to have.

But if, after all of our curiosity, we’re unable to find a way to make it work within the given constraints? Then we’re just back where we would have been if we had said from the start: *no, it’s not possible.* But we’ll likely have a list of alternatives that we can offer back to our teammates, along with the confidence that amongst them are better options. The time we spent coming to this conclusion is not lost; thoughtfully marking the paths we didn’t take is equally as important as finding the one that we do.

It might just be me, but approaching problems this way is also more enjoyable. It’s self-preserving. Like debugging a particularly nasty issue, it’s much lighter on the soul to tinker around with different solutions, rather than trying to force _what I know should work_ on the problem and becoming stressed when it persists; when it audaciously doesn’t bend itself to my will.

----

I’ve been discussing this as an approach for work, but it’s equally applicable outside of the office as well:

- _What would it take_ to live in Europe for a year?
- _What would it take_ to play Counter Strike 1.6 on my Macbook Pro, even though it’s an old game that doesn’t run on 64-bit architectures?

These are problems (some smaller than others) that I may have dismissed as _ah, well, I guess it’s not meant to be_. But, let me tell you, it’s way more electrifying to solve creative outcomes for yourself rather than letting initial roadblocks keep you from what you want.

What would it take to make this happen?

Dedicating time to reading a book is a consequential decision: the hours you spend with the book are hours you don’t spend elsewhere. Let’s celebrate the time we spent reading this year, and reflect on the best parts!

In 2022, I read 24 books. One shy of my 2022 reading goal—argh! (I might power through the rest of _The Three-Body Problem_ just to meet it…). 13 books were fiction, and 11 non-fiction. Here they are in order of date read:

#### Fiction

- _Matrix_, Lauren Groff
- _Project Hail Mary_, Andy Weir
- _Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff_, Christopher Moore
- _Foundation_, Isaac Asimov
- _Klara and the Sun_, Kazuo Ishiguro
- _The Immortalists_, Chloe Benjamin
- _Heart of Darkness_, Joseph Conrad
- _A Wizard of Earthsea_, Ursula Le Guin
- _Tortilla Flat_, John Steinbeck
- _The Count of Monte Cristo_, Alexander Dumas
- _Manhattan Beach_, Jennifer Egan
- _All the Light We Cannot See_, Anthony Doerr
- _The Overstory_, Richard Powers

#### Non-fiction

- _Mythology_, Edith Hamilton
- _The Big Short_, Michael Lewis
- _Beginners_, Tom Vanderbilt
- _The Psychology of Money_, Morgan Housel
- _Four Thousand Weeks_, Oliver Burkeman
- _Draft No. 4_, John McPhee
- _Zen in the Art of Writing_, Ray Bradbury
- _When We Ruled_, Robin Walker
- _Programming Typescript_, Boris Cherny
- _On the Shortness of Life_, Seneca
- _The Passionate Programmer_, Chad Fowler

Overall, it was a good haul inspired by friend recommendations, classics, and titles that popped up online and sounded interesting. Compared to years past, however, very few of the books had a meaningful impact on me. Two favorites, though, stood out:

**_A Wizard of Earthsea_**, Ursula Le Guin

> It is no secret. All power is one in source and end, I think. Years and distances, stars and candles, water and wind and wizardry, the craft in a man's hand and the wisdom in a tree's root: they all arise together. My name, and yours, and the true name of the sun, or a spring of water, or an unborn child, all are syllables of the great word that is very slowly spoken by the shining of the stars. There is no other power. No other name.

Le Guin wrote a _A Wizard of Earthsea_ in 1968. It’s a classic of the fantasy genre; a progenitor of countless novels in the half-century since. By modern fantasy standards, it’s a short read at just under two-hundred pages and the prose is _wonderful_. She pulls you into the world of Earthsea by gracefully weaving hauntingly beautiful sentences with a simple and accessible story. It’s truly a joy to read, and one that I’ll revisit often when I want to wrap myself in a blanket of her writing.

----

**_Four Thousand Weeks_**, Oliver Burkeman

> Why assume that an infinite supply of time is the default, and mortality the outrageous violation? Or to put it another way, why treat four thousand weeks as a very small number, because it’s so tiny compared to infinity, rather than treating it as a huge number, because it’s so many more weeks than if you had never been born? Surely only somebody who’d failed to notice how remarkable it is that anything *is*, in the first place, would take their own being as such a given—as if it were something they had every right to have conferred upon them, and never to have taken away. So maybe it’s not that you’ve been cheated out of an unlimited supply of time; maybe it’s almost incomprehensibly miraculous to have been granted any time at all.

Do you ever feel that an author wrote a book specifically for you, and that it was published only as a means of delivering it inconspicuously into your hands?

Ok, neither do I. But this one is close. _Four Thousand Weeks_ was the perfect read for me this summer as I was gearing up to start a new job. Burkeman molds together philosophy, productivity, and humor to get you to really stare yourself in the face and be real with how you’re spending your limited time on earth (four thousand weeks is roughly the amount of time the average human lives). 

He asks you to consider if it’s really worth depleting all of your energy into a job that you don’t find particularly meaningful. He asks you to consider why you’re so focused on _doing more_ and _productivity hacking_ when maybe you should be more focused on _what_ you’re spending your limited lifetime on (e.g, probably not all those emails in your backlog). He lets you in on the secret that at no point in history has anyone really achieved _work-life balance_. He shifts your perspective from _life is unfairly short_ to _life is wondrous and lucky to begin with_.

I don’t take notes while reading books. I wrote 15 pages of notes for this one. There’s so much juicy goodness packed in these 200 pages that I still revisit my notes every few weeks to replenish my life-focus stores after they gradually evaporate during day-to-day life and work.

> The average human lifespan is absurdly, terrifyingly, insultingly short. But that isn’t a reason for unremitting despair, or for living in an anxiety-fueled panic about making the most of your limited time. It’s a cause for relief. You get to give up on something that was always impossible—the quest to become the optimized, infinitely capable, emotionally invincible, fully independent person you’re officially supposed to be. Then you get to roll up your sleeves and start work on what’s gloriously possible instead.


If there’s one thing you take away from this post, it’s that I recommend you read this book.

----

Other honorable mentions from this year, in no specific order:

#### Fiction

- _Project Hail Mary_, Andy Weir: If you like pragmatic, light-hearted science fiction with quick-moving plot.
- _Foundation_, Isaac Asimov: If you like far-reaching, haunting, and expansive worlds that question the nature of humanity and how civilizations rise and fall.
- _The Immortalists_, Chloe Benjamin: If you want to read an intriguing, multiple-point-of-view story in a single day.
- _All the Light We Cannot See_, Anthony Doerr: If you want to read beautiful, immediate prose and root for two characters to win over the bleak backdrop of World War II.
- _The Overstory_, Richard Powers: If you want something literary, sweeping, and multi-generational, with the most intricate descriptions of nature and trees you’ll find in fiction.

#### Non-fiction

- _The Psychology of Money_, Morgan Housel: If you like simple, high-level advice for how to think about money and your finances, or if you’re curious how other people think about theirs.
- _Zen in the Art of Writing_, Ray Bradbury: If you want a peek into the brain of a man who truly finds vigor and joy in his craft.
- _On the Shortness of Life_, Seneca: If you want to supplement your reading of _Four Thousand Weeks_ by adding even more inspiration to _live immediately_.

----

As always, receiving book recommendations is one of my favorite things! Please reach out to me however we are connected with the book or books that has impacted you the most recently.

One fiction book and one non-fiction book take the cake for Best of Books this year. Rounding out with the other 22 books I read, including a few more recommendations at the end.

A Year in Books: 2022

What better reason to write than sharing something that I love?

It’s not worth anyone’s time if I write a full-on review for each of these books. It’s easy enough to google thousands of well-written reviews. But in writing this I also hope to examine the works that have been foundational in my understanding of humanity’s history, to reflect on how I’ve been biased by them, and to uncover where I can supplement further learning. So, here we go!

---

# [Guns, Germs, and Steel](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1842.Guns_Germs_and_Steel)
_Jared Diamond, 1999_

> That is, the different historical trajectories of Africa and Europe stem ultimately from differences in real estate.

When I was 23 I figured it was about time in life to start reading. One of the first books I bought was _Guns, Germs, and Steel_. I can’t claim to know much about history today, but back at that time I knew exactly nothing, save for what my brain had somehow held onto from grade school (_Julius Caesar existed; the Pyramids, too_). This book was my first real venture into world history and anthropology: the flowering of human civilization, the emergence of agriculture and empires, when we took up animal husbandry and writing. I was engrossed! 

It was also foundational in my relationship between humanity and nature. Before, I would look out at modern society and wonder how the hell could humans have built TVs and WiFi routers. How did we get to a place from where trees, rivers, and rocks could be crafted into microchips? _Guns, Germs, and Steel_ showed me the path from primitive humans to the modern day. Additionally, it sparked my joy of anthropology and ancient history—here I am, 9 years later, writing about it.

With any book where a single author _explains_ history, it’s good to be wary of not placing full trust in every detail. The broad strokes Diamond paints with are provoking, but remember that this book (like many others) holds _theories_ about humanity’s growth. We’ll see if time proves these correct.

---

# [The History of the Ancient World](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/225947.The_History_of_the_Ancient_World)
_Susan Wise Bauer, 2007_

> Many thousands of years ago, the Sumerian king Alulim ruled over Eridu: a walled city, a safe space carved out of the unpredictable and harsh river valley that the Romans would later name Mesopotamia. Alulim’s rise to power marked the beginning of civilization, and his reign lasted for almost thirty thousand years.

If _Guns, Germs, and Steel_ introduced me to the wide strokes of human development, _The History of the Ancient World_ filled in the the lines with ancient peoples and civilizations. Bauer covers the histories of the most prominent societies from the earliest histories of writing until the fall of the Roman Empire. 

What this book gave me more than anything else was a sense of placement for when and where co-temporal civilizations flourished. Here were the Romans, and there the Parthians; then the Persians with Cyrus, the Zhou kings of China, the Assyrians, the Mauryans, the Assyrians again, the Greeks, the Egyptians. All the way back to Alulim and his thirty-thousand year reign.

The quote above hints at another joy that this book helped me discover: the blending of historic fact and myth. Ancient history is so interesting to me because that we don’t _really_ know what happened thousands of years ago. We just trust that the few historians and monks who dictated their accounts were accurate, even though they were often multiple degrees (and often centuries) removed from their subjects, and biased towards their own leanings.

---

# [Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23692271-sapiens)
_Yuval Noah Harari, 2015_

> How do you cause people to believe in an imagined order such as Christianity, democracy or capitalism? First, you never admit that the order is imagined.

I was surprised to learn that _Sapiens_ is [a meme in tech culture](https://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-loves-sapiens-2019-2), associated with Silicon Valley tech bros. I guess I fit into that!

Regardless, it’s mega-popular for good reason. I picked it up to learn more about human evolution, but I surprised at how impactful it was for me by questioning assumptions about modern society. _Sapiens_ showed me—for example—the interplay of religion, science, and capitalism in the 1700s, as well as the abstract definitions of nations, businesses, gender, money, and more.

Above any set of distinct facts or trivia, _Sapiens_ is useful because it highlights the biological _what is_ from the cultural _what it means_. We ascribe meaning to physical reality (e.g, this patch of grass underneath my shoe is part of the idea we call “Michigan”), but these meanings are an entirely manmade agreement amongst society. “Michigan” isn’t tangible. You can’t pick it up or hold it. Splintering the meaning of something from its earthly, tactile reality was a new concept for me in my mid-20s. This breakthrough also helped me in other, seemingly unconnected areas, such as internalizing the stoic idea of separating one’s reaction or interpretation of an event from the event itself.

If someone asked me for a recommendation on where to first start reading about the history of humanity, this is the book I would offer.

---

# [The Silk Roads](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25812847-the-silk-roads)
_Peter Frankopan, 2015_

> From the beginning of time, the centre of Asia was where empires were made.

Honestly, the reason I first picked up this book was because of the the cover art. It’s gorgeous! 

But, thankfully, the content lives up to its cover’s promise. I wanted to learn more about history in the Middle East and Steppe, and _The Silk Roads_ offers just that. It reframes the typical Westero-centric societal progression of _Greece → Rome → Medieval Europe_ to a history that’s centered on the often more impressive cultures to the east of the Mediterranean. What’s more, it discusses how even modern conflicts (e.g: WWII, The Cold War) were rooted in the pursuit for primacy in Asia.

Each chapter is simple to read and self-contained; the book is easily digestible. I read a large portion of it in a hammock on the beach in Eleuthera. _The Silk Roads_ deepened my love for the old history of the world between Asia Minor and Himalayan Mountains.

---
# [When We Ruled](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2858266-when-we-ruled)
_Robin Walker, 2006_

> It was in 1324 … that the world awoke to the splendor and grandeur of Mali.

I bought this book after reflecting on my (very, very, _very_ limited) knowledge of the world. When it came to Africa, all I knew was ancient Egypt, followed by a great gap, then European colonialism. _When We Ruled_ is an extensively researched tome that encompasses all periods of the history of Africa.

I picked-and-chose my way through the chapters that I found most interesting. The prose is, admittedly, quite dry and lacking of narrative. But I loved discovering new figures and cultures that I had little or no knowledge of beforehand, notably:


1. Ta-Seti
2. Yoruba
3. Mali
4. Eredo
5. Ana Nzinga
6. Ibn Battuta’s _Travels in Asia and Africa_
7. Caliphate of Cordoba

As is so often the case when plunging into a new area of study, I came out with more questions than I started with. Each of the above topics is a launching point for even more learning opportunity! But I’m thankful that my model of humanity has been given a little more dimension, especially as these places and people are so hidden from the typical curriculum of world history.

---

I’ll never be able to learn all that I want to—or all that I should—but I can see now where I’d like to explore more next: the ancient Americas, the Indian subcontinent, and northern Steppe region. If anyone has any suggestions for good resources, I’d love to hear them. Please ping me on my Twitter [@jessetweettweet](https://twitter.com/jessetweettweet).

Revisiting books I've enjoyed on anthropology and ancient history. Also requesting your help!

5 Books on the Histories of Humanity

After just two months, the [WordPress version](https://jmhendme.wordpress.com/) of jmhend.me is being retired!

I didn’t plan to built a website from scratch, nor did I want to. I used WordPress as a foot in the door to site generation: no coding required, just click a few buttons, choose a theme, and the blog is up and running. Instead of spending time figuring out how to build a website, I could focus on the content of the posts. I did not know how to make sites. I’ve been a software engineer for a decade, but most all of that time has been developing Android apps.

However.

You know how on the WordPress site there’s a cover image for each blog post? It shows beneath the title and above the post content, like so:

![wp_post.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dfs6gdqqd/image/upload/v1662147747/wp_post_ed376b0cf9.png)

For the life of me, I could not get the *damned* cover image to have the same width as the post content! 

![gaps.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dfs6gdqqd/image/upload/v1662147840/gaps_0a8fb7253d.png)

I tweaked all of the values that the site theme allowed. I tried add extra layers of CSS (without really knowing what I was doing) to target the image’s width. It just *did not work*. 

Let us observe:

![gaps.gif](https://res.cloudinary.com/dfs6gdqqd/image/upload/v1662147866/gaps_5ccb3d1433.gif)

_Why does it keep reseting?!?!_

**_But Jesse, you should know how to do this. You are a software engineer with 7 years of FAANG experience._**

Listen, buddy. It’s not my wheelhouse. Leave me alone.

**_Tsk tsk._**

… gah, fine!

With this one width issue, I was thrown into the cockpit, buckled in—twice, across both shoulders—and launched in a land-speeder into the wildness of web development. 

Why shouldn’t I learn how to build a website? [goodreads.com](https://www.goodreads.com/), for example, is not so great. I like books. What if I made my own, smaller version for me and my friends? Maybe I can figure this out. 

Enter, research:


1. Front-end frameworks
2. Back-end frameworks
3. Deployment
4. Typescript
5. Routing
6. Lambdas
7. Static site generation
8. Server side rendering
9. Docker
10. Redis
# ...
94. Nginx

Perhaps, a narrative will better explain my brain at this time:

----
>The speeder crashes, yet I exit barely harmed; only my forehead will need stitches.
>
> I stand on a dusty highway that cuts a red desert. Behind me, five miles or so, is a town. I’m drawn to it; I could walk back in under two hours. A giant, green Android rises from a pillar in its center, slowly rotating.
>
> Ahead, a sandstorm rages. Riptides of sand push and pull against each other, mixing and morphing into even larger swells. The sound crashes like the ocean. With each step forward the noise presses harder on my ears, and now it is the cacophony of a hive of alarmed bees punishing an intruder. The towering storm moves in a way that has design; a purpose. Some intelligent machination drives it, but I do not understand its meaning. I wince as sand stings my skin. In the tumult is a repeating whisper: "...jamstack ... jamstack..."
----
**_A bit dramatic, don’t you think?_**

Just let me have this one, ok?

**_Hmph._**

What’s uncomfortable is how when first setting foot into a topic, the details and information I initially collect cause the knowledge to be _more_ arcane, not less. The whole “what you don’t know you don’t know” slice of the [pie chart](https://res.cloudinary.com/dfs6gdqqd/image/upload/v1662149505/pie_chart_xwmbzi.png) reaches out and smacks my face. This is the point that feels the most hopeless when being a beginner.

But truthfully, though, I’m not a total beginner. I’ve worked with server engineers for as long as I’ve built apps. Instagram uses the python back-end framework Django, for example. I know that React is popular for front-end. There’s a thread to pull on.

“Hey Google, does Django work with React?”

“*How To Build a To-Do application Using Django and React”*
- *“Using React with Django to create an app: Tutorial”*
- *“Building a React.js Application using Django REST Framework”*
- *… and 21,799,997 other results.*

Neat. “How about absolute beginner tutorials?”

*”Django For Beginners - Full Tutorial”*
- *“A Complete Beginner's Guide to Django”*
- *”Python Django Tutorial: Full-Featured Web App Part 1 - Getting Started”*

In this way, I found a wonderful beginner [tutorial series](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmljXZIypDc) on Django that spans 15 videos and 7 hours. I watched it all and did all the exercises. I ate it up. I could totally build out a backend for my simpler-than-goodreads project idea. And for front-end, a six hour beginner’s course on CSS? Inject it directly into me. 

But then I chatted with a few coworkers—server folk—who recommended the Next.js framework. Way simpler than Django, which is old news. Alright, then.

“Hey Google, what is Next.js.”

*“A Complete Beginner's Guide to Next.js”*
- *“Build a website with NextJS and TailwindCSS: Tutorial Project”*
- *“Build a blog with Next (React.js) and Strapi”*

Hmm, maybe I should just rebuild the blog first instead of building out a whole new product. That’s simpler. Now, what on Earth is a “*Strapi*”?

It’s like bringing a cat into a new home. Subjecting him to the whole house at once can be overwhelming, so first you keep him in the bedroom. After a few days he’s made the bedroom his comfort zone and has calmed down. Then, you open the door and let him explore, knowing he can always run back under the bed.

Having understood the very basics of Django and Heroku deployment, deploying a Next.js site to Vercel was much easier to grok (*they also just make it [really easy for you to do](https://nextjs.org/docs/api-reference/create-next-app)*). Then, adding content-management with [Strapi](https://strapi.io/) was, again, easier than expected, having already lain the web server foundations. It’s invigorating to see just how much more of the stack makes sense after only a few weeks of exploration and practice. 

This is where the joy of beginner-hood is: after clearing the initial punch-in-the-mouth from the magnitude of the work ahead, you recognize the small units of understanding that you’ve grappled with and have added to your backpack. There’s still miles of distance to cover, but the path now seems navigable. There’s a bit of clearing ahead of you, and—oh look—you’re holding a compass and a machete.

![stress_chart.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dfs6gdqqd/image/upload/v1662148412/stress_chart_77f1faf928.png)

But what’s more: you can give yourself permission to be **bad**. There’s freedom in accepting your badness: to write sloppy, spaghetti code that works *just enough*; to build a coffee table that’s a bit off level; to continuously switch narrative structure, verb tense, and point-of-view in the same piece of writing (*stares at camera*). It’s so relieving to lean back and look at something you made—that nobody told you to make—to realize that it’s bad, and still say, “Nice. That’s *my* bad thing.”

How often are we allowed to be bad at what we do? 

In our jobs? Nope. 

In our relationships? I certainly hope not. 

So, why not in our hobbies? Of course we’re bad as we’re learning. That’s *why* we learn in the first place. 

—

If you’ve made it this far, then it’s obvious that I did go on to build my site from the ground up (*you’re looking at it!*). I detail on the [/boot](https://www.jmhend.me/boot) page the tech stack I ended up going with. I also included a link to the source code so that we may all bask in the badness of the code together, and so that hopefully you, a more knowledgeable person, will submit pull-requests to improve it.

I’m having more fun with programming now than I ever have. As for what’s next, I’m going to take a machete-swing at this book-based project that’s simmering in my brain. It’s certainly more complex than a static personal site, but it seems perfectly achievable given time, patience, and a healthy dose of controlled bad-ness.

🦎

----

_Recommended beginner web development resources:_

[Web Development in 2022](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqzUcMzfV1w)
- [Python Django Tutorial (15 parts)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmljXZIypDc)
- [Blog with Next.js and Strapi CMS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=599ogMbXIyA)
- [HTML & CSS Full Course](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3e-cpL7ofc)
- [Next.js Getting Started](https://nextjs.org/docs/getting-started)
- [Tailwind CSS: Core Concepts](https://tailwindcss.com/docs/utility-first)

Image widths got me doing web development for the first time.

(This) new website is now live!

Eight years ago, in the frigid February winter of Detroit, I was in a rut. 

Exercising regularly had always been challenging to me, and I was continuously unsuccessful in establishing a routine. My nightly meal was a quinoa bowl with garlic powder and mozzarella cheese mixed in (_it’s actually tasty; don’t knock it ‘til you try it!_). I spent the majority of my time either working or scrummaging through Netflix and Reddit in search of entertainment. 

Born from this rut was the Superweek: seven consecutive days of, essentially, living the version of myself that at the time I thought of as “successful”. Not successful in terms of status, but of personal abilities. For me, that meant: (1) being in good physical shape, (2) being a great cook, and (3) being well-read. To satisfy completion in these three areas, I devised a schedule to **exercise daily**, **cook a new meal every night**, and **to lock myself out of all forms of digital media** (_so I’d be forced to read the pile of books that had accumulated on my desk_). And that’s exactly what I did for the next week.

That’s it. That’s Superweek: overloading yourself with the many habits you yearn to do regularly. It’s a deeply personal plan, unique to the individual. Even to the current perspective of the same individual—I’ve completed five Superweeks in the past decade, and each time I’ve included a different set of behaviors to focus on, including meditation, writing, and diet changes. You stack multiple behaviors that you wish you habitually practiced into a single, “super” week. In my experience, each Superweek spawns during periods of low activity and mood—when I consider myself in a rut. And each time I come out of the week feeling more energized and positive.

In reflecting on Superweeks, a few key learnings stand out to me.

----

**1. Superweek is not a tool to establish new habits.**

Superweek is a stark violation of how we currently understand successful habit formation. The main premise of James Clear’s mega-popular [Atomic Habits](https://smile.amazon.com/Atomic-Habits-Proven-Build-Break/dp/0735211299/) is that habits are cemented by incremental changes in your behavior, not by shocking your lifestyle with multiple, immediate differences. “Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement,” says Clear. In my current life, I can attest to this as well. You should not expect all Superweek behaviors to stick after the week ends.

**2. Motivation is most valuable in behavior _planning_, not in immediate _activity_.**

Motivation is powerful, yet fleeting. It’s well documented that relying on motivation does not lead to sustained success in habit formation. Self-discipline is a more reliable tool, but still prone to exhaustion. Instead, when motivation strikes you, use that surge of energy to build plans that will help you continue rituals when motivation inevitably flees you and returns to the sky. 

If your goal is to cook a new meal every day, don’t wait until Wednesday evening after work to decide which recipe you want to cook, research which ingredients you need, and then drive to the store. Such barriers will increase the likelihood you fall back to what’s already comfortable and easy, especially after a draining work day. For me, motivation was already high when deciding to undergo Superweek, and it was way easier mid-week to stick to the schedule because I had done my planning and shopping all at once on the Sunday evening before. Jim Loehr speaks to this in [The Power of Full Engagement](https://smile.amazon.com/Power-Full-Engagement-Managing-Performance/dp/0743226755):

> “Since will and discipline are far more limited and precious resources than most of us realize, they must be called upon very selectively. Because even small acts of self-control use up this limited reservoir, consciously using this energy for one activity means it will be less available for the next one. The sobering truth is that we have the capacity for very few conscious acts of self-control in a day.”

Some modern work-ethic culture touts extreme self-discipline as the right way to achieve your personal goals. It glorifies pain—that if you’re truly going to make changes you must persevere through difficulty for it to be meaningful. Theodore Roosevelt said, “Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty.” I believe there’s truth in this quote, but that doesn’t mean that you must stubbornly throw your head against the brick wall of change just for the glory of the struggle. It will involve effort, sure, but you can and should ease the burden of stress to which you submit yourself. Give yourself a break. Make specific plans—what you’ll cook, when you’ll cook it, access to ingredients—ahead of time so that your mid-week self has it as easy as possible to carry out your goals

**3. Completing Superweek is a powerful mood booster.**

I always finish Superweek feeling much better than when I started it. In reflecting on why this is, I cannot connect Superweek to many science-backed reasons, or proven theories on human behavior. So—bear with me—this section is pure conjecture backed by reasons that resonate with me.

1. Superweek habits are often physically healthy. Exercising, eating better foods, meditation, etc. There is thankfully an abundance of research on these behaviors to support physical well-being, and thus, mood.
2. Action is more energizing than dreaming. You tap into a well of joy when _doing_ things that align with your personal goals. The important part here is “_align with your personal goals_”, not expectations that others place on you.
3. You prove to yourself that you’re capable of accomplishing your goals. Even though you’re executing on behaviors that you find alluring for one week, that’s still likely seven more days than you typically do. Sure, lasting habit formation will unlikely occur out of Superweek, but for a short time you lived the life that you envisioned your successful self lives. You did that; it’s a reality in the books that can’t be scratched away. You’ve seen you can get there. Now, maybe you can start with one of those behaviors and work on it until it sticks as a weekly habit.

_EDIT_: My good friend Dr. David Sparkman, PhD Psychology offered the "[self-discrepancy theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-discrepancy_theory)" as a possible explanation to this phenomenon: 

> "The **self-discrepancy theory** states that individuals compare their "actual" self to internalized standards or the "ideal/ought self". Inconsistencies between "actual", "ideal" and "ought" are associated with emotional discomforts... Self-discrepancy is the gap between two of these self-representations that leads to negative emotions."

If there's truth to this theory, then Superweek closes the gap between your "actual" and "ideal" selves, thus reducing self-discrepancy.

**4. Fulfilling promises you make to yourself is itself a habit, and a powerful one.**

It’s easy to say “I’m going to work out tomorrow.” Actually going to the gym the next day is the hard part, especially if it’s not already a habit of yours. I know from decades of personal experience that not following through on fitness goals feels bad. Not only do I miss out on the physical benefits offered by exercise, but I feel as though I’ve failed—failed my family, my friends, my past and future selves.

Superweek is a tool that I’ve accidentally used to keep promises to myself I might have otherwise broken. Knowing there’s a definite end, seven days away, to the period of self-accountability made it much easier to follow through on Superweek goals. I kept all the promises to myself I made. And that fulfillment felt good in itself. It improved my self-esteem. It was a habit I didn’t know existed, one that can be honed and sharpened, and it’s been my most important takeaway from Superweek. Extenuating circumstances aside, to this day I keep the promises I make to myself in this way.

----

So, all this to say: _Is Superweek worth it?_

I’m biased, of course, but I say absolutely yes. If not just for the elevated mood I’ve found myself in during and afterwards, but for what you learn about yourself during the week. I imagine (_and hope!_) that for every person who does Superweek, there’s a unique article like this one with unique learnings they’ve uncovered about themselves.

If you’re interested in doing Superweek, write down a few habits that you’d like to stick to weekly. Then, schedule out a week of those habits in as much detail as you can. Finally, throughout the week, fulfill the promises you made to yourself by sticking to your plan.

I’d love to hear about your experience if you’d like to share! I’m on Twitter at [@jessetweettweet](https://twitter.com/jessetweettweet).

Superweek: overloading yourself with the many habits you yearn to do regularly. Reflections on the successes and failures of this habit-trying approach.

Four learnings from Superweeks: from habits to self-promises

Writing forces you to meticulously examine your own thoughts and beliefs. The swirling, incorporeal thoughts that bounce off the walls of your brain are wrangled, stretched, and pushed through your fingers onto the page. It’s a terribly stressful, frustrating, and comical process. Even in writing this simple post I’ve found myself googling certain phrases I use semi-regularly (e.g. “force multiplier”) to ensure that I understand the meaning exactly correct. (_It turns out I was using it slightly wrong, which is why you don’t see that phrase here at all._)

But this stress is healthy. It’s an exercise in organization. You look inward. You grab onto a part of your mind, study it, and place it in a box. You find a similar thought and place it in the same box. You find that what you believed was a chunk of supporting reasoning for that thought is actually unrelated, so you either discard it or find a different box to put it in, a bit further away. It’s a lot of work just to write a few paragraphs. And for topics that you aren’t knowledgeable on, you first have to amass that room of wild thoughts by reading books.

That’s why I’m starting this site now. To engage with my own disorganized brain, and to learn more about topics that I have interest in but have lacking knowledge. Topics will be broad, but likely surround personal growth, cooking, books, writing itself, software engineering, and interesting stories found along the way.

Writing is famously an isolating venture. By crafting small posts and sharing them publicly, I hope to engage with you on these topics, and to make the learning a bit more enjoyable. 

And secretly? I’m sharpening my web development skills. I’ve never spent time building even a simple WordPress site (which is what this is). I envision a future where I’m able to lend a hand to friends and family by supporting the online presences of their businesses. I want to work towards that.

I look forward to learning with y’all.

Writing forces you to meticulously examine your own thoughts and beliefs. The swirling, incorporeal thoughts that bounce off the walls of your brain are wrangled, stretched, and pushed through your fingers onto the page...

Posts