A productivity hack: the doctrine of water, or "a few minutes every day".

The plant care paradigm is something that hit-home to me.  We hear so much of exercise, "just a few minutes a day", and we never get started, or we started for a few days or two weeks, and then its over, but yet some of us practice this "few minutes a day" in other respects.

Drinking macchiato(few minutes a day)

watching local news(few minutes a day)

brushing teeth, manscaping(few minutes a day)

OR yet as the example resonated with me was plant care.  Various years, various iterations of my yard and property, I've had plant areas, small gardens, and such.

During the growing season, a spot of water now and then adds up to sometimes a healthy specimen of plant: what if we applied the same care paradigm to our exercise?  Does it, to you, like me, make it seem more feasible to achieve some negligible exercise results?

a Wisteria bonsai, presumably mature.

 

For exercise, they'll say 30 minutes.

20 minutes.

Or just fifteen minutes.

what if it was less?  A stretch, a few calisthenics or yoga poses, and then stretch to cool down and go about your business?

In the same way, saving pennies.

A few a week adds up.

In the same way, the local discount store had Topps baseball cards.  A few dollars every week or so, a one dollar five-card pack at a time, amounting to, before discontinuation, a stack of cards.

A stack of cards is, in many respects, a collection in itself, and that was money that could have went to sodas or candy or something else, but here I have "invested" as they say.  Look at me world, "I'm an investor, now" I say cheekily, looking over my stack of baseball cards, and in this respect, the proletariat, plain-Jane baseball card, the Topps reference series mainline, the model T of baseball cards: the series of record, where it all begins, and even sometimes, ends, despite no chromium, holograms or other; a collection that honors the game and the players.

In the same way, the odd few cents knocked over to Bitcoin, Ethereum or Litecoin.  Considered by many a much more serious investment, at least until they've seen Mike Trout play, and then get those lightning bugs flitting about their eyes.

I spent less than 25$ a month on Topps Series 1 in 2022, but it added substantially to my collection, not expressly in terms of dollar value, but certainly in terms of scope.  Never mind the Diamond Kings set I left in my truck, "every card a unique", theyre something about the Everyman thing of the regular Topps baseball series that just makes me want to participate.

The Point: a series of small steps add up to form a greater journey.  But we get caught up so on looking at the small pieces, discounting them, tossing them, when in fact they add up.

We can get punched with the negative: such as spending 2000$ or more at Starbucks in a given year, but what about the other things, the more providential things?  "All that cigarette money over the years that you spent, is more than enough to have bought a Ferrari."  I love the rejoinder where the smoker asks the non-smoker if he actually bought a Ferrari.

Underlying Principle: Little efforts add up, and the rewards compound.  It was Darren Daly or one of those success gurus who noted this in a little different way, different even than Chuck Norris and Christie Brinkley giving 25 minutes a day to their exercise equipment.

site tip jar here.