Jason Leow

Every week, I do a weekly recap and reflect on the things in the past week based on these 4 questions:

- What's adding energy?
- What's draining?
- What moves the needle?
- What to reduce/remove?

A few magical things about doing analog weekly recaps so far:

- It's really about the session, not what I write. I give myself space and time to stare out into...space. I drink tea. I dwell. I'm not trying to be productive. I daydream. I listen to music. I listen to myself. It's the me time downtime I deserve and need. It's about intentional self care.

- Everything I write under the category "What to reduce/remove?" gets done done. It's like magic. I would assume I get the stuff under "What's adding energy / What moves the needle?" done more, but it's the acts of omission that I do more religiously than the acts of addition. The funny thing? I don't go out of my way to get it done. I write it down, and I don't even look at it again until one week later. Yet I get it reduced or removed during the week. It's like after writing it down, my subconscious acts on its own accord. And the following week when I look back, I surprised I've removed it. Every. Single. Week.

- It's a good sign when you struggle to find things to reduce/remove. A much better indicator that you're doing something right. You removed all the conditions and obstacles that led to distraction, low energy/motivation, or hold you back. I struggled to come up with one thing to remove yesterday during my recap. Serious. And I kept having new things to add to the category "What's adding energy?" My insight: Remove the barriers, and the blessings emerge on their own.

Honestly, I started doing weekly recaps without expectations. But it's delivering way more than I imagined. Highly recommended.

It's been about one week since I started using this anti-snoring nose device called [Mute](https://mutesnoring.com/), by Rhinomed. [Mouth tape never worked](https://golifelog.com/posts/snoring-tech-1658967156154) for me. I wanted to try this to improve my sleep quality.

How it works: Like nasal strips, but instead of applying the strip on the skin of your nose bridge, you insert the device into your nose that props open your nostril. It’s made of soft plastic, and adjustable. They report that over 70% of users could sleep better, snored less, and snored less severely.


First up, right away upon wearing it, the inner nostril cavity seem to open up and feels like I can breathe better, clearer. But there's definitely a slight discomfort from the adjustable ends, but no pain.

I used size small Mute but it still felt kind of big inside my nostril - I wonder if it considered Asian noses as part of product design? But nothing that's a dealbreaker in terms of the fit. I could wear it through the night fine, unlike taping my mouth.

It seems I could breathe slightly better lying down, but it didn't help with nasal breathing if I laid on my left (the side where I could never breathe nasally properly).

But ultimately, how did it affect sleep quality?

Here's my sleep hours and sleep score since starting on it on 13 Aug:

- 6h, 68%
- 7h, 73% ↑ (started on Mute)
- 7h, 79% ↑
- 8h, 89% ↑ (started 8h sleep)
- 8h, 60% ↓
- 8h, 78% ↑
- 8h, 92% ↑

The problem is, I'm not 100% sure if it led to better sleep quality. The confusion is due to me starting another habit to sleep 8h per night. So I won't know if any improvements in sleep scores came from 8h sleep or from Mute.

Hence, **my verdict: Feels promising, but not 100% sure....yet.**

Next steps:

I need more time using it to observe the longer term effects.

Maybe I should try one night without Mute and see if I feel any different, if the sleep scores differ.

Reading this tweet from @Nicolascole77 (https://twitter.com/Nicolascole77/status/1559699816359272449) about getting more juice out of your writing got me thinking about how we can all get more out of our Lifelog writings.

I’ve always wondered about this. I write everyday on Lifelog, and wished there’s ways to get more out of my writings here and repurpose them on other platforms, than letting it just sit here within Lifelog. One thing

So, brainstorming and adapting his points for Lifelog posts:

• Make your Lifelog post into a concise tweet with a screenshot of the Lifelog post (doing this now)
• Convert your Lifelog post into a thread (doing this now)
• Comment your best Lifelog posts on other people’s tweets/threads (doing this now)
• Compile your best Lifelog posts into a Twitter “Thread of links”
• Turn a series of Lifelog posts about the same topic into Ultimate Guide blog posts
• Turn Lifelog posts into Medium articles, with images and links
• Turn Lifelog posts into Reddit posts for the right subreddit groups
• Break down Lifelog posts into Instagram/LinkedIn Carousels
• Turn Lifelog posts into an eBook
• Read your Lifelog posts writing aloud on TikTok/YouTube, Instagram Live/Story, podcast
• Turn your Lifelog posts podcast episodes into an audio book
• Host a Twitter Spaces talking about one of your popular topics
• Turn 7 of your Lifelog posts into a free 7-day email course (I want this!)
• Screenshot your Lifelog posts and post the images on Pinterest
• Turn parts of your Lifelog post into Instagram images (tried it during #100daysofmarketing, didn’t really work)
• Answer questions on Quora using Lifelog posts (tried it during #100daysofmarketing, didn’t really work)
• Expand your Lifelog posts into a weekly newsletter (planning this for Lifelog using Revue/Substack)
• Compile 12 newsletters together into a book
• Compile 10-20 Lifelog posts together into a book, eBook, or course curriculum

What else can we do to repurpose our Lifelog content?

5 years ago I dreamed about being where I am now, achieving what I have now.

5 years ago, it’s 2017. I’m 2 years into my consulting business. I’m doing well, earning more than I imagined. It was a year where I travelled a lot - Bangkok, Melaka, Saigon, Japan, Bali. Life looked great on the outside. I should be happy. But I was not. I was stressed and tired from my work. A particularly toxic client left me feeling worn out even more. Health was sliding downwards.

And I didn’t have any product.

Even though making products was what I wanted to do when I left my last formal employment in late 2014. More than 2 years since, no product to show for. I was simply too busy building up the consulting business, I forgot about my original dream.

I dreamed of creating products.

But I didn’t know how to code. And I hated coding. It felt like learning math or a foreign language. It felt too technical for my liking. Nocode tools was still unknown then (at least in my circles). I could design some websites using Wordpress. That’s about it.

Even though I hungered to make my own products, I didn’t really think I could do so easily on my own. I was unsure if I could make that dream come true.

Then a few health issues cropped up towards the end of 2017. That was a signal. I took some time off to recover. And by early 2018, I started the 12 startups in 12 months challenge. I went with what I knew—Wordpress—and just made what I can using that. I finished at 8 products – super proud! Most didn’t make any money, and those that did, just made one-time revenue of a few hundred bucks. It was also a time when nocode emerged, and making products got easier and faster. I restarted my Twitter account to tweet about indie hacking.

After that I would have a rebound relationship with coding for the next 2 years. But by end of 2020, I sealed the relationship, stuck to it, and made Lifelog.

Now in 2022 I have a portfolio of diverse products and services. Some with recurring revenue, most with one-time revenue. I earned $11k last year from my products alone.

5 years ago, I dreamed about creating products and had none.
5 years later, I am where I dreamed of.

So much can change in 5 years. You can make so much progress in 5 years, more than you realised.

Had I not took the time to do this reflection exercise, I wouldn’t have noticed that transformation either.

I am now where I dreamed about 5 years ago.

And I am thankful.

There’s only one winner when we aim to be better or the best compared to other competitors, but almost everyone can win if we all aim to be known for our own different niche and personality.

Because who can compete with you being authentically you? You in all your weirdness, eccentricities, personality quirks and manners. You with all your random interests, niche hobbies and funny yet fun curiosities. You and your unique life experiences, upbringing, and things you lived through. Even if you think you or your life is boring, you might be leading an interesting life from someone else’s perspective. We’re almost always the worst judge of ourselves.

Like how there’s once I was obsessed with this Japanese YouTuber who filmed his camping trips on his minivan. No face, no music, no talking. Just him driving to camp site, setting up the inside of his car for camp, and cooking, eating, cleaning, going to bed, waking up. Just the visuals and sounds of being out there in the outdoors. Very ASMR. I wasn’t into camping, but I lived vicariously through the video. Almost as if I was there. It provided some solace especially during the lockdowns.

I can almost imagine him asking himself when he filmed his first video, “Who would be interested in this?” I would have certainly stopped myself if I were in his shoes. Yet, he’s doing well. And he certainly got my attention.

There’s 7.9 billion human beings and there’s just as many unique paths through life. Therefore there’s just as many paths to success.

Being better is good, being best is excellent, but different is better than both.

Positive sum, not zero sum.

Different > better

I tweeted this out and was surprised at the nuance and wisdom when presented with an intentional (false) dichotomy:

"Let’s settle the debate:
Consistency, or intensity?
Which approach works better for you?
I mean re: creative projects of any kind - writing, products, video."

Basically, most replies talked about a smart blending of both consistency and intensity, and modulate as required through the process. Intensity can be used productively within a frame of consistency, not against. And there’s so many ways to mix it! More than I realised, based on all the replies:

• Be consistent on small, infinite games (e.g. daily habits like tweeting, writing, diet, exercise, sleep) but work in bursts of intensity for big, finite projects.
• You can be intense in the early days of a project, then lower the intensity to get consistency for long term.
• Blend intensity in with consistency… consistency as a default minimal baseline mode on daily basis, then on good days when inspiration/opportunity strike, go intense.
• Consistency as preparation for inspired intensity. Organize and be consistent so that when you need to be acutely and intensely creative, you are ready.
• Intensity throws out a lot of output in the short term but in the long term (like over years, decades), it’s consistency that helps us compound and trend up
• Consistency but with a baseline level of speed and/or intensity. Too slow or too little isn’t good for progress, no matter how consistent
• Consistency is actually intensity spread out over time, with consistent rest in between too. Otherwise consistent intensity or intense consistency leads without rest to burnout.
• Consistency = intensity + discipline, including discipline to take breaks

A blended approach is definitely more nuanced and realistic in real life. There’s also an element of personal preference here of course.

I’m going to try something to get out of my sleep funk and overall low energy slump.

It’s timely. My consulting project is going full swing in September, and I feel I need to build myself physically back up again to be able to last the full days of workshops I’m leading. Truth is, I just did a half day workshop this week and I’m shattered. Legs aching from standing. Needed a 1-2 days rest after to recover. This can’t happen when I need to conduct full day workshops over 2 weeks.

Since I can’t muster up the intrinsic motivation to change things, maybe extrinsic motivation like this consulting project can help then. at this point, I’ll take anything that works.

So I’m going to try to get 8h of sleep every day from now till start of September. I’m going to exercise daily in the morning. I’m going to eat well. I’m going to wind down for the evening properly. I’m going to prioritize self care. I’m going to get my family on board for this.

I’m going to do what’s required to:

- Feel rested from sleep
- Feel stronger in body
- Feel sharper in mind

Onwards!

S$60 ~ US$43 ad revenue in a long time!