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Why you should always choose to front load the work

April 5, 2024 by Paris Leave a Comment

white airplane with smoke under blue sky

YouTube suggested a video to me called “How Successful People Achieve Multiple Goals” by James Lim

it’s the concept of front-loading the work for any project or thing you’re doing as much as you can while using airplanes as a metaphor of sorts. At the start of a project or idea or goal, it takes a lot of energy to get the concept off of the ground. And as the project goes on, you would spend less energy managing it.

You just, you know, if you had to put in like 10 hours or 100 hours to get it started, you might have to put in 30 minutes every week to keep it going.

I do that with my job projects, creative projects, and everything else. I realize I’ve been doing that naturally my whole life, like with my workouts.

The YouTube video is 8 minutes and 32 seconds

And

I chose a bodyweight-based workout plan, which is the ATHLEAN XERO workout.

Each week I do the assigned workout and if I fail the Saturday challenge, I write down my completion time plan to do it again next week. On Monday, I load up the same workout plan I failed and write down Round 2 to denote this is my second attempt through.

This continues until I pass the challenge and move on the next week of the 6-week program.

Instead of constantly switching up workout plans, I stay the course and work the plan. It takes a lot of energy up front and it took me weeks to pass some of the weekly challenges. And then I stick to the plan, stick to the course until I complete the entire workout program.

Once that was set up, I started adding other relevant health changes. Like I added more cardio in addition to walking every day, I’m running every day as well. So it’s a morning workout (before work), walk, run, you know, now I’m working on sleep, managing my diet.

All of these changes were done slowly over time and I constantly adjust what is and isn’t working for me.

In this brief example, you can see that I am changing like 5 facets health which is a struggle for most people, but I ended up making it a habit that becomes part of my normal day to day routine.

The biggest benefit for me is that in addition to building consistency is that this method actually promotes systems level thinking which I am a big believer in.

Using YouTube videos as an another example, I am constantly putting out daily gameplay shorts from whatever games I played the week prior. The biggest time saving feature here was building out the template file that I use in DaVinci Resolve and the gameplay recording software (Nvidia ShadowPlay) to ensure that I am capturing the footage I need quickly with minimal setup.

Hopefully this helps you out and get some ideas flowing.

A short from my YouTube channel

Filed Under: Thoughts Tagged With: Thoughts

The framework for 2024

January 24, 2024 by Paris Leave a Comment

It’s been a while since my last update, so as 2023 is behind us, I think it’s the perfect time to share some insights and set the tone for 2024.

Reflecting on a Year of Change

2023 was a year full of professional transformations. It marked one year since my departure from the Philadelphia Museum of Art and included my first international cruise along with numerous other experiences. However, the focus of this post isn’t about the past year, but about looking forward to the next.

The Tradition of Birthday Letters (Annual Review Letters)

As a , I write a letter to myself every birthday, delivered via futureme.org. This letter serves as a snapshot of my life and sets my primary goal for the year ahead. I prefer using my birthday over New Year’s as a marker for reflection and goal setting. This personal approach includes health goals like improving my VO2 max and managing my weight.

For more information you can check out this post:

Annual Personal Accountability Letter

Primary Objectives for 2024

For 2024, I’ve set three main objectives:

One – Embracing Authenticity

A chance encounter in October made me realize the importance of authenticity. Someone commended me for being genuine, which led to a profound realization: for much of my life, I was inauthentic.

Inspired by a quote from Florence Givens:

“Stop breaking yourself into bite-sized pieces. Stay whole and let them choke”

– Florence Givens

I understood the need to present my complete self to the world. In 2024, my goal is to embrace and express my full identity, without fragmentation. A fragmented life isn’t a life worth living and therefore I would become nothing to everyone. I have a list of quotes set as a daily reminder in my iPhone. If you want to see the list, leave a comment and let me know!

Two – Applying the Pareto Principle

The Pareto Principle, or the 80/20 rule, suggests that 80% of outcomes result from 20% of efforts. You can learn more about this here:

In 2024, I plan to apply this principle both personally and professionally. This means focusing on actions that yield the most significant results and cutting down on less effective endeavors.

An example of this is analyzing my diet and sleep patterns to improve my health efficiently. Previously I was tracking my calories using MyFitnessPal but I dropped that to focus on a systemic change that is more sustainable.

An example of a systemic change is to drink a gallon of water everyday for 5 days a week (unless I am sick or on vacation or not home). The other 2 days (the weekend) is whatever I feel like. To aid in the water task, I am using flavor enhancers to ensure I get the gallon of water on a daily basis. We can argue that a gallon of flavored water isn’t pure but the focus is the habit and the end result (drinking a gallon of water).

PurAqua Water Enhancer from Aldi’s

The end result is that over the course of a year, I would average more days where I achieved my water intake and diet plans versus the “off” days due to various reasons. Over a long enough timeline, the positive changes compounds.

Three – Leveraging AI and Automation

Finally, I aim to make the most of AI and automation tools. By using tools like ChatGPT, I plan to analyze data efficiently, like identifying successful strategies on my YouTube channel. This will help me focus on what works, streamline my efforts, and allow more time for creativity and relaxation.

I signed up for ChatGPT Plus at $20 a month and I am exploring the options AI affords me. The feature image for this post was created by ChatGPT Plus. In the image below, I show the exact process I used to get the image.

Asking ChatGPT Plus for a design

These AI tools are out here and my objective for 2024 is to figure out where these tools make sense in my personal workflow and use case.

Looking Ahead

In summary, 2024 will be a year of being more authentic, mindful of the Pareto Principle, and utilizing AI and automation to enhance efficiency. It’s all about presenting a more genuine self, optimizing efforts based on what works, and leveraging technology to achieve these goals.

Expect monthly posts to this blog, my YouTube channel (King Hunter) and my Instagram page (Designed_by_Paris)!

Filed Under: Thoughts Tagged With: personal development

Inertia – The Loudness Found in the Unnatural Quiet of COVID

October 18, 2021 by Paris Leave a Comment

“Until we have begun to go without them, we fail to realize how unnecessary many things are. We’ve been using them not because we needed them but because we had them.”

Seneca

In the silence of COVID (and the events of Year Zero) did I have time to sit and think about where I wanted to be and where I was going. Inertia being everything that stopped because of COVID 19 and how new habits have to changed.

Inertia like transportation and commenting to work by owning a car, etc.

And being done with something refers to how those new habits change things. For example, getting the iPhone 12 due to Year Zero but the iPhone/cell phone category is now DONE. I don’t need to upgrade to the next few iPhones unless another catalyst changes that (like my phone is lost or broken).

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Filed Under: Thoughts

Lesson Learned – Reflecting on February 2019

April 28, 2021 by Paris Leave a Comment

I found an old note on my Dropbox Paper account which I highlighted some key things in my life during the entire month of February 2019. I recorded these notes on a daily basis during that month so it is interesting to see how a fresh and accurate recollection of my mindset stacks up after 2 years (obligatory: wow that went fast). So without further ado, here are the original notes with my current status listed below each point. May these takeaway lessons serve you in some capacity on your path.

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Filed Under: Personal Development, Thoughts Tagged With: lessons learned, paris hunter

The Wisdom of Keeping Your Eye on the Ball

July 17, 2019 by Paris Leave a Comment

The Wisdom of Keeping Your Eye on the Ball by Paris D Hunter

“Keep your eye on the ball.”

This common phrase was repeated often throughout my life. Regardless of what form the ball takes (soccer ball, baseball, basketball, etc), it was important to keep my eye on the ball. I have been thinking about this for the past couple of days as part of self reflection.
 
The real wisdom hidden in the message. 

Wisdom that I clearly forgot over the last few years. 

This wisdom was lost on my younger self. 

[Read more…] about The Wisdom of Keeping Your Eye on the Ball

Filed Under: Thoughts Tagged With: Thoughts

New Year’s Resolutions 2019

February 16, 2019 by Paris Leave a Comment

Fireworks from Roven Images on Unsplash
I spent the last few days revisiting the opportunities and challenges I faced in 2018, I realized I need to do something different for my New Year’s Resolution this year.

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Filed Under: Thoughts Tagged With: Thoughts

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