On the latest Regular Programming podcast we talk about small entrepreneurs. Or making businesses as a programmer. Maybe hacking indies? You decide.

I'm writing this on a thursday afternoon which is odd but that's life when introducing your toddler to daycare. That's a surprisingly emotional ride. So if my first video under the new system goes out tomorrow I can't really tell you about it right now. Order should eventually be restored.

Otherwise I'm finding some time to write a blog post so hopefully one will land soon. Beyond that a few things are waiting to come together. I did get an interesting package that I might tease some things from in the near future. We'll see.

Thematic

I'm an occasional junkie of the Productivity genre of podcasts and one I enjoy is Cortex. So when they made a cool notebook for prompting yourself to reflect and follow up on your ambitions for life I gave it a whirl. I got in on the second batch of their Theme System Journal and then bought another one when they revised it. Nice thing. And I like the concepts they've talked about with themes.

So what is a theme for me? Sort of a guiding light for what particular effort and direction you want to apply to this year/season/arbitrary period of time. It can help you answer questions where the tradeoffs are hard. "Should I take this job that pays well but will make me super busy?", if your theme is Family First that sounds more like a "No" than if your theme is Get That Dough.

Associated with the theme they recommend some more concrete aspects to it. So my Year of Delight has parts about making the everyday special, about meeting people in a meaningful way, about feeling good in my body. It is also important to have a sense of what that means it isn't. If everything is in the list, it is not a list. If everything is a priority your life is noise. So it isn't about making every day extra special by doing big things. It isn't about meeting a lot more people or more frequently. It isn't about running a marathon.

I want this theme to be humble with a sparkle of undeniable life. In many ways my daughter inspires it and the pandemic pressures it. There are many things that are limiting how wildly I can flail around, what grand plans I can make. But I can find so much delight if I can bring myself to be present in the normal day, apply some kindness and creativity and watch life sparkle.

Wow. This is probably the fluffiest thing I've written. If you ever think I take myself too seriously. Remember this.

The thing is, I've had times without themes, with very disciplined themes, with themes that pushed heavily in a direction. And this theme is a lot about making sure I feel good where I am. Enjoying life a lot and making progress in some meaningful ways.

Business will continue to be important. It is going well. But this theme is very little about driving business goals in some particular way. I know how to do that and I will. What this reminds me of is that I should enjoy my work and make sure it is fun for me and others.

It is surprising how stabilizing I find it to write about my day in short sentences. I do four questions every day:

• What are you grateful for? (something specific, related to the day)
• What was the best thing today? (recognize it, celebrate it, acknowledge it)
• What was difficult today? (get it out there, recognize if it keeps coming back)
• What do you look forward to tomorrow? (however small or big)

I also use a thing in the book to grade my day on a 0-2 scale on things like Sleep, Food, Every day magic. It all relates to the theme and things I want to maintain for a good life.

There is no magical trick to this, there's no massive review I do or anything. It is the ongoing practice of reflection that matters for me. It is frustratingly simple and laughably helpful. Quite absurd.

Do you theme? Do you scheme? At the start of the year commit to a dream? If you want to share something you'll reach me at lars@underjord.io or on Twitter where I'm @lawik.

Thank you for reading this, I appreciate it.

- Lars Wikman