Tag: 13 minutes

13 Minutes Week 2

June 1, 2025 / vienna / 0 Comments

May 31, 2025

Week 2 – Pass or Fail?

I logged in 4 times this week, including today. 4 of 7 is 57% – hmm, while I logged in more days than I didn’t, 57% is not a pass on any scale.

And I didn’t do any meaningful work on those 4 days. BUT, doing something meaningful wasn’t the commitment; showing up and doing something is. And I did that.

When I can’t think of anything interesting to write about (most of the time), I add a quote or a vocabulary question. I added several quotes and vocabulary questions this week.

Eventually, the questions will become vocabulary quizzes tied to the books I post about — a small way to make reading more active and interactive.

Last Week

So, last week I told you all about what I did instead of what I said I was going to do – this is most commonly known as an EXCUSE regardless of how cool, important or engaging the replacement project was. I will forgo the reasons why not posts going forward.

But I will note that I am always amazed at the number rabbit holes that appear (big important rabbit holes mind you) the minute I make a firm commitment to, well, almost anything.

Next Week

What I could do is finish any one of the 40-odd book posts I’ve added or the Zettlekasten article I started – hmm, 18 months ago or so. Or I could start building out my Reading Lab idea, or …

But, all kidding aside. Had I not made the commitment, I likely would have done nothing – this practice is about showing up and I showed up more times than I didn’t this week.

If you’re doing something similar — carving out time for a project you care about — then maybe this is your reminder that showing up, even sporadically, is better than giving up.

13 Minutes – Week 1

May 25, 2025 / vienna / 0 Comments

May 24, 2025

Week 1 – Pass or Fail?

Well, week 1 was an epic fail. This doesn’t bode well. Weeks 1 and 2 of any commitment are usually the easiest to manage, for me at least.

Here is what happened?

On Monday morning I decided to create an automated task log. This was and is an attempt to deal with the question “Now what?”. Every day, all day I have a competing set of priorities that I struggle with. The list of books that I’ve read to try to answer this question isn’t short – here are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Steven Covey
First Things First – Steven Covey
Getting Things Done – David Allen
Ready for Anything – David Allen
The 12-Week Year – Brian P Moran
E-Myth Mastery – Michael E Gerber
Focus – Al Reis
Vital Factors – Lee Froschheiser

The list goes on – and includes other books by the same authors and if there was a seminar or a course available after the book, I took it. I’ve spent thousands of dollars and countless hours thinking about and trying to prioritize, mostly to no avail.

So I thought, geez I’ll bet if I give this list to AI along with my priorities and goals and so forth I can probably have AI add these items to my calendar automatically and more effectively than I can do it.

3 Days! That’s what that turned into. I got totally obsessed with it and the first day got away from me before I even noticed. On Tuesday morning I got up and thought I’ll just fix this one thing … I did get some real work done but no Vienna’s Views.

I spent most of the day Wednesday on it, but I also worked with a new assistant I hired – and finally on Thursday morning I wrote “5/22/2025, 7:48:16 AM
Well, I’m pretty happy with myself. This calendar ap is even better than I planned.”

I did finally log in to Vienna’s Views on Wednesday. By then I was so far behind for the week I spent Thursday and Friday playing catch up. And there it is – the pattern I struggle with all the time.

A couple of interesting notes about working with AI on this – ChatGPT was unable to help finish this task though it started off strong. I moved on to Gemini – which at first seemed to be great but in the end destroyed the original logic and couldn’t “remember” anything – I wasted most of my time in these two models.

I started over in Claude and though I had to pay – was able to complete a working model in pretty short order. It doesn’t have any of the advanced logic I’m planning to add but it’s pretty cool.

So I worked in Vienna’s Views twice in this first week and today, this post is one of those times. On a pass/fail scale this is a fail.

13 Minutes – Revisited – Again

May 17, 2025 / vienna / 0 Comments

May 16th, 2025

The last time I wrote about this was March 24th, 2024 – almost 14 months ago. That’s 418 opportunities to meet this commitment. I’ve managed 100, not including today.

I know this because I track these things in a spreadsheet called Word Count and give myself points for doing it – but that’s another discussion for another day.

So, that’s less than 25% of the time. Why is it so hard to show up for the work we say matters most?

After yet another discussion with ChatGPT (Yes, I’m a fan of ChatGPT), I’ve got a new plan for the next 137 days, that’s 19.57 weeks. I usually measure everything in 12-week increments – but I don’t want to wait until June to begin.

So, here I am trying again. This time, I’ve named it. I’m calling it a Practice. Why does that work? I’m calling it 13-Minutes (I know, brilliant right?) —a daily commitment to do something, anything here on Vienna’s Views for 13 minutes every day.

The idea isn’t new. It echoes the Japanese concept of Kaizen—small, continuous improvement—and was reinforced for me by Brainstorm Road, a now-retired community built around making daily progress on side projects. The site’s no longer active, but the spirit of showing up in small ways stuck with me. I wish I had joined them when I had the chance!

This isn’t a challenge. It’s not a program. It’s a line in the sand. If you’re trying to make consistent progress on something that matters to you—writing, reading, thinking – You can follow along or, even better, come along, post a comment, and tell me about your project.

I’ll post weekly for the next 20 weeks about how it’s going. What are you working on? Can you find 13 minutes a day to spend on it?

13 Minutes

March 24, 2024 / vienna / 0 Comments

That’s the commitment I’ve made to this project. 13 minutes every day.

Why 13? Why not? I picked that number a few years ago when I was having trouble working on something I needed to get to – I can’t remember now what it was.

13 years ago was 2011 – my daughter was still in high school, and it was about that time I started thinking about this project. It took a long time to put the first 13 minutes in. I’ve tried 3 times before. And failed.

Why every day? Why not? How many days do I have left, to do anything? I play Gardenscapes every day – I watch television every day (almost).

Over at Brainstorm Road they say 10 minutes a day will get the job done. 13 minutes, every day. We’ll have to see what comes of it.

March 24, 2024 – Day 4