Applying data hierarchies

Hi 🙂,
I’m still getting used to dark November mornings and the sun going down so early here in Germany. It felt like the change happened so quickly. Maybe I just was not paying attention before or it was the return to winter time. Either way, it caught me a bit off-guard.

Onto the newsletter though!

Next challenge #

Not all information is equally important. There are, for example, pieces of data that are trivial and those that you would be totally lost without. Thus there is a hierarchy. One attribute of the data hierarchy is, that everything on the bottom can be derived and deducted from the 1-2 top categories.¹

Some of this seems obvious, but the implication is profound: I should spend (much) more time with the information at the top of the hierarchy and reduce how much I engage with that at the bottom. Especially when learning something new.

For my challenge to apply data hierarchies, over the next two weeks I will:

• extract and grasp the principles of a field (trading and/or investing)
• create at least one essay about a principle
• come up and implement ways to spend less time with the two categories at the bottom of the hierarchy

Review of the last challenge #

Last weeks challenge was: Being present

To illustrate this concept of data hierarchies for the next challenge, I took last weeks actions and ordered them by importance.

Being present hierarchy #

1. Principles

• There is only the now.
• An empty mind is most effective.
• (and more)

2. Superior laws and definitions

• Curiosity is the desire to know.

3. Guidelines and realm-specific laws

Derived from There is only the now:

• Make decisions at the time when you can do something about them.
• Schedule less.
• Affirm the importance of being present.

Derived from An empty mind is most effective:

• Get recurring thoughts out of my head.
• Don’t multi-task.
• Don’t act on every idea that pops into my head.

4. Detail-uses

Do this, then that:

• Being curious about my surroundings always puts me in the present.
• Listening to the audiobook of The Power of Now reliably puts me into the present moment.
• To stay present in everyday life, it helps to be deeply rooted with-in yourself.
• Keep my phone in the hall, instead of next to my bed.

5. Trivial

…

Conclusions #

In the creation of this hierarchy, I realized that with last week list I 1.) didn’t even mention the core principles and 2.) didn’t differentiate between more and less important actions. Those two points have an impact on the ease of applying and understanding it.

And it showed. In my practice of last weeks challenge, I was overwhelmed by the amount of information (too many different actions to take and things to watch out for.) I ended up mostly focusing on the core principles, which I had already internalized, instead of the list of actions.

The action steps that I did apply, were the those that could formulated into a rule and “automated” (i.e. applied without continuous effort.)

Overall, I did reorient myself toward being present, which is a quality of life improvement to me.

New articles #

I completely redid my now page. The new site is made up of the activities I do regularly and should give the reader a better picture of what my life looks like right now.

Cheers,
Jonathan