Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Good luck on the exam!

Thank you, it's already done and I passed
It was really difficult with lots of questions that draw from experience rather than book-learning, but somehow I did it anyway. That's a huge weight off my shoulders now. I think I'm going to treat myself to a few days of vacation, like a long weekend next week or something.

Just a quick update...

Work
I've noticed that my stress levels are much lower now that I passed the certification. There was a constant feeling of not having studied enough, so I might not make it if I don't use every free minute inbetween "real" work. With the whole thing done I now allow myself to breathe more.

I've also started working 8h per day and maaaaan is it tedious. I'll still keep to my new 4-day workweek for a few weeks, though, to see if the tedium is worth the additional free day. What might exacerbate the problem is my refusal to take breaks, as I want the work to be done as soon as possible. I've started integrating mandatory walking breaks, starting today. Maybe that will allow me to recover a bit inbetween and break up the work into more managable chunks.

Vacation
It's off! As you may remember our flights were cancelled a few weeks ago, but we still had to decide on the hotel. We tried to work something out with them, but in the end it came down to commit to another timeframe that I was equally unsure about. After all, a full cancel was the least stressful decision we could make. We lost about 125€ per person, if the refund of the flight tickets goes through without problems.

Life Planning
I've had several more life-talks with my fiance and it's really shocking how she does not at all believe in investing for the future. Not only does she not do it, which coming from her "live now"-mindset would be understandable, but she doesn't believe it will work for me. Apparently I'm also a freak for having a 3-page excel-sheet for my 10 year plan :p

Anyway, she keeps suggesting other solutions to my "problem" of having to work, so I've got a lot of good input on things I might not have thought about. The biggest thing that I didn't really engage with yet was buying a house. I put this towards the back of my mind, as I don't have the capital to buy one now, although I plan on buying one in the future. My reason was mainly for diversification, as I have (for complicated reasons) constant low-key anxiety about the government messing with my stock investements. A house that one actually lives in, however, is protected in a different, slightly better way by law as of now, so that could make sense.

My fiance, however, suggested buying a 2-appartment house (or one that could be made into it) and subletting the second unit. This is mostly due to existing houses being way too big for the two of us, but it would also open me up to a "job" that is more in line with what I want to do. There's a lot of food for thought there and I haven't evaluated any of it yet. Going forward, I'll probably hyperfixate on developing a plan towards that idea.

NuncFluens wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 25, 2020 5:35 am

What might exacerbate the problem is my refusal to take breaks, as I want the work to be done as soon as possible. I've started integrating mandatory walking breaks, starting today. Maybe that will allow me to recover a bit inbetween and break up the work into more managable chunks.

8 hours work straight sounds horrible hahaha. self-inflicted torture.

check out the pomodoro technique and francesco cirillo.

many years ago i read an early free version of the pomodoro technique book, which he wrote around working toward his phd dissertation or something, so it was originally geared towards students. it divides the workday into roughly 2 hour blocks with 25 minute rest periods in between (plus an hour for lunch). each 2-ish hour block is subdivided into 25min periods of concentrated work with 5 min in between. his log system has its own structure butnit can be blended with others.

there’s a whole theory about it so i can’t explain this in what would take a book, but it’s been great for me when i can work uninterrupted. 25-5 and that tickling clock sound are magic. amd the recharging on periodic breaks is fantastic.

the thing is cirillo grew up and works in berlin now as a management consultant, and i believe the pomodoro technique has evolved as well.

save yourself from the madness (lol) and check it out.

https://francescocirillo.com/pages/pomodoro-technique

and congrats on passing your exam!

Oh yeah, I know about the pomodoro technique and have used it in the past. I find it mostly works for tasks that I can switch off easily like reading a book (end of chapter) or application programming (after implementing a method). With my current work* there's a lot of loose ends that I need to keep in my head, and the pomodoro technique doesn't work as well because I'm missing those natural break-points. I do make coffee inbetween tasks, though, so it's not like I'm glued to the keyboard for 8 hours straight

*which is infrastructure and server side application configuration and automation (what a mouthful).

oh haha ok i was like WAT

yes there are some things i can’t pomodoro. even though now apparently he’s doing “groups”.

but i still like the mid-morning and mid-afternoon breaks i learned from the guy, i mean not rushed imbibings of stimulating beverages but a nice 25min chill with maybe some cookies hahahaha. this is different from task-switching 5’ breaks which are merely bladder emptiers. those are nice breaks.

plus a nice lunch. which often includes watching a bit of comedy on the teevee because i enjoy laughter and forgetting.

those are big refreshers. sometimes i’ll do a short workout with elastic bands or something. you can do full workouts 10 minutes at a time.

also to help with tedium i apply music and playlists, some curated and some autogenerated. one of the big advantages of working at home is *sound control*.

One thing about working from home is that there isn't any slacking off on the clock during coffee breaks with colleagues anymore. So I count my "breaks" towards my working time, as I get much more done at home even so. But clocking out to have a real lunch is something I have to warm up to, it seems :/ Similarly, my conscience tells me to clock out for 25min pomodoro breaks, so I'm hesitant to draw the workday out any longer. Those 5min breaks are totally fair game, though.

Alphaville wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 25, 2020 9:24 am

(...) sometimes i’ll do a short workout with elastic bands or something. you can do full workouts 10 minutes at a time.

I remember having a recurring "pullup-meeting" with all the colleagues a few years ago. This soon turned into recent breaks where everyone would do a set or two, a few times a day. I got from 2 to 9 pullups per set in a few weeks just doing that. Pavel Tsatsouline calls it "greasing the groove" and there's no better workout mode for home office. I should get back into training...

NuncFluens wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 25, 2020 10:24 am

One thing about working from home is that there isn't any slacking off on the clock during coffee breaks with colleagues anymore. So I count my "breaks" towards my working time, as I get much more done at home even so. But clocking out to have a real lunch is something I have to warm up to, it seems :/ Similarly, my conscience tells me to clock out for 25min pomodoro breaks, so I'm hesitant to draw the workday out any longer. Those 5min breaks are totally fair game, though.

yeah, i suspect that might be the source of the burnout.

doing pomodoro days i”ve found that an “honest” 8h workday would translate into 16 pomodoros. exhausting, and the last few ones my brain would be fried because it’s hard to maintain the focus and intensity. i’d just be sitting there at my post, accomplishing little.

cirillo himself recommends i think no more than 12 pomodoros a day? so that clicks with my experience/experimentations. i’ll still have 16-pomodoro days in an emergency with the help of sugar and other drugs (ovaltine, lol) but only for short-term emergencies. with breaks this ends up extending the “workday” to something like 10.5-11 hours. crazy.

so a 12 pomodoro day adds up to 6 hours of intense work + 2 hours of breaks for 8 hour spans total.

without trying to rationalize cheating, i believe employers include reasonable human behavior in the design of the workday. those things like chats and distractions are factored into the equation. i’ve never been in an office where people are hunkered down in front of their desks nonstop. it’s just not possible.

the other aspect is that the productivity of 6 intense hours is greater than the productiviy of 8 mediocre ones. in fact i don’t think many people even work 6 intense hours in anregular workday. there’s a lot of chatting and interruptions and socializing in an office. so you might be able able to give your employer more while not neing a stickler to the clock. results and quality, after all, are what counts.

lastly, if you remember the pomodoro theory, the 25 min breaks provide your brain with the “space” to integrate your cognition. so you could in fact consider it “integration time at work” rather than a break proper. you’re a knowledge worker after all, not a churner of piecemeal items in an assembly line.

so i can see the fairness of clocking out for lunch, with 4-hour blocks on both sode of it. but spacing out on a sofa with a cup of tea staring out the window while listening to a bit of music, or taking a 10-minute nap, i might include as the “cognitive integration” portion of my workday which improves the quality of the rest of my work. remember kekulé’s dream

anyway that’s just me though, and ymmv, but yeah. without proper cycling, the brain snaps and fails.

I personally consider 5 (10 pomodoros in my case) hours of "productive" work a full work day and 2,5 a half work day. I see people in companies taking a lot of breaks, chatting with colleagues, walking around, having pointless meetings. All that doesn't happen for me in the home office. So after years and years of feeling bad these are the numbers that I arrived at. Funnily enough people still think I work fast. That doesn't mean I am in the zone for 5,5 hours but it means I am actively pursuing work things somewhat distraction free. I am happy if I can really focus for 2-3 hours on average. This post from Joel Spolsky back in the days helped me to get rid of my guilt: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/ ... nd-motion/. Scott Hanselman also had a podcast some time back where he said that he thinks remote workers or work from home workers stress too much about being productive. They usually are quite productive. Obviously that doesn't mean everyone working remotely is more productive but I think there is a correlation between self-motivation and productivity.

Edit: I mentioned these two people because they are known in the software development field and many would consider them quite productive.

I remember that Joel Spolsky article and recall it easing my stress about being productive quite a bit back then, but I guess it didn't stick as much. Maybe that's because we don't have clear deliverables where I work, so "enough" is not strictly defined. I just want someone to tell me "good job. go home", but that's not gonna happen as long as I'm paid for time instead of results. I've tried to counter this in a way by setting goals ahead of time and counting the day as a "win" once I reach them, which seems to help. Maybe I'll just need to give myself permission to not sit there for the rest of the day and then feel bad about having just sat there for the rest of the day :/

Also good point on the integration time, Alphaville. I've noticed it more in my teen job as a mechanic when we took frequent smoke breaks (even though I didn't smoke). That's when we had the best ideas and everything went way smoother afterwards. I don't know what it is about software development, but the same principle just doesn't show the same results as clearly so it's harder to justify somehow. Although I do bite out my teeth on problems that are easy once I slept on them, so I could just have gone home or stopped working instead...

I think I'll have to experiment with a list of goals and then just stop working, I guess. Or even better, take a break after every single goal so I can attack the next one with a fresh mind... This is especially hard when my fiance is sitting in the other room, hammering away for 8 hours. I just feel guilty taking it easy when she doesn't, so that's definitely reinforcing my behavior right now.

So there's still a lot of stuff to work through, but I feel like I'm moving towards a better way for the first time in a long time, at least. And all y'all helped that over the last few days, so thank you

disk_poet wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 25, 2020 11:45 am

I personally consider 5 (10 pomodoros in my case) hours of "productive" work a full work day

yeah if you remember the first pomodoro is to lay out the tasks of the day and the last one is for logging and reflecting and wrapping up.

so a 12-pomodoro day translates into 10 actual chunks of dedicated, concentrated, goal-achieving labor.

NuncFluens wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 25, 2020 12:48 pm

eh, not to bombard your journal, but i was looking at some pomodoro materials to see how it has evolved and ran into a non-pomodoro system for periodicity in work:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/work-lif ... 0_b_578671

this guys says 90 minute cycles work best.

i always have a bit of a hard time with the 4th pomodoro of the set, so perhaps it’s correct. but we’re all mutants, so the cycles may vary some. nevertheless, an interesting paradigm.

90min could be translated into 3-pomodoro blocks for example (still 12 to a day), e.g. 3-3-lunch-3-3, with the added benefit of am/pm symmetry.

Alphaville wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 26, 2020 12:07 pm

this guys says 90 minute cycles work best.

From my own experience, that feels about right. Cal Newport advised a similar approach in his book Deep Work (extensive summary). He explores a few "modes" of integrating focused work in one's day and it often comes down to focused bursts with all the rest inbetween. I think he advised 2 hour bursts of productivity but I always found that a bit much, so 90 minutes might indeed be the sweet spot.

Alphaville wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 26, 2020 12:07 pm

90min could be translated into 3-pomodoro blocks for example (still 12 to a day), e.g. 3-3-lunch-3-3, with the added benefit of am/pm symmetry.

I tried to stick to the pomodoro technique coupled with my todo list today and that's pretty much how my day turned out. it's a nice little mind-hack to split the day into smaller chunks. The next break is always just 90 minutes away. I also completed the whole todo-list which was more than I normally do in any given day, so the breaks didn't even hurt my output in any way. This might just be the coolest thing ever

Edit: And no worries about bombing the journal. I appreciate the input

hahaha that is great news. i was thinking of resuming pomodoros and i think i’ll try the 3-3-3-3. very pep guardiola

Well, today was my free day and seeing how I finished the Wheel of Time series yesterday evening I needed something else to read. So I decided to read "The Renaissance Soul" by Margaret Lobenstine, as kindly recommended by @wolf, in full. Finishing it in one day might not have been optimal, as there were a lot of concepts in there that gave me new ideas, so naturally my head is rattling like crazy and I can't sleep. So let's try a writeup of sorts. That should tire me out :p

I wasn't too impressed at first and took issue with the book making extra sure that I am a renaissance soul about 3 times. The introductory chapters also were nothing new, which might be my fault for being many dozens of books deep into the self-help space already. The first interesting part, to me personally, started with the section on values. I think I might go from there and skip everything that didn't click with me, making this post my personal "study notes", I guess:

Values
The author provided a few exercises to define my personal values that might guide me in the later life planning parts. Mark Divine's "Way of the Seal" had a similar section that I did a few years back, so nothing new there. I also found his way of getting to my core values more engaging and thorough. It was nice however to do a similar exercise again while reading another authors prose, as I'm not too keen on re-reading Divine's book a third time. For completeness sake, my values are: Integrity, Caring, Kindness, Usefulness, Progress.

Focal Points
Next, the concept of Focal Points was introduced. I'm pretty sure I got the scope of these all wrong, as the examples provided were more like "be a better dad", "improve my marriage" and the like. I think one might liken these to the 12(?) categories Alex Vermeer uses for his yearly planning session in 8,760 hours. But since I've done that a few times, I decided to make up my own categories of archetypes I want to embody: Wive, Homekeeper, Outdoorsperson, Athlete, Craftsperson, Artist and Professional.

The author's advice is to focus on about 4 of these at any one time for however long that works out to be. So I might focus on my Homekeeping skills for months, while switching the others out every week, for example. This is once again similar to Vermeer's work but somehow Lobenstine managed to make this concept click with me in a way that the former didn't. This was a very rewarding concept that I will definitely use going forward.

Circle of Interest and Circle of Income
The idea of the next part was to make a pie-chart of my interests and one of my income sources, I think. This wasn't fleshed out as a real exercise, so I made one up as I was thinking along. The goal for the renaissance soul should apparently be to make those pie-charts overlap as much as possible, so one wouldn't need to work on what one isn't interested in.

I found the focus on income a bit singular as I'm a big self-sufficiency fan, so I'd rather tend to my needs directly instead of using income as a proxy. This is why I added another pie-chart of my needs. The goal of my extended exercise would then be to have the interests-circle overlap with my needs-circle. I will definitely need to redo this, as I made the exercise up quite haphazardly. With this alteration I found the exercise quite valuable though, so I plan to carry that forward as part of my life planning sessions and reviews.

J-O-B
Next, a distinction is made between a "job" (as in any job) and a "J-O-B" (a reframing of the former with a focus on how it can work for you). Apparently, once you start to separate your identity from a job, you begin to see it in a different light, which makes it into a "J-O-B". It's hard to explain and I really wished the author would have found another word for it.

The chapter also mentions which key characteristics a J-O-B (I feel silly) should have:

• It should produce income. Also mentioned are benefits, which might be health insurance, travel (if you like it), etc.

• It should provide energy, not leave you drained at the end of the day. This should also be the right kind of energy: If you plan to do a solitary activity in front of a computer for your focal points after work, the J-O-B should maybe include walking, socializing, etc to not deplete the same kind of limited ressources.

• It should give you time, as in leaving you free to pursue your focal points. A hard 9-to-5 schedule might keep you from volunteer teaching (as schools are closed when your work ends), which would be bad. This can also mean reading non-work books on the job (e.g. nightwatchman) and the like.

• It should provide training and/or equipment that helps you along in your focal points. If you're interested in woodworking an internship at a woodworking shop would qualify, for example.

• It should offer networking and/or publicity opportunities. For example a desk clerk type job was mentioned as they provide one with the opportunity to get to know lots of people (networking) and opportunities to casually drop that you own a business (publicity).

Overall, a job can be considered a J-O-B when it synergizes with your focal points. Basically, a job uses you, but a J-O-B is of use to you. Again, it's a useful mindest shift, but a more specific terminology would have been better. This chapter made clear to me why I am so anxious to switch jobs, as my job provides a lot of the above points. I basically knew this already, but now I can articulate that much more clearly to myself and others.

Umbrellas
An Umbrella was defined as one job (not doing the J-O-B thing anymore) that had many different facets to it. This should fit the inner working of a renaissance soul, as it provides variety from day to day. It also harbors the potential to support many focal points too, which I found to be the bigger insight here. Potential Umbrellas would be writer (one process, various subject matters), business owner (domain-specific skills paired with financial and personal management, etc.) or camp leader (outdoorsy, working with kids, making a contribution). Basically anything that makes you "wear many hats".

The big takeaway for me personally was that not only is my job a J-O-B in that I can use it instead of letting it use me, but it actually provides a slew of potential synergies to my focal points if I let it. Going forward I will have to focus on drawing those synergies out as much as possible, which should also help to not see my job as "the enemy".

The rest of the book
After that there were a few sections on life planning that were all pretty good in that I have no doubts that this book alone could be a valuable ressource for that in itself. I have however established processes that I mostly find to be superior, so I didn't adapt a lot of concepts from this part.

The time management part was similarly good, but focused mostly on time blocking which Cal Newport's "Deep Work" did a much more detailed job on. Tips for people with too much or too little time were also provided, but those didn't really do anything for me.

Another noteworthy concept was the PRISM test. This test seeks to identify the Price, Reality, Integrity, Specificity and Measurability of each focal point so one can evaluate if one would like to pursue this focal point. I didn't find this as helpful, as the first three are already kind of a reflex for me personally, while the last two manage to touch on SMART goals somehow. I might have to revisit this later on as I feel that I need to apply it practically to evalue it's usefulness.

The last section was on what to do if you can't seem to start engaging your focal points. This part went into psychology quite a bit (fears, parental values), but didn't produce any striking insights. Again, probably because these things have interested me for years, so I've done some reasonable housecleaning in that department already.

Takeaways
As I already mentioned, my view of my job has been in flux for the last few weeks and this book helped to move that along some more. I've found a clear reasons for not leaving my job, which gives me some peace of mind. I'll also focus on getting the most out of my job in the future, so I can take home more than the money.

What's more, all that talk about focal points and passions one could follow got me thinking about branching out some more. I've not yet decided on which focal points/archetypes I want to focus on for the near future, but I thought a lot about possible side gigs. Seeing how I seemingly have the time and the drive to work through these kinds of books quickly and thoroughly, I'm thinking of reviving an old idea that I had for a blog. I'll sleep on it and maybe flesh it out some more tomorrow.

Another side gig that seems to be manifesting inside my head is that of being a master-forager, possibly giving plant identification courses or doing guided tours. My current job could provide plenty of synergy here, as it now seemingly involves non-fiction writing (documentation), getting my points across clearly during presentations, and public speaking. I might not have seen the potential transferability of skills there if I didn't read this book.

Overall, reading "The Renaissance Soul" has sparked a whole new awareness of "what could be" and I'm sure I will mull the concepts and their implications over in my head for a long time. I'm very glad to have read it and even if I was a bit snarky here or there, it's a definite re-read

Finances (Nov. 2020):
My X-Mas bonus of about 800€ arrived today. I've decided to put this into the wedding fund, so it's off the books and not included in the following calculations.

Overall I managed to save 76% of my income this month (new personal best!).
Detailled spending was:

• 247€ fixed costs (rent, internet, electricity, netflix)

• 175€ consumption (food, beer, smoking)

• 73€ capital expenditures (furniture, meds, clothing)

• 21€ relationship (gifts, flowers)

With this I managed to save about 5.700€ over the last 4 months which I've just invested in one of my three ETFs. It messes up my asset allocation for now, but that will smooth out over time. This puts me over 50.000€ net worth for the first time. Feels like a nice milestone

Work:
Need I say out loud that my boss didn't like version 6 of my slides or is this expected by now? Apparently it does not spark joy and is lacking marketing magic, so I've been encouraged to consult our marketing person. It's a never ending story, but assuming he's right, at least I'm learning how to give better presentations for future endeavors.

Other than that, I've kept to my 4 day workweek last week. The clear dividing line between work time and free time was weird. The first 4 days of every week is just work, with whatever little tasks I can manage afterwards. The next 3 days are completely my own, which leaves me confused with what to do with them. So I've hammered away at my focus points and was super drained afterwards. I guess I'll have to figure this out over the next few weeks.

The Basement:
As part of my recent life planning for the renaissance soul, I decided to pick up cleaning out the basement as one of my focal points for the near future. I didn't even get to the planning stage yet, so there's nothing more to report for now.

Mushrooms:
Another thing I want to focus on these next few weeks would be gathering mushrooms. I've picked about the worst time for starting out, but I am told that winter mushrooms exist even if I couldn't find them during my first 4 trips. So what I'm doing right now is pretty much just going out, photographing whatever I find and then do some research once I am at home. I've also ordered a field guide, so maybe I can do some of my research and identification on the run once it arrives.

Other than gathering mushrooms, I'm also interested in the field of mycology, so I've decided to work on that too. I'll have to see what material is out there, but I think I might be able to turn this interest into a (pop-sci) blog of sorts. I feel that with all my newly won free time I might need an outlet like this (I can't just spam the journal every day :p). The goal there would mostly be skill-development, but I wouldn't be too sad if it paid a few bucks, either.

wow: rent, internet, electricity and netflix for less than 250 euros sounds *amazing*

learning some marketing is good: important skill! being able to sell ideas is as crucial as having them (and often more profitable, lol)

question about your disorienting weekends: is it that they lack meaning? or structure? or motivation? or was there not enough fun? or flow? or rest?

btw re: mushrooms: i’m not a mushroom person, so can’t tell you a thing about them, but read recently a paper on decision making that showed that the social structure of mushroom hunting was the conveyor of great rationality and useful heuristics: https://sjdm.org/journal/20/200330/jdm200330.pdf

so maybe something to consider from there, i.e., joining some sort of mushroom group in your area you could learn from? books alone can be a dangerous thing...

(and yes im a daily spammer )

Alphaville wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 30, 2020 7:27 am

question about your disorienting weekends: is it that they lack meaning? or structure? or motivation? or was there not enough fun? or flow? or rest?

It might have been too much new stuff too fast. Sunday evening just felt like I left my normal life behind for too long. I have that same feeling when I go on vacation, and integration time usually helps in that case. Maybe I need to pace myself and add a few ordinary/common tasks inbetween all the novelty. So imposing a loose structure might help.

Alphaville wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 30, 2020 7:27 am

btw re: mushrooms: i’m not a mushroom person, so can’t tell you a thing about them, but read recently a paper on decision making that showed that the social structure of mushroom hunting was the conveyor of great rationality and useful heuristics: https://sjdm.org/journal/20/200330/jdm200330.pdf

so maybe something to consider from there, i.e., joining some sort of mushroom group in your area you could learn from? books alone can be a dangerous thing...

I stumbled upon that paper in the foraging thread, but didn't get to reading it in full, yet. It's definitely hard for a beginner to grasp how mushroom picking actually works. I don't know where they grow, how to tell edible ones from poisonous ones, etc. Which is why I joke that I'm not "gathering mushrooms" but "gathering questions" for now. I'm making progress by identifying a few "target" mushrooms and ignoring the rest, though. Now they only need to show up, so I can pack them.

A local group would be cool, but I couldn't find one in my town and travel is difficult with current restrictions due to corona. I was hoping to find other mushroom-people in the woods, but 'tis definitely not season it seems :/

NuncFluens wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 30, 2020 9:49 am

It might have been too much new stuff too fast. Sunday evening just felt like I left my normal life behind for too long. I have that same feeling when I go on vacation, and integration time usually helps in that case. Maybe I need to pace myself and add a few ordinary/common tasks inbetween all the novelty. So imposing a loose structure might help.

i usually get ready for the week on sunday afternoons/evenings.

anyway, if you were fully fi and didn’t have to work, what would you do with your time?

If I were fully FI I'd probably focus on a few different sectors:

• First would be homekeeping as I enjoy cooking, baking and having my stuff in order. This would also include renovations/home improvement, gardening and tending to a small array of livestock (chicken, maybe rabbits and some goats, hopefully). Handling the finances should probably be included for completeness' sake, although I don't plan on investing much time there. I just like the thought of being homely and providing for my little family of two.

• Another part would be the outdoors. This would be hiking mixed with foraging, possibly some fishing too. I'm not too sure on hunting right now, but wouldn`t say "never" at this time. This part is mostly for exercise and communing with nature on my own.

• Another sector would be helping people in the widest sense*. This could be as a paid life/finance-coach, teaching at a community learning center or guided hiking/foraging trips every now and then. This could be for free (depending on the context), but since my fiance is not big on saving herself I'd like to bolster my cushion to be able to support the both of us this way.

• The final one is optional, as I don't want to put what feels like "work" into this. But I could imagine writing a blog or even a book about one or more of the above. As long as it feels like it's giving me more than just a bit of money, it's definitely an option though.

Going from the above list, I could probably try to simulate a 3-day mini-FI every week. Which is what I tried this weekend, mostly by building up my skills/expertise towards this end-state, but somehow I didn't get the balance right. My fiance visiting her parents might have also played a part here, as I was left to my own hyperfixation for too long. Corona doesn't help either.

*Rereading this, I'm getting the idea that maybe I just want to be praised as a "leader"/"expert" to feel good about myself :p