Hello friend, what is going on here? Well, lately, I decided to journal again since I feel like it is beneficial to my mental health, and I want to live a more conscious life. Since I always want to write more, why not combine those two? So now I will collect my thoughts over the week and write here about what might be interesting to other people, too. Like things I learned, read, listened to, or worked on, even about my exercise routine and whatever other random stuff comes to mind. So, let’s begin with this week’s review.
What did I work on…
I’m working on a few personal projects at the moment. First, there is the PRTracker, which I want to release soon. Then, there are two other apps I’m developing. One should be for booking appointments, and the other is for keeping track of recipes and shopping. But both of them are still in early development.
Regarding my PRTracker app, I wondered if the iCloud sync was activated. So I googled a bit, read the documentation, and compared the starting projects in Xcode if you activate “Host in cloudkit” and if you don’t. There is no difference if you are not enrolled in the Apple Developer Program. But you can still select the option in Xcode, which is quite confusing. I will have to make the necessary changes once enrolled, which will happen in the following weeks. However, I implemented a function to export the PRs as a CSV file. Which was also a little confusing, but it is working now. You can read more about it in my post: SwiftUI sharing or exporting files with FileExporter or UIActivityViewController.
What did I read…
I’m reading SwiftUI for Masterminds (affiliate link) by J.D. Gauchat, which is an excellent book if you are interested in developing apps with SwiftUI for iPhones or any other Apple system. It starts by introducing the reader to the Swift programming language and the most important programming concepts like variables, conditionals, loops, and all the nice stuff you need to know. After those general concepts, it covers many different topics and elements of SwiftUI while always offering tasks you could do if you want to program along and practice. So check it out if that stuff interests you.
Have you heard of Building a Second Brain or the PARA-Method (which stands for Projects – Areas – Resources – Archive)? Those are techniques for PKM (Personal Knowledge Management) by Tiago Forte, which I use to organize my digital notes and files. This guide gives a great overview: Building a Second Brain: The Definitive Introductory Guide.
What did I listen to…
These last weeks, I have listened to many episodes of the Deep Dive Podcast by Ali Abdaal , which can be found on YouTube and other major podcasting platforms. Ali is a former medical doctor turned entrepreneur who covers mainly business- and productivity-related topics on the podcast. What inspired me to start writing this post was this episode with Nathan Barry, who wrote a thousand words every day for 600 days and also created Convertkit. In essence, if you write 600.000 words, you produce a lot of content, no matter how much you publish. So, I decided to try this as well. But with 500 words for the beginning. Something else they talked about was the difference between work or education being “fixed time” or “fixed work,” which I found pretty interesting. A job like a cashier at a supermarket would be fixed time (kind of – if there are no customers and no other tasks to do, you still get some free time). Still, many office jobs are “fixed work,” even if you have to stay there for a fixed amount of time; once you finish your work, you can work on other stuff on your phone. Ali gave the example of when he worked as a doctor; he would use the time between visiting patients to write scripts for his YouTube videos. We have much more time than we think; we just waste a lot of it on social media or other useless stuff that doesn’t help us achieve our goals.
Fitness and health…
The usual exercise sessions were more chill this week because of the small competition on Saturday. During the week, I only did two weightlifting deload sessions, with less weight, to be as recovered as possible for the competition. I did another snatch session last Sunday, though, and something clicked—my snatches have felt so much better and more consistent since then.
Well, but now to the competition. It was a completely new experience for me. Not only competing in sports but lifting in front of other people watching and cheering you on. I have to say, it felt strange to me, and I was nervous before and during the competition. The competition format was that everybody started at the same weight, 55 for snatches and 75 for clean and jerk, and the weight increased by 5 kilos every round. If you failed a lift, you could wait until your 25-second lifting time was over, wait the usual transition time of 20 seconds, and then try a second time in the following 25-second time frame. Once you missed a weight two times like that, you were out. Well, I started with snatches, and it felt like I had never snatched before – my technique was gone, and I muscle- or power-snatched the 55kg. In the next round, the same happened with 60kg. The round after that, with 65kg, I kind of managed to do a squat-snatch, but on the first try, I dropped it in front of me, and on the second try, I overcompensated and dropped it behind me. Clean & Jerks went a little better, but my cleans felt weird; my grip might have been too wide on the bar. 75, 80, and 85kg went pretty well, but I missed the Jerk on 90kg both times; I cleaned it, though. 65kg and 90kg would have been my PRs, but the Cleans are especially taxing, and the second try after such a short break is not easier. Overall, I’m satisfied with my performance for my first time competing, even though I got last place. We had some very strong people competing. The guy who got first place snatched 120kg and clean & jerked 145. Pretty impressive. I have to invest more time in my training again, specifically in my squats, which could or should be much stronger. And my lifting technique has to become more ingrained as well, so I can better use it in a stressful competition setting. The event, in general, was great and a lot of fun – awesome people and an awesome sport.
