Week 14: Shape Up

Here we go again. Here’s what’s been in my mind recently.

Something I keep doing

Being diligent in my exercise. Although I’m starting lately to overdo it, especially with weight exercises. The heavier you go, mindfully, and the more you improve, and the more you have to be mindful about rest it seems. I’m getting depleted more than I would like to. Rest matters the same as exercise.

Another way around this is doing lighter weight exercises in the off days. Not completely abandoning the exercise. Doing an active rest like long walks, easy pace is doing it for me.

Last week average: 5 hours strength training + 1 workout Zone 2 = 6 days in the gym.

Something I succeeded in doing

VO2 max sessions that’s not an agony to do. According to Peter Attia, a person should do a 4x4x4. Meaning:

4 min full effort, 4 min zone 2 effort. Repeat that 4 times (32 min total.)

Normally this is done on a rowing machine.

I just didn’t want to do it like this in the last couple of weeks. It’s boring. Am trying to make them fun. What I’m doing is 50 min workout and without 4 min rest in between (non scientific, just fun.) I’m doing the following:

5 min: elliptical. You can do treadmill with an incline. For me, it’s easier on my knees on an elliptical.40 min: Combination ofWeighted sledge for 40 meters total. Forward and Backward. the backward side is for knees from the KneesOverToesGuy.20KG Kettlebell on each arm for 40 meters total.Repeat.10 min: elliptical.

Am young. I should be able to handle it and have some fun from time to time. I want to feel life and alive. And I sure am when I am doing these sessions.

Something I keep buying

Blueberries. I simply say to myself that Lamis, my wife, like them. And then I eat them all by myself. I think I also tell myself they are good antioxidants and that they’re good for strength and the gym work I do. I find a reason to keep buying and eating them. No worries.

Something I keep using

My Moleskine notebook. It’s a bit pricy but it does the job. The quality of paper is superb and that matters if you draw or design on paper. I always choose the one with dotted papers.

I use them for design, reading and all my writing and thinking.

Best of what I watched

I love Aldaheeh. I’m proud we have an Egyptian in the Arab world that has this impact on the youth – simply by explaining science in simple terms in 15 min. He’s great. I’ve watched this video on the Arabic Language as the Language of “daad.” Which we seem to get all wrong. It’s not the language of “daad” after all. Recommended for any Arab.

A big side note: I should rethink this it seems. He’s more of a presenter, than purely a science person. His video on Keto diet is purely misleading and unscientific. If you’re a regular guy like me who is interested in exercise and diet and read a bit, you’ll see this episode and be surprised. He got lots of things wrong. And he mixed between Keto diet and intermittent fasting.

Best buy

If you’re a runner or want a really good top for gym, I’ve bought this by Nike a while back, and it’s a really good top. I’ve bought another one again. It’s not as white as it appears to be. It’s actually grey.

Something I’m learning

I’ve just finished the first walkthrough in the Moral Foundations of Politics course on Coursera. A really good intro on the subject. If you know any other good course on politics on philosophy, please do send me an email. Directly here: mohammadshakergtr@gmail.com

80/20 of my time for the week went on..

My work day is dominated by meetings lately. I’m trying to keep at least 1 day where it’s completely free of meetings. I think if we, at Noon, are to do something dramatically different in the EdTech space in particular and in tech in general, we should follow dramatically different approach of work VS other companies.

And I do think it starts with how we plan, execute, learn and iterate – closing the feedback loop for another cycle of plan, execute, and learn. We’ve made lots of changes in the last 1 year to plan properly and execute and iterate faster. But we still have long way to go.

We’re starting to adopt to some uncommon practices in our industry. These are first principled by 37Signals/Basecamp. These guys got it right early, and still do. I read all their books 7-8 years ago and it effected all my management style, me starting a company, hiring and firing, and me adopting thinking and adopting different internal processes of how XFN teams should work. I’m in-progress of widely implementing lots of these practices at Noon. Give their ShapeUp book a read for anything tech/engineering/design/product related. Or any of their other books.

They are very easy quick reads. But they are gems in a mired of insanity of engineering practices in the tech industry. I love these guys.