Play the Long Game

Author

Geoff Girvitz
September 04, 2024

  • Fatherhood: Play the long game

  • Fitness: Healthspan with Dr. Howard Luks

  • Focus: Task to the future

  • A book, a quote, a dad jokegame

Fatherhood

For most adults, exercise is like eating broccoli — good for you but not exactly Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Adult fitness is sets and reps and rest periods and protocols and optimizations. Kids, meanwhile, should just play. More variety. More challenges. Structural constraints instead of rules. Puzzles to solve with their bodies and games so engaging that fatigue doesn’t even enter their minds.

I own a great gym with a wild assortment of tools for strength training. When my son comes down, he mostly wants me to chase him around and then bounce a stability ball back and forth. Maybe hang off of the rings. I am at peace with this. We play soccer together, we wrestle around. We do lots of things… just with less overall structure because his enjoyment of movement is far more important than what he extracts from it. That may change but I’m definitely not trying to hurry it along.

Fitness: New podcast episode: Healthspan with Dr. Howard Luks

I had a chance to speak with one of my favourite voices on longevity/healthspan. I think you’ll get a lot out of what he has to say. Listen here.

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Focus: Task to the Future (your attentional cadence)

This morning, one of the dads from our community was telling me how his meditation practice tends to go during school day mornings. Spoiler alert: not well. The truth is that we have to understand how often we’ll be interrupted in order to work effectively with whatever we’ve got. I’ve taken to calling this your attentional cadence.

Some examples:

30s tasks

Adding to your to-do list or calendar; quick messages; taking a few slow breaths; looking dramatically out into the distance (AKA letting your eyes relax after staring at a screen all day)

3-min tasks

Shortish emails; quick pulse-checks with colleagues; calendar shuffles; mini-workouts

30-min tasks

Immersing yourself in a single, challenging problem; crafting a clear piece of communication; short-ish meetings; walks and bike rides and all kinds of other movement options

88-min tasks

If my calculations are correct, when you hit 88 or more minutes of deep focus, you're gonna accomplish some serious shit

What I'm reading

Quote

“I use the term Anchor to describe something in your life that is already stable and solid. The concept is pretty simple. If there is a habit you want, find the right Anchor within your current routine to serve as your prompt, your reminder. I selected the term “anchor” because you are attaching your new habit to something solid and reliable.”

— BJ Fogg

Dad joke

“I’m not nostalgic… but I used to be.”

— Steven Wright