Misc.

Writing Insights (2021)

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Reading Time: 11 minutes A well-known writer got collared by a university student who asked, “Do you think I could be a writer?” “Well,” the writer said, “I don’t know…. Do you like sentences?”  Annie Dillard – The Writing Life As I started writing articles for this blog for over a year now, I thought to review the lessons I learned about writing during this journey.  When to Write  What started as stealing time to write, here and there, progressed into a much more organized framework. Most of my …

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End of the Year Favourites (2021)

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Reading Time: 6 minutes Some of the articles I most enjoy reading are the recommendation articles from the people I follow. So I thought to share my better discoveries of 2021. This article is not sponsored, and there are no affiliate links as I only want to recommend things that I found valuable over this year.  Books  There were quite a few books I marked with four or five stars on my Goodreads profile, but I want to talk in particular about three of them as they made …

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The Exponential Art of Kaizen

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Reading Time: 9 minutes When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow, it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it—but all that had gone before.  Jacob A. Riis How are post-war industries rebuilt? Can worldwide poverty be reduced? Can couples divorce rates be predicted?   The answer to such dramatic questions …

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Reading Insights (2021)

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Reading Time: 4 minutes Finishing a Book is Optional There is a cognitive bias called the sunk cost fallacy. We hesitate to abandon a strategy or a plan because we already have invested time, money, energy in it, even if dropping that specific action would be more helpful for us. With the sunk cost fallacy in mind, we would gain more if we do not finish a book we do not enjoy. Time is non-regenerable and is not worth spending our time on boring or bad books. Usually, after …

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Shoshin, the Zen Concept that Applies to Companies, Science and Personal Development

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Reading Time: 7 minutes “In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s, there are few.”  Zen master Shunryo Suzuki  In Zen Buddhism, “shoshin” translates as the “beginner’s mind”, where “sho” means beginning or origin, and “shin” means spirit, soul, or attitude.  A beginner’s mind is different from being a beginner. Shoshin is about having the attitude and mindset of a novice who learns a new practice for the first time, especially after reaching expert levels in our fields.    In the beginner’s mind, there is a lack of preconceptions, a willingness to learn, to ask and try, …

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Keto and Low-Carb Treats

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Reading Time: 7 minutes In another article, I presented all the keto and low-carb baking tips I collected over the years. I tend to eat keto, with carbs coming from veggies or fruits. My family does not eat low-carb per se, more like “fewer-carbs” as I do not cook potatoes, pasta, beans, rice, etc. In this article, I included all the tried-and-tested recipes that my family would want on repeat, no questions asked. Breads and crackers Flaxmeal bread from Lalena.ro, with an English version below: Ingredients – 150g …

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Keto and Low-Carb Baking Tips and Tricks

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Reading Time: 7 minutes A few years ago, I started to notice that more and more culinary blogs published low-carb recipes. Curious, I started baking low-carb desserts.  After some initial failures, finally, my carbivore husband didn’t notice any difference between a traditional cake and a low-carb cake.  The low-carb diet is a diet that limits carbohydrates consumptions. Instead of eating pasta, traditional bread, rice, sugary foods, the focus shifts on natural proteins, fats, and vegetables with fewer carbohydrates and a higher percentage of fat. The low-carb diet means under 50g net carbs per day, and a moderately low-carb diet means under 100g net …

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Insleepia

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Reading Time: 2 minutes You visited me again last night And I woke up again in fright. I didn’t know what else to do. Should I have screamed? Should I have welcomed you? You bring me gifts of smoke. You’re in my head. A rain of words, A wind of plots, A storm of thoughts. You’re all the stories that I couldn’t write, All the wounds that didn’t cease to bite, All the shadows that never leave without a fight. You bring me gifts of light. You’re in …

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