Caspian with a riff on‪:‬ Caspian Almerud

This week started bad. Loads of worrying, no proper sleep for a couple of days, and some kind of bug physically. In short, I’ve been far below 100%.

Thursday, I got home from work. Tired. I went for a walk instead of a run. I decided that my body might do good with a short break from running, but I still need the movement. Got back to shower, and still tired. Grumpy. Moody. Feeling sorry for myself.

In the shower, I thought about the mood, and how it’d bothered me for almost a week. Noticed it. And decided to let go of the bad juju. Stop it.

I had enough. Sometimes that works. Just getting fed up.

Sometimes I need to have those days or weeks where I’m moody and in a rut. It’s a signal for something else, or just the state I’m in.

I know that others have these periods as well. And I’ve spoken to a lot of people who are stuck in a rut they don’t want to be in anymore without knowing what to do about it.

I’ve developed and stolen some ideas on that. Shifting attention from the negative and bothering to things i want to focus on, with the goal being to get out of and away from the rut.

These are some of them. Steal them with pride.

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Last Friday, I left work at 4 pm. I went to the grocery store to pick up a bunch of cookies, chips, some fruit and light beers. The cashier looked at me like she was wishing me a happy party.

I got home, changed into my running clothes and went out for a 2 mile run. Then I proceeded to run a little more than 1 mile every hour on the hour up until 4 pm on the Saturday. (doubled the last run because my knee was acting up when rested for 45 mins). When finishing the last run, I’d run my first marathon.

It’s been a goal of mine for the past year to be able to run long distance again, and now I am.

I want to talk about a couple of reflections I had from this experience.



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I’m in a period of my life right now where I’m extremely disciplined. I’ve been here before and quite enjoy it. It’s very intentional, and is done in order for me to track myself against a couple of long term goals that I have.

I have a flair for structure and discipline. I think it’s fun to explore, I like being disciplined and enjoy the results hugely. Hence, I’ve had questions asked about it quite a lot. Friends asking how I keep structure, or asking me to help them create discipline and structure in their lives.

To some extent I can. I’m reluctant to spread the gospel and tell people to do what I do. I’ve tried that, and it never works. There’s so much trial and error behind my systems that are vital to the result today.

What I can offer are a couple of principles that seem to be universal. They’ve worked well for me and as far as I know, for people who’ve used them in their lives.

→ Don’t focus on the tool

Going gear first is so so common. It’s what most people do when they want to get in shape. It’s what I tend to do when I want to become more creative. And it’s what a lot of people do when looking for productivity.



Even though I don’t use apple notes, I can completely relate to this image.

When looking for tools, we don’t focus on what’s important or is going to have the biggest impact on our structure. We’re making things complicated, messy and eventually things are going to get lost.

On top of that, I’ve been guilty of trying to “optimise” my tools rather than actually doing the work I’m supposed to do. The whole web in the middle takes time, and can feel like working, but it isn’t.

One last note: When you develop systems for structure, you’re going to be fine with whatever tool you’re using. I’m currently using one app at work and another at home. I’m sufficient in both because I have my systems down.

→ Build systems you trust.

In order for personal structure to work, you have to trust your systems. You have to trust that everything you need, be it notes, reminders, calendar invites or mathematic formulas, are in the right place. That’s why we build systems in the first place.

A challenge that I’ve managed to condition out of myself, is that we tend to flex these systems.

Most of us have a preferred place to take notes. If you don’t have one, you should. But when you’re in a meeting and forgot your computer, you’re gonna grab a pen and pencil to take notes. When you later on need those notes, you don’t instantly go to the notebook, you go to the app where you usually take your notes.

All of a sudden, you can’t trust the system to contain all your notes anymore, and the system is going to fail.

What you need to do is be ruthless with these rules for yourself. If you end up taking notes on a notepad once, you need to instantly convert those notes into your regular system.

The same goes for all the systems you build for yourself to become more structured.

→ Decide and revise

Every once in a while, I revise the systems I’ve built. The rules that I try to keep to. The way I do things.

Then I decide on what I want to keep, what to get rid of and what to tweak. And commit.

Systems is to a large extent about commitment. It’s about following through and doing what you’ve said you’ll do over and over again.

While that’s important, it’s also important to do the right thing over and over again. Reminding me of the line from Love yours by J.Cole:

The good news is, you came a long way

The bad news is, you went the wrong way

Coming a long way doesn’t really matter if you’re going the wrong way. Hence, make sure to revise properly and check your map.



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When I was 14, I was convinced I needed 10 hours of sleep. I spoke to my mom about it, and told her that I constantly felt tired despite sleeping so much. To be fair, I was doing 6-10 sessions of football and running per week. But ten hours every night seems a bit high looking back.

My mom told me that there’s such a thing as sleeping too much. I was confused, astounded and in disbelief. She then encouraged me to try it out. Test what happens if I sleep 6 hours a night for a week. Or 7, or 8.

I’ve run a bunch of experiments on myself, some more successful than others. It’s a way for me to get to know myself, know my limits and learn more about my abilities.

I’ve come to realise that not everyone does this, and I think it’s a shame.

Sleep has been one of the integral ones, but far from the only thing I’ve experimented with. Every experiment has made me grow a little bit. Every single one, especially the miserable ones. That’s what we’re speaking about today.

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I remember vividly sitting in a workshop where we were speaking about our values. We’d been given a list of 60-something words to choose from, and were tasked with choosing 3-5 that felt important.

After that, we were split into groups. Each person was given 20 minutes to share a story related to their word with the prompt “A time when [value word] was important to me…”. I was 20 at the time, in a group with people older and younger.

It was wonderful speaking about these things. One woman in her 40s shared that feeling secure was important to her, that she’d declined job opportunities that fel too risky because of it.

As an ambitious 20-year old I couldn’t fathom it. She continued sharing how she just kept thinking about what would happen to her children if she couldn’t pay her mortgage. Not put food on the table. What her husband would say and think about her.

That’s when I understood.

We all have values that are more or less important to us at different points in time. I have one set of values today, but I know very well that I didn’t have some of them just 6 months ago. They change over time, with us and with our environments.

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Grit has proven one of the most important skills and traits in predicting success. That is, if you want to see who’s going to become successful, look for grit. Grit is what keeps you going when inspiration, motivation and sometimes even reason goes out the window.

I’ve practiced grit over the past 6-7 years. More or less intentionally, I’ve tried to find ways to keep myself going when I don’t feel like it. It’s a big part of why I’ve developed the way I have in those years.

Especially now, where I’ve set up a goal to become an ultra runner, I know that the practice is going to pay off. I’ve already felt it. I don’t want to exercise every day, despite that being my plan. But waking up at 4:30 on a windy/rainy/snowy Sunday morning, I don’t always want to go for a run.

But I do it either way.

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