I talked briefly about my condition in a previous post, and that I’m still looking for a diet that suits me.
I just read How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, by Scott Adams. It’s a great book and a quick read. Scott talks about goals and systems, his entrepreneurial failures, and how he approaches fitness and diets. We have a similar opinion regarding the latter: There’s no one-size-fits-all diet! Here’s his system:
The healthy eating summary
- Pay attention to your energy level after eating certain foods. Find your pattern.
- Remove unhealthy, energy-draining food from your home.
- Stock up on convenient healthy food (e.g., apples, nuts, bananas) and let laziness be your copilot in eating right.
- Stop eating foods that create feelings of addiction: white rice, white potatoes, desserts, white bread, fried foods.
- Eat as much healthy food as you want, whenever you want.
- Get enough sleep, because tiredness creates the illusion of hunger.
- If your hunger is caused by tiredness, try healthy foods with fat, such as nuts, avocados, protein bars, and cheese, to suppress the hungry feeling.
- If you’re eating for social reasons only, choose the healthiest options with low calories.
- Learn how to season your healthy-yet-bland foods.
We can use a similar approach with language learning. There’s no one-size-fits-all method, and we need to consider our preferences when crafting our own method.
The healthy language learning summary
- Pay attention to your mood (happy, bored, exhausted, laughing, disgusted, …) after trying certain approaches. Find your pattern.
- Remove boring (from your point of view, of course) tools, apps & tricks from your method.
- Stock up on efficient tools, apps & tricks (e.g., SRS, songs) and let laziness be your copilot in learning with the right materials.
- Stop using resources that don’t work for you.
- Use as much efficient materials as you want, whenever you want, wherever you want.
- Get enough sleep, because tiredness creates the illusion of slackness.
- If your slackness is caused by tiredness, try efficient approaches, such as SRS, meetups, and one-on-one speaking to suppress the ‘slacky’ feeling.
- If you’re learning for social reasons only, choose the most sociable approach with low grammar.
- Learn how to make your efficient tools entertaining.
Et voilà.