Ellipses, Feb 3… Ali Abdaal on Notability, eating for energy, and what you hate in others
Ellipses… a small, special character.
Used by writers to slow down, create a pause, and indicate thinking.
⚫️ 1 tip: Eating for energy 📌
The way we eat directly affects our sleep and energy levels. When we eat a heavy lunch, we experience a crash in the afternoon that brings on that all-too-common naptime feeling. (This is actually a pretty big sign that you’re one of the 88% of Americans with an unhealthy metabolism, and potentially you’re even having a reactive hypoglycemia [low blood sugar] reaction.)
But because we’re so busy, we’ll go for a caffeine boost, which then leads to poor sleep at night. Ugly cycle. Doesn’t feel good. And despite cultural norms, this afternoon crash is not normal.
So, how do we stop this? Eat a clean lunch that is mostly whole foods and low on grains. For me, if I’m practicing a longer time-restricted feeding window, this might mean some scrambled eggs and avocado, or a clean protein like chicken and non-starchy vegetables.
⚫️ 1 link: Become an iPad note-taking whiz 🔗
Throwback to productivity wizard Ali Abdaal in 2018. But I just re-watched his “How I take notes on my iPad Pro” video and it just re-cemented for me how much I love taking handwritten notes in Notability, especially around workbooks and papers that I import into my Mac environment via the in-app scanner.
Some highlights:
Notability allows you to be completely paper-free, with everything syncing across all your devices.
With handwriting, you can take more intentional and deliberate notes and not be tempted to type a transcript of everything you hear.
Freeform note-taking with handwriting allows you to be sloppy when you need to and clean it up later with better structure.
Ali’s handwriting is adorably atrocious, but he’s probably one of the smartest folks on YouTube.
⚫️ 1 journal prompt: Reflections 📔
This can be a very revealing exercise if you really lean into it and are honest with yourself.
What are the things in other people that bother you the most? What things in others bring up anger, judgment, jealousy, rejection? And is it possible those things are actually more of a reflection of the shortcomings within yourself? Think about it and write down what comes up for you and why you think that is.
