My 7 AM Plan: Making Daily Progress Through Reading, Math, and Standing Meditation

Timezone: Guangzhou, Mainland China

Wake-up Routine: Do some standing meditation (while English audio plays in my ears), eat breakfast, study math and read English books

7-AM Project

• Project-1: Finish reading Originals ✓ (2024/9/30-10/10)

• Project-2:

• Start reading Thinking in Bets

• Quickly go through Linear Algebra and Its Applications for the first time, developing the habit and feel for reading math books

• Optional task: Review some vocabulary

• Daily duration/metrics: Just read, read, read—adjust timing gradually

• Reward: Go to a secluded forest to do standing meditation

• Start Date: 2024-10-11

• End Date: 2024-10-29 Ahh, I’m starting to deliberately require myself to maintain a relatively even amount each day, otherwise some days I read 4 hours and other days 0 hours—the average result is the same but it makes me miserable. This project might keep adjusting, but I won’t stop for the next few years. Reading English books to sharpen my brain. Making daily progress🫡

September 30

Had tea last night🍵, plus I’ve been taking stomach medicine this week, so sleep quality was terrible. But someone who loves standing meditation won’t become a walking zombie. Completed today’s 2 hours of reading in a not-so-great state, and rewarded myself with half an hour of standing meditation. There were still people in the forest, photographers with big telephoto lenses shooting birds—about one every 10 minutes. At first it was a bit awkward, but I thickened my skin and stopped caring. Beautiful morning~

October 1

Woke up at 5 AM today to catch the high-speed train. Even though I was very sleepy, I still finished today’s project on the train💃💃💃🕺🕺🕺

You’ve spent hours, days, weeks, months, or maybe even years thinking about the idea. You’ve contemplated the problem, formulated the solution, and rehearsed the vision. You know the lyrics and the melody of your idea by heart. By that point, it’s no longer possible to imagine what it sounds like to an audience that’s listening to it for the first time.

It mentioned how “familiarity” is actually subtly changing our acceptance of things and shifting our preferences. We find ideas we’ve heard frequently more credible, haha.

Middle-status conformity leads us to choose the safety of the tried-and-true over the danger of the original.

Those in the middle don’t dare to take risks like those with nothing to lose, nor dare to create like those at the top. I think the fear of “losing” is something very, very deep in human nature.

Although one ultimately chose voice and the other opted to exit, there’s one way in which their choices were the same: they chose to speak up rather than stay silent.

Blindly conforming or ignoring external standards isn’t the beneficial answer. You need to learn to speak up, or leave at the right moment. Making these moves requires clarity of purpose, not just challenging things and rules for the sake of it.

October 2

Slept all day yesterday, haha, that’s what happens when you go home—sleeping in bed, sleeping in chairs, sleeping at relatives’ houses, sleeping wherever I went, lazed around all day. Still did some standing meditation today, listened to some English, then went out for rice noodle rolls, and went to the market to buy beef, beef balls, radish, corn🌽, and lettuce for a beef hot pot at noon—but forgot to buy rice noodles, which was quite a headache.

But whatever, I’m starting the project anyway. Today I read about the importance of timing in making choices. It mentioned that “procrastination” is also an element of innovation, which really relates to the vibe I feel at school—this atmosphere of being assigned tasks and rushing to complete them. This kind of “not procrastinating” actually kills more possibilities. For example, if you rush through your math homework carelessly, or immediately look up or ask about something you don’t understand without giving yourself time to “procrastinate,” then mathematical “inspiration” might never come to you.

The part I read today happened to be about product timing, and the next section is about the timing of life’s tasks. Ahh, I really want to extend my reading time and keep going, but I stopped, leaving more passion for tomorrow’s reading, haha🥰🥰🥰

October 3

Also completed my reading task today, though not very efficiently, because I reached parts with different cultural narratives. First, there are two different types of innovation: young people tend toward conceptual innovation, while older people lean toward practical innovation—both can drive progress. Then it talked about how people with extreme views often have deeper prejudice against those with the same but moderate views, which is why people with similar ideals often have more disharmony. But the examples were a bit strange, so I skipped that chapter. Finally, I stopped at the part about how birth order among siblings determines certain traits—tomorrow will tell me it’s actually about the different parenting styles behind it. ☝️🤓 Super sleepy today, but still pushing through to not lose momentum.

October 4

Read too much yesterday, read for an hour and a half today and fell asleep😴 Also has a lot to do with taking stomach medicine this week. Starting today, I’m rebuilding my gut microbiome—my “second brain.” Ahh, physics competition also requires me to start watching “raw” videos, though I find foreign professors quite interesting (unlike certain someone).

Today I also read about how later-born children tend to be more original. It said that children with more older siblings receive more protection and less parental attention, so they’re more “wild” (which is also why only children have similar traits to later-born children). Also, when rewarding or punishing children’s behavior, giving an explanation is very important—it affects how deeply children internalize values. Reading through it, I didn’t find it that interesting, but I did learn some random little facts🥳

October 6

Ahh, got an eye infection, so uncomfortable, feels like I can’t do anything. Also back in Guangzhou now, discovered that talking with people you click with really feels great. I think my strengths and hobbies all seem to center around language—whether it’s communication or learning foreign languages to broaden my knowledge horizons. I seem to be able to naturally find the key points in conversation and express my opinions without much effort. This might be a “sweet spot” worth paying attention to, but I still have to prioritize exercise, haha, otherwise I’ll have plans but nowhere to use them.

One thing that really struck me was that after learning I needed a gastroscopy at the hospital, I felt like the sky was falling and nothing else in life mattered. But when actually facing many choices about fame and fortune, I still get restless, lose the ability to enjoy, and get driven around unable to find my positioning.

Also, worrying about how to make money is really something! Hope everyone can have a balance of health, love, work, and play! I really want to make money! And have enough health to absorb the essence of life! Also, I need to proactively create stories—in real life, I’m so timid and don’t dare to start random conversations! I find physics ideas deeply attractive, but I don’t seem very good at research—maybe because my communication talents overshadow research, but I like 💰

What an adorable mental state!

October 7

Eye infection got worse, mood suddenly turned bad this morning, but I still went to the pharmacy to ask what to do and got some anti-inflammatory eye drops. Then I just used them whenever I felt uncomfortable. Also had three Chen-style Tai Chi training sessions today—morning, afternoon, and evening www. Started training not feeling great, but since I’d signed up for the full day, I didn’t back out. Although training was tough and my hips were really sore, plus my eyes weren’t comfortable, I still felt good after finishing. Having warm hands is the best feeling, enjoying this state, haha.

October 11

Was absorbed in linear algebra this morning, didn’t read English books. Maybe mornings will be for math from now on.💃🕺 Pretty interesting, my brain is starting to turn faster!