Anne-Lauren Le Cunff is releasing her first book, Tiny Experiments. She is also offering a learning program for people who pre-ordered and selected their applications to form a community, Curiosity Collective. I was fortunate enough to have been selected for the program. I will write a series of posts summarizing my notes from the sessions and also my reflections/exercises for the week.
I have been reading Anne’s newsletter Ness Labs for more than 3 years now and I have loved her blogs on creativity, mindful productivity, and experimenting with life. I am equally excited to attend her live sessions and learn more before I get my hands on the book.
This blog post focuses on content for week 1 and each week, I will write another one with my learnings and elections. I am writing this from Victrola Coffee in Capitol Hill, Seattle with my Mocha and raspberry brioche as S is reading his book – The Expanse (Tiamat’s Wrath).
When I think about curiosity, I think about ______________.
This is the first prompt of the session. For me, curiosity is the endless pursuit of knowing and experiencing what inspires a full range of human emotions. It’s about opening up and making myself available to all that the world has to offer. I am curious when I am being receptive by following up, asking questions, and noticing what follows.
Notice Things Around
Anne asked us to experiment with different colors as they make up the tiny dots on the cover of her book. It’s good that I am in a cafe, I have plenty of things around. Not that my home lacks color lol.
Spot Blue: My jeans
Green Event: Cooking spicy, tangy pea sauce
Red Emotion: Danger, definitely
This exercise is to take events and experiences in life and Notice, Connect, Perceive, and Understand them. Becoming the scientist of your life starts with observation.
For just one day, I invite you to play a game of self-anthropology
Anne shared an excerpt from her book (Resource is Inside Circle) and asked us to read and reflect on resonating parts. The heading of the section very much sums up my biggest takeaway. Anne encourages us to see our life like an anthropologist. It’s akin to anthropologists going to the field and taking notes to understand the broad concepts of humans and humanity. This is to audit our lives similarly and reset our cognitive constructs to achieve life goals.
I am now trying to figure out what I want to do next. I want to go beyond what I am offering with my 9-5 and create something that provides me with time, space, and financial freedom. You could think of this as starting a business or another creative endeavor. I have been stuck at the starting stage (Anne’s excerpt starts with the same proposition). I have too many ideas flowing in and I am finding it hard to cut through the noise and get done things that would take me closer to my goals.
How will I conduct this audit and take notes?
I am going to log my thoughts in a notebook that I will keep with me near my workstation. When I am outside, I will take notes on my phone. I will log any thoughts that float in my head with time stamps. Anne asked us to do this for one day but I will do this for a week and use the notes to identify patterns in my thoughts and report here.
The Experimental Cycle
What is the current situation? This is where self-anthropology will come into the picture and this will drive hypotheses for performing experiments to get better and achieve the goals.
What could be different? Frame the experiments that you would like to set up – with a touch of ‘maybe’. Maybe if I meditate in the morning, I will have a calmer day. Maybe if I did yoga first thing in the morning, my energy throughout the day would be higher.
How will I test my hypothesis? Like scientific experiments, we need to validate the initial experiment results we get. It starts by repeating the experiments to validate that ‘maybe’ could actually be true. It’s about realizing the power of repeated trials.
The pact: I will __________ for the next 5 days
This is a template to start with a promise for something you will do for the next 5 days. I have been trying to write more so for the next 5 days, I am going to write 500 words every single day. Doesn’t matter what topic, I will get into the habit of writing every day.