Tag Archives: “David Truss”

2 years and a week ago

On July 6, 2019 I wrote ‘It’s Time…‘ and said,

“I tried over a decade ago, now I’m going to do it – a short daily blog.

It’s time…”

I don’t think I’ve missed a day since. It hasn’t always been easy. I sometimes don’t think I have anything worth sharing. But sometimes I write something that just feels right. Other times I just jot down a simple thought and it ends up getting more engagement from readers than I’d ever expect. I know I only have a handful of daily readers, but I have quite a few weekly readers that check out a post or two when it lands in their Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook feed.

I am thankful to have people read my writing, but I feel that I do my best writing when I forget my audience. I readily admit that I enjoy getting ‘likes’ and comments, and yet sometimes the simple act of hitting the ‘Publish’ button is all the reward I need.

My blog tag line now reads, “Writing is my artistic expression. My keyboard is my brush. Words are my medium. My blog is my canvas. And committing to writing daily makes me feel like an artist.”

As I state in the post where I originally wrote this, “The act of writing makes me a better writer. The commitment to this act every single day is itself a reward, making me feel like I’ve accomplished something before I even start my work day.”

Two years of public daily writing is a commitment that I wasn’t sure I could accomplish, and now I wonder how long I will keep going for? For right now, I feel that I have far more reasons to continue than to stop. So this blog will be continued every day until….

Worthy goals

This video came up as a Facebook memory from 4 years ago.

The process of applying for an award like The Cmolik Prize for the Enhancement of Public Education in BC was rewarding because it forced us to reflect on what we do. We have really evolved as a community since this video was made, and while we don’t necessarily give students as much freedom as we have in the past, we’ve created better scaffolding to support students getting their work done… on both the school work they need to do, and the projects they want to do.

A couple recent Daily-Ink posts have focussed on the school: Students design the school about student designed and created murals; and, Obstacles become the way about a student working through a problem rather than letting that problem become an obstacle or a failure point in his project. Creating the space for these things to happen is, as Al says at the end of the video, a worthy goal. Weve fostered a pretty special community where we get to see our students thrive.

Learning Through Failure vs Failing to Learn

We talk a lot about learning through failure, but not a lot about failing to learn. When we fail because of lack of resources, lack of support, lack of knowledge, and/or lack of reflection, it’s just a failure. We do not necessarily learn.

When we talk about learning from failure, we are not actually talking about failure, we are talking about perseverance, and resilience, and tenacity. We are talking about coming up to resistance and unplanned outcomes and working through them to achieve a goal. We are talking about students learning significantly more than if everything went their way.

Who learns more, the person who follows the cookie-cutter curriculum and content-focused assessment, or the student who tries something really original, challenging, and maybe even epic? Even if both paths led to the coveted mark of an ‘A’, which path holds the most promise for deep learning?

We never want students to fail, but we also don’t want them to have such an easy path to success that the learning is forgettable. The struggle that potential failure can create is something that separates learning through failure from failing to learn.

(Image by Bill Ferriter)
Healthy Living Goals with tips by David Truss

My healthy living goals year-end reflection

Today’s daily post was shared on my Pair-a-Dimes blog:

My healthy living goals year-end reflection, with 5 key tips.

Here is the quick version:

My video from January:

My video follow-up that I filmed yesterday morning:

The 5 tips I shared:

1. A year-long calendar poster. You get to see at-a-glance how you are doing and you can motivate yourself to meet your goals at the end of the week if you are not on target.

2. The best time to start a new streak is RIGHT NOW. I mentioned this in the video, don’t wallow in disappointment. There are only 3 weeks (starred) in the chart below that show weeks that I didn’t get at least 4 workouts in. I didn’t let those weeks define me.

3. Reduce friction. Here are 3 examples:

  • My stickers and sticker chart are right next to my treadmill. I make it easy to track and see this.
  • I have a pair of runners and a shoe horn in my exercise room. I never have to look for my shoes, and I don’t need to tie them, the shoehorn allows me to slide my feet in while still being tight enough to run in. Also, my headphones, and all equipment are where I need them… Always ready, and I never need to search for them.
  • Don’t exercise at your maximum every day. Some days I push really hard, and some days I go at 75%. A day when you are feeling low, give yourself an effort break, but don’t give yourself a break from actually doing exercise. If you end up doing 3 workouts at a lower effort, you’ll have the drive to push when you feel up to it. Make the friction about how hard you work out, rather than if you are going to work out or not.

4. Share your goals with others. You are more likely to hold yourself accountable if you have made your goals public. That’s partly why I did my original post in January, and promised in that post that I would do this update.

5. Be vigilant at your busiest times. It is really easy to say, “September is too crazy”, or “I’ll get started as soon as things calm down.” There will always be an upcoming busy time to deal with. Things won’t calm down (sorry, but you know this is true). If you want this to work, make it work when you are busiest and the rest of the year will be easy.

My year long calendar I used to track my goals:

Summary of the percentage of days that I achieved my goals:

Workouts: 63% (57% would have been an average of 4-days a week. I only did less than 4 days a week 3 times during the year.)

Time Restricted Eating: 48% (71% would have been the max, or 5/7 days a week).

Meditation: 100% (possible that I might have missed a maximum of 2 days).

Reading & Writing: 86%, 26 books (listened to), and 168 blog posts (mostly through a daily blog since mid-July).

My challenge to you:

Grab a 2020 calendar from Staples, Amazon, or where ever you shop for things like this, and get the new year off to a healthy start!

Again, here is the full post:

My healthy living goals year-end reflection, with 5 key tips.

It’s time…

I tweeted to Bill Ferriter about how time flies, and that we are getting older saying,

Age is 2 things:

1. A state of mind.

2. A state of the body part that aches the most.

I will often say silly things like, “My mind is 31, my body is 51, and my back is 71″… doing a plus/minus of 20 years (which was 10-15 years when I was in my 40’s).

Here’s the point… I’m not getting younger and more than ever, NOW is the best time to start.

I tried over a decade ago, now I’m going to do it – a short daily blog.

It’s time…

‘Watching’ you

Here is an interesting article I read a few months ago:

Apple CEO: Watch is saving lives – Business Insider

Apple COO Jeff Williams:

Apple has gotten “a ton of emails where people say the Watch actually saved their life,” he says.

“The only thing on the Apple Watch from a medical standpoint is the heart rate sensor,” he says.

And while anyone can talk their own wrist pulse anytime, “having the information readily available and passively tracked in the background has proved to be profound, in a way we didn’t anticipate,” he adds.

“We’ve gotten so many emails where people or their cardiologist have written us and said, ‘This person detected something on their Watch and came in and they had a life threatening situation. If we had not intervened, they probably would have died.”

So, continuous heart rate monitoring can be very valuable, and the article also mentions a Fitbit detecting a woman’s sleep apnea… What’s next?

I can remember my mom having a health issue and she had to carry around a heart monitor for several days. It was bulky, strapped on to her, and needed to be unplugged from her when she showered. It was an inconvenient interruption to her life, but it provided important information for her doctor.

Imagine a few years from now when you go to your doctor and say, I’ve noticed an issue where my heart starts racing even though I’m not exercising… and your doctor says, that’s interesting, will you please download your last month’s data onto my tablet? A couple clicks later your doctor knows when this happened, your step count for the day, the last time you exercised, your blood pressure, your heart rate, your sugar levels, the oxygen levels of your blood, and a whole host of other data that she has at her finger tips.

She won’t have to say, I think I need to run some tests, but rather she will have a plethora of historical data that actually extends beyond what she might have tested for. She might have advice to share that she would not have known to share if you hadn’t provided her with this data. Maybe she injects a small sensor under your skin so that your watch can provide her with more information. And then you can set your watch to ping your doctor the next time you have an issue.

And then the next time the health issue does happen, your phone actually warns you before you feel your heart racing. As the sensation hits you, you get a text message from your doctor saying, “Don’t worry, it will pass, set an appointment with me next week, we will work to settle this down”… or, “Are you with someone that can drive you to the hospital? I’ll meet you there.” This might be a bit scary, but not as scary as the text message not happening and you having a medical issue that is much better or far worse than you think.

Yes, there are some worrisome questions like ‘who owns this data’, and privacy is a concern, but this is really exciting and can become something that saves your life more than once. The issue of private data being shared is something we will all have to figure out. People are already working on this, listen to CBC Spark with Nora Young to learn more: How to empower patients with medical data.

On a lighter side, maybe this watch that you wear (or maybe it’s a cyborg-like addition to your body rather than something you wear) can actually help you maintain a better lifestyle. Maybe it knows you are on a diet and locks the fridge when you try to get into it after 8pm, or it beeps incessantly and annoyingly when you are eating something unhealthy. Or it reminds you that you have missed your scheduled workout and prompts you to set up a ‘make-up’ time.

We are entering an interesting time of wearable technology and some time soon, accessories like watches might be watching us far more than we are watching them!

Luke Skywalker's Hand - May The 4th Be With You! :)

Luke Skywalker’s Hand – May The 4th Be With You! 🙂

Goodbye Posterous

I started my Pair-a-Dimes for Your Thoughts blog on Elgg, because a friend invited me there to try out this think called ‘Blogging’. Elgg moved to Eduspaces killing all of my back-links. Frustrating. Eduspaces was being bought out and so I had enough and moved my blog to DavidTruss.com. Once there, and while in China, I decided to move my little-used Posterous site to this address, as a place to easily upload photos of what I thought would be a daily hand-written journal. That didn’t last long.

Daily-Ink-on-Posterous

But Posterous was nice and simple. Put a link to a video in an email, or email a photo, add a few comments in the body of the email, then put the title in the subject line, and even add some tags in brackets if you wanted. Then send the email… instant post.

But then Twitter bought Posterous. Instead of slick integration, like post a Twitter Thread or Storify… Twitter killed Posterous. Sad. Really Sad.

This is why I moved my blog to my own domain. This is why I suggest everyone do the same. Spend some hosting money, and claim your own part of the internet. Use wordpress, it’s free and you can even set up posting by email, although in the ipad/iphone app era, even that isn’t really needed.

I’ve lost archives of student blogs on Elgg, and also on Ning sites after they went from free to fee. I still have links to ‘retagr’ and ‘explode.us’ which were identity pages that are now defunct. But I’ve paid for DavidTruss.com until 2018, and I pay yearly or bi-yearly for web hosting and now I don’t have to worry about big company x buying out cool company y and making it go away because x and y don’t want to create happy formulas together.

Goodbye Posterous. You’ll be missed. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to tweet about this post.