Newsletter # 10 - The "No-Book, Book Club"

Hello everyone,

I hope you are all doing great and hopefully you have had the same incredible weather that we have had here in Gothenburg. The sun has been shining non-stop and we have had between 20-25 degrees Celsius almost every day. This has meant a lot of time outdoors, going to the ocean and enjoying the sun. It has been terrific, but I also have some mixed feelings about it. It feels like we never had any spring, we moved straight from winter to summer, and most people I have spoken to agree. In April it was snowing and now a few weeks later it feels like summer. Last year was quite similar and I can't help but feel that this is related to climate change. Don't get me wrong, I love summer as much as the next person but spring is beautiful and I enjoy the transitional seasons of spring and fall a lot.

This week's newsletter first introduces an idea for an event I might host in not too long, secondly, it covers a short update on my attempt to lower my phone usage, and finally, I share some things I have enjoyed in the last week. The final list includes a podcast about the "Match King", Ivar Kreguer, a quote about learning, and a highly enjoyable short film. I hope you pick up something you find interesting.

A Call to Action

I have a small request for you, the reader of this newsletter. I want your feedback on an idea I have. I would like to host an event and would be grateful for your feedback. The idea of the event would be for it to function a bit like a "non-book, book club", that is, I would provide everyone with 1-2 pieces of content to consume and then we would meet to discuss it in a group. I learned about this concept from Allen who hosted the great Tim Ferriss event I attended a few weeks ago (and wrote about here) and thought it sounded like a great idea! I have not decided whether this would be a virtual or physical event, I can see both being great.

As I have mentioned here before, I run a weekly book club with some of my friends from Chalmers, where we read and discuss non-fiction books and have been for a little more than a year. It is always a highlight of my week as I get to combine two of my favorite things: reading interesting books and talking to interesting people! However, requiring people to read a book can be a hurdle from including people as it is a somewhat large time investment each week. For this reason, having the content be audio or video-based might include more people.

I believe the people who take the time to read this might be well-suited for an event like this. If you have any interest in this event please take the time to answer this short questionnaire to give me some feedback.

Phone Time Update

Last week I began an experiment to try and cut down on my phone usage. I started off last week with around 21 hours of screen time or 3 hours per day and had the stated goal of getting under 1 hour per day. As you can see below, I have not quite reached that goal, but I have drastically reduced my phone time to 1 hour 34 min per day on average which is 50% down from last week. I started off the week below 30 min/day on Monday and Tuesday, but then I realized that using my phone can be really beneficial for certain things like taking notes on the go when I am listening to podcasts or reading saved articles. Our phones are really useful tools as long as you are using it and it is not using you, which can easily happen. I will stick to my goal of staying below 1 hour per day as this feels adequate for what I want to use my phone for without spending too much time on the phone. Today I will also receive more tips from The Guardian's newsletter on reducing phone time which will hopefully help me.

My Favorite Things This Week

1. Podcast - The Founders podcast by David Senra is one of my many go-to podcast listens. For each episode, David reads a biography of an entrepreneur, scientist, general, or other successful person. He then distills the core ideas and shares the best stories from the book. I believe this is only the second Swede covered (Alfred Nobel being the first). Ivar Kreuger aka "the Match King" is a famous Swedish industrialist in the early 1900s who was at one point one of the richest men in the world but who would later take his own life as his empire started to crumble. I found it very interesting to hear the American perspective on him and I learned a lot. If you have any interest in history, business, and/or entrepreneurship I greatly recommend this episode, you can find it here below:

2. Quote - The quote below highlights the importance of never stopping to learn. We should always be learning new things and staying curious. There are multiple benefits to this, novelty can make time feel slower and in an ever-changing world, it is more important to keep learning. As I get closer to graduation it feels important to remember that this is only the start of my learning journey.

"Learning is a lifelong journey; it does not end with graduation.”
-Clark Kerr

3. YouTube Video - Wesley Wang is a young filmmaker who made a short film to be submitted to different film festivals, but when he was not accepted to as many as he hoped he went on to publish the film on YouTube. There the short film got the attention of famous director Darren Aronofsky and this would eventually lead to a feature film contract where Wesley will make this short film into a full-fledged feature film. I found it encapsulated the feeling of change as you close one chapter to begin the next one. In the film, it is high school, but I can relate it greatly to now being close to graduating from university as well. I look forward to seeing what becomes of Wesley's full movie!

Thank you for reading this newsletter. I hope you enjoyed reading it and found something interesting. Have a great week!

Oskar Eggert