planning – Cornerman

Inspiration, where to get it and making sure you don’t forget it.

Besides the consistency of working on your craft, inspiration is another very important factor. Whatever your craft is, art, music or professions with a creative side to it, inspiration can help a long way in staying active and focussed.
Inspiration is the fuel to keep the consistent process going. For me at least.

It’s just like any other form of training, there will be moments of difficulty, pain and discomfort. It’s all part of growing and sharpening your skills. Balance & rest is important to integrate, as your brain needs time to process and ingrain the result of your constant work. I plan deliberate rest moment, and make sure I plan short visits and trips to cities, exhibitions which I know will spark

This is how I keep my energy levels up and find new energy and ideas for the future.

My week & finding inspiration

This week I have worked mainly on learning Max MSP and I have been going outside in search of inspiration and ideas. Walking around a city and visiting musea does the trick. I try and look at things in detail and allow all sorts of random encounters. Step into buildings I don’t know, visit exhibitions which I want to see or stumble upon. And simply walking round a city and look at loads of things.

But how do I make sure I know what inspired me and why, the feeling I got when watching a piece of art or seeing something cool while walking. I used to rely on my memory and tried and record it once I got home, but I soon realized I could not recall my feelings and what exactly inspired me or what idea a piece of art evoked.

Documenting the inspiration & ideas

I started out taking quick pictures with my phone and a note in my phone for writing down quick short sentences and ideas. Which I then forgot to bundle and be more specific. I worked on documenting the inspiration & a simple template to make it easier to recall the feeling and ideas I had when being struck with inspiration. Without having to scroll trough loads of digital notes and pictures and then try and remember everything.

It’s pretty easy and it’s instinctively applicable for me. It suits my needs very well.

I take pictures, on my phone or camera and mark them if possible, and notate the place, date and title or description of the artwork (if there was an artwork) or other object so I can find the related pictures. I add a few keywords that give a good description of what the inspiration was. I stick to 4 keywords. Which helps when I search for things later on.

I write a short story about the moment, the inspiration and the surroundings. If I have an idea on the spot or later on I also make sure to write it in my notes.

As a template this would look like this:

- Date
- Time
- Place
- Title
- Title of the artwork (if there is any)
- Pictures
- keywords
- Short Story
- Idea it sparked (if any)

I prefer writing in a notebook, and I use notebooks where I can easily add page numbers and so on, I also give my notebooks a number and a name.

for searching into these notes I notate the keywords, the notebook number, and the page numbers into a simple excel sheet. So I can always find the ideas.

Why is it important to me? Well it’s a big part of playing around and putting myself into situations and places which can spark any form of inspiration and ideas. Which leads to a backlog of things I can develop further. There is no pressure when simply walking around and looking at things. It also develops my knowledge of art and architecture in a simple and effortless way. It’s a way to take a brake without breaking the creative consistency when I can’t work on my skills or need a break. It’s an alternative way to be creative without the sole focus on music.

It’s also important to make it a habit, getting outside and reconnect with art and life which for me, is the energy for my creative process. In my process there is always room for finding inspiration, this doesn’t have to mean I go outside, it can also mean just picking up an art book, reading a biography or flicking trough photo books. But I prefer going outside.

By making this a fixture in my creative process I keep engaged with the outside world and have an alternative whenever I can’t work on music specifically. This way I keep working on my creative process and keep the consistency going.

First week with the small setup & new process focussed mindset

Working with my small setup has advantages, After spending a week working with it on a consistent basis. It’s easier to get going and I am far less distracted. My first idea was to work on a patch for a few days, then record loops and then finish a track, all within a week and build a catalog of work that way.

This timeline was a bit over enthusiastic, as I am with a lot of my planning. But given the focus and shift from goals towards the process of working on my skills, I am still happy with my progress this week.

I have also build in a learning and education bit into the process. So I am studying Max MSP again. Which is great fun and pretty difficult. But it’s very promising as I have tons of ideas already for merging Eurorack with Max MSP and building a set of tools for it.

I need to focus on the proces first. And not jump on and trying to get all these ideas out as fast as possible. I have to leave the pressure out of the equation.

I do pencil my ideas down in my notebooks, and work on them by working them out in the notebooks. So I keep working on ideas while doing the work. It easy to dream away and imagine great goals ahead and try to reach them as fast as possible and burn yourself out. It’s hard to focus on the small incremental gains and work on your skillset. At least for me.

Showing up is half the work, or battle. But it’s hard and not easy at all. At least for me. Just twiddling knobs and enjoying the hobby is nice, but doesn’t get me towards my goals. There is playtime reserved into the process, don’t worry there is fun to be had. But I also need to choose the harder path. In the end it will be more fore filling and rewarding.

Let’s see what this week brings.

Music projects some thoughts on progress and goals.

Getting back in music is a bit harder than expected. I still have trouble listening to music for a longer period of time. Especially when working on music. Sound designing and listening to loops and getting stuff done.

So I am currently working on learning Max MSP so that I can work on music without the sound. Which is a bit of a paradox.

What I can’t let go are my goals. Simply because having my goals is the driving force behind it all. Somehow I will loose my consistency if I do that. It might seem strange, because just messing around with a drummachine is a lot of fun. But the fun alone isn’t enough for me to work on music on a regular basis. I easily skip it when I am not feeling it.

So I keep music making in my planning, and work on it at least 3 times a week for short amounts of time, preventing any problems that might arise.

I am optimistic that at some point I can increase the work and listen to music for longer periods of time again. Which then automatically gets me closer to my musical goals.

Focus your planning on building habits and routines

Last time I wrote about ways to get insight in how your time is really spent on a weekly basis and how you can get some breathing room into your week. However I did not go into the actual making of the planning itself. This week I will talk about building the planning and what should be the main focus when planning. And no it’s not (always) about efficiency.

Plan with consistency in mind.

We have 1 new goal in mind, something we want to do more and achieve a certain goal in. To get good at something we need consistency in the time we spent on it. So much so that it becomes a habit and is part of our weekly routine. Before it’s a habit , something we do almost automatically, it needs time to first become a consistent part of our planning. And we have to be able to execute a planning.

To make sure this is feasible our planning needs room to breath, not just in time but also purposefully with breaks, rest and recovery space. Only then will we be able to fully work trough our planning. So it’s not about doing as much as possible, but we need to plan for longevity. We need to be able to keep up with ourselves. Consistency is key. It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.

How do we achieve consistency in a planning ?

We know how much time we spent on things, we also made some changes. Dropped some activities from the list and limited time spent on certain activities. So how do we fit in our new goal ? We have some room, now we partly fill this in with activities towards our new goal. Make sure you choose 3 moments in the week. 3 is the minimum for making something a habit over the long run. Don’t overdo it in hours especially in the beginning. It’s hard work starting something new and will take a lot of energy. So start modest. Let’s say 2 sessions of 1 hour and 1 session of 1,5 hours. Take 5 to 10 minutes break between each 30 minutes. Plan those as well. So how does that look ?

Time	Activity	Duration
8:00 - 8:45	Meeting	0:45
8:45 - 8:55	Break	0:10
9:00 - 9:30	Focus work	0:30
9:30 - 9:35	Break	0:05
9:35 - 10:05	Focus work	0:30
10:05 - 10:15	Break	0:10
10:15 - 10:30	Emails	0:15

Why do we need breaks in our planning ?

We need breaks not just to take a rest and recover, but the most important thing, we need it to let our mind process and digest the things we learned. Rest gives our brain the ability to remember and preserve.

Everyone has a limited amount of energy for doing high cognitive tasks a day. Things like reading a difficult book (or manual), working on solutions to complicated problems and so on.

If you trained yourself very well in these tasks and your environment is at its best (more on this later) this is 4 hours a day. Really focussed work. That takes a lot of energy. To recuperate it means you can’t do this for 4 hours straight without breaks. you need breaks to maintain a high level of focus. And to get out of that chair. So to make those hours count, breaks are essential.

But I work 8 hours a day ?

Yes most people do, and not included time spent traveling. Luckily a lot of work related tasks are not high cognitive tasks. A lot of things are low cognitive tasks preceding the high cognitive tasks. Simply the hours it takes to get a job done.

Finding a solution to the problem is the high cognitive taks, getting the tools out and spending the hours is less cognitive demanding. Yet can still exhaust you without breaks. So when you work, maintain the breaks. Take less meetings. Make sure the meetings you take are to the point, and are not back to back. You need time to process what is said in that meeting and distill the work that comes out of it for you. It might be counter intuitive to say no to people more often. But it will free up your work calendar and it will improve the quality of your output. Thus making you more efficient. See, there is some efficiency to be gained as well.

So in order to save up some energy for your after work activities and your new goal, go and take the same approach for your work planning as well. Take the breaks, don’t overflow your calendar, make sure you focus on what’s important and block time for high cognitive tasks.

High cognitive tasks & their environment.

Things that take a lot of brain power, finding solutions to problems. Learning new skills. Doing the hard things basically, need a certain setting for your brain to be able to focus. the first one being, no distractions. So no phones, no interruptions and ideally no screens. Or no internet connected screens.

Make sure the desk is clean, with just the things you need, and a pen and some paper for taking notes. Yes paper notes, by writing your brain remembers things better. So take any preferred notebook, blank sheets of paper, and start writing. Draw things. Any way that helps you remember the things you want too learn or work out the solution to a problem. And be able to reproduce them.

Set a clock and take a break of 5 or 10 minutes every half hour. You need to practice this. We live in a world of distraction and its not easy staying focused. It takes time. First few attempts might exhaust you.

Weekly planning

Your weekly planning is an overview of important tasks and activities. More importantly plan your rest and preferable take one or two moments in your week doing nothing, making sure you have playtime or just hanging around. The most important thing is breathing room and consistency. Yielding results is far more about continuing working that it is about short periods of hard work on your passion project and then months of no work at all.

And last but not least, have fun !

Showing up – Plan your path towards your goals

Showing up?

Showing up is half the work, which is half true in itself. Because without a rhythm to your showing up, the act of showing up gets harder and harder.

Bit of a confusing sentence right ? Everything in life moves according to a rhythm , breathing is a rhythm , the sunrise a rhythm, you move in a certain rhythm.

So in order to become good at anything, working on that skill needs a rhythm. And in order for a rhythm to become a rhythm, planning it is necessary. Even for people who hate planning. Mostly it is not the planning people hate. But the showing up. Planning something leaves a lot of room for perceived failure, and that feeling is what you want to avoid. Postponing any activity feels bad. Especially an activity you want to be good at, have a passion for. Dream of doing.

So we don’t plan, and set ourselves up for failure. Not failure in a sense that we are bad at the very thing we want to be good at. But failing because we never got started.

So how do we plan ?

People tend not to plan activities, but cram the day as full as possible, doing as much as possible. And call it planning. That’s the opposite of planning. Planning needs room, breathing room. As a person you will not be at your best all the time. Most of the time, how you feel and how your energy flows depends on a lot of things you can’t control. Cramming your days as full as possible leaves more room for external factors sucking your attention and energy away.

The first step, set one new goal

There is a lot things that can be said for having multiple goals, but as we plan for the first time, in a new way, we forget we already have goals in our life. Maybe not goals defined as goals. But time is being consumed. You have your personal life, work, and maybe already a sport or other physical activity you do. All of these things already have a place in your diary and a rhythm to them.

So think of one new thing you want to master, be good at, improve your skills on. For me that is making music. Which always lingered in the distance and I defined it as a hobby, but never put in a consistent amount of time and work. Yet I loved doing it whenever I got around to it. So think about that one thing. Your passion as it is commonly defined.

Write this down as your focus point for planning.

The second step, measure your real time consumption.

Keep a diary and measure how long every activity in your agenda really took versus how much you planned for it. And make notes on what kind of taks it was. Household shores are tasks you will have to do. And never plan enough time for. Also make notes of how all activities outside of the obligatory ones contribute to your new goal. Be honest.

You don’t plan the binging of this new series on Netflix or any other subscription thing. Note the hours, also make note of how many hours you spent on social media not doing anything towards your goal.

Make detailed notes, how you feel, if you where happy at the end of the day, how energized you felt at the beginning and at the end. Do all this for 2 weeks.

The third step, deleting activities and compressing time slots.

Now its time to start deleting all those excess activities and limit time spent on things, its ok to wind down with social media, watch some tv at the end of the day. But limit the hours you put into those things.

Household shores need doing, get the notes out and see if you planned these realistically or did they consume more time ? Allocate time appropriatly.
Also, plan ahead, do the groceries with a list you made earlier, plan making the list. And so on.

Delete any activities that drifted you away from your new goal, and are not absolutely necessary. Combining these 3 should make room for spending at least a couple of hours on the new goal. Make sure you plan these new activities at least 3 times a week, in order to get that all important rhythm.

Last but not least, plan leisure time. Grab that book, watch that movie, go hang out with friends, do date night , do nothing. Leave room for doing nothing. Plan rest! Really resting is very important, just sitting or lying down. Doesn’t have to take long.

Plan days or longer with no plans at all, play in those days. Do whatever you feel like. Be a kid again. This is a great way for experimenting without limits and ingraining new paths of thinking into your subconsciousness.

Make sure rest and recovery are done in between the ‘harder’ activities that take up a lot of energy. All tasks with a high level of concentration can only be done for so many hours a day. Science has it marked down to four a day, if you are practiced. I will do a separate blog on focussed work. But don’t overdo it on complicated tasks. Especially in the beginning.

The finish

So we now know what we want to achieve. We have the goal. We measured our activities. We know the realities of executing all tasks in a week. We downsized on the amount of activities and limited our time we spend per activity.

We booked in time for rest and recharging. So what’s next, make a default planning for the week, set a fixed day for doing the planning for next week, lets say Saturday evening. Execute the planning, and keep a diary om the progress.

Next week I will dive into the structure of planning and how to build up a routine.

Book review – The war of art , Break through the blocks and win your inner creative battles.

I am reading more frequently nowadays and increasingly run into fun and interesting books, in this case a book written by Steven Pressfield, primarily a fiction writer. I had never read anything from him and came across this book in a search for better managing my projects and the aspiration for big(ger) goals in life than I previously aspired.

The war of art is about the resistance within ourselves to give into our own (creative) goals. The creative between accolades because it is also perfectly applicable for the non artists among us. And moreover a lot of professions and goals you want to achieve require a high degree of creative and artistic thinking to materialize.

It’s about overcoming your own internal blockages , the resistance that leads to procrastination , seeking distraction and basically doing anything but get started on the stuff you like to do most.

Writing that book, making that music album, starting your own business, going for that one study you always dreamt about. The first part of the book goed into that resistance and how it manifest itself.

The second part of the the book is about overcoming the resistance and what it takes to stay productive on a constant level over a long period of time.

The final part is about inspiration and how it manifests itself. The book is very compactly written and it has a lot of the known elements of getting things done which are mentioned. Start now and keep at it, which we all know deep down.

But this book describes it in a wat that keeping busy and the overcoming of the resistance is very simple all of a sudden. No extra complicated descriptions and elaborate plans, no simplicity. A nice and elegant solution for getting things done. And it reads like a breeze.

Braindamage – Broken memory and remembering things.

Frequently I get asked how I remember things with my broken short term memory. The short answer is , I make a list. In this little article I’m getting into the subject of lists and how to go about them. Not making too much or too few lists and what not.

This is purely my way of getting by with memory disfunction and a lot of the stuff is applicable for people with fully functioning brains as well. Because everyone’s mental energy drops during the day. And in the end only sleep can recharge the brain.

It’s also nog a ‘one size fits all’ solution. There are lot’s of variations within the field of memory and how to memorize stuff. This is just a representation of how I do it. And I hope some of you will get some inspiration for managing ones own memory deficiency. We all have it. We all forget stuff.

I thrive with stability, a good nights sleep, a steady day planning. And my day to day is where my first list comes around the corner. My weekly planning. It’s a weekly representation of what I’m doing that week. The must do’s and how much time a have for other stuff which I can use to plan things. Or not.

I am working with a fairly simply point system. During my recovery period I have experimented with how much an activity costs energy wise. For my daily load balance I derived the number 28 from these experiments. So in order to be able to get on the next day and be my cheery self I don’t want to go over that number.

So I have a maximum points in cognitive energy which is set to 28. My Energon (Transformers reference !) so to speak. I can use these point during my day and must not go over them. For example, reading an easy book for half an hour , minus 1 point, A hard one minus 2. Outdoor appointment 3 points down.

I can also collect points by resting, well not totally, like mediation for 15 minutes 0,5 points added, running for an hour 1 point added. All adding and subtracting towards the 28 total points available.

So that’s the rundown of the first list. It’s not an exact science by the way, it’s my guideline for the week. There are weeks which will be better, or weeks that are worse. But staying near to the 28 points will mean the majority of my weeks should be stable.

But there are more lists, a list for when I set foot outside my door. Which contains of stuff I need to bring. Phone, keys, wallet, headset and so on. That list has been replaced by a ready to go bag which contains most of these items. Basically a list in a different form. Always ready for its purpose.

There is a list for whatever pops in my mind. So stuff that comes to mind and I want to remember. It’s basically the collection of my short term memory.

Within my daily planning there is stuff to do. Which will get on a to do list. I really hate that list as it is the never-ending list of lists. It gives you the feeling that you are never finished. Which you are not. But this can be contained.

I have a small to do list which only contains 3 items , which have the most priority at that time. Ones I completed these 3 I trash the list. Which means I have finished something.

Breaks , my and everyones best friend. It’s impossible for me and the rest of us to be fully cognitively active at a high leven all day long. Yes even for the superstars among us. Cognitive energy declines during the day. And recharging only really occurs when sleeping. Processing the experiences of the day takes place during our sleep. And we have to process it all in order to recharge.

Taking breaks have the function of recharging in between. So in my planning they are there all during the dat. These have 0 in value, so they don’t do anything against the decrease of my cognitive energy. Only meditation and exercise will do that.

The one thing you must remember is not to start the to do list and knowing you cannot finish it. It leaves an open ended task at the end of the day which will haunt the mind during the rest of the day. So quitting earlier sometimes is not a problem.

If you are doing a high cognitive energy task, plan it strict. Make sure there are no distractions. Mail off, phone out of reach, take a break before starting , stop when the planned time is up.

Someone which has trained for doing high cognitive energy tasks has about 4 hours of real energy during the day to do these effectively. So going over that time hardly does the job any good, grinding it out for 8 hours might be fun for the hashtag ‘#alwaysbusy’ but really does not do you any favors. The elimination of distractions does.

The day planning and to do lists are what you can do at the maximum of one day. And very important, leave room for unexpected stuff, You can’t plan a day from dusk till dawn with pre planned activity’s , meetings take longer, so then also do breaks. You must not skip breaks. The day needs to breath , have room to grow or shrink. Otherwise you will loose steam and energy and that all takes away from doing stuff properly , and your day will be run by the unexpected.

Practical lists, or more notes are the final variety in my list repertoire. I write a daily entry in my journal which has all the stuff I did, my mental and physical state and whatever thoughts need writing down.

Besides the journal , I write when I read books. For some just a quick scribble to remember some things so I don’t need te re-read pages and get on reading. And notes when reading books I need for future reference. The things I want to remember I take notes and later I will work these notes out till full blown notes which takes a larger picture into account. I have a lot of summary’s of books I read. Very handy if I want to revisit some of the knowledge.

I used to memorize a lot and could revisit a lot out of the top of my head, nowadays that is very hard, and writing helps me with this proces.

Finally, write the lists and notes on paper, with a pen, or pencil. Not in digital formats. Not in an app, not in words excel or whatever just write it down.
Ok maybe just a format for the weekly planning, but fill it out by hand.

Writing as an activity, etches the writings in the brain. And amazingly enough also in my damaged brain. So buy notebooks in all shapes and sizes and start writing.

This is the first epistle about life with brain damage and the practical side of things all people can benefit from. Nobody has endless amounts of (cognitive) energy. But with some simple methods you can improve some aspects.

Mindset – How to get things done.

Mindset, how to get things done. Whatever that may be! Well I have done a lot of experiments with what works for me and what I should improve when I want to get stuff done. It consist of a few key ingredients. First and foremost is planning. Have a goal , break it down into steps and plan the time, resources and order and start stepping.

Well that’s easy. No it’s very hard. When I first started using weekly planning sheets it was out of sheer necessity because I would otherwise forget everything. It was in place for me to get by on a day to day bases.

Then after a lot of trial and error I got my day to day in order and got myself thinking what do I want challenge myself with. And make a plan. Then I started falling into some traps. First and foremost I planned way too much , too much tasks and too much goals.

Which brings me to ‘rule’ rather recommendation number 2. Plan too little. There will always be something that takes up more time or an unplanned event will destroy your carefully set to do list.

Have no more than 1 great goal at any time in 3 categories. Max, why ? Well otherwise it will get muddy and stuff starts drifting. You can only focus on so much. For example , set a work or learning related goal, one physical fitness and one personal life goal. Learn how to program , run a 10K race and plan a trip. Or whatever you want. There will be lots of other stuff needs doing besides those goals.

It’s also divided into 3 categories for a reason, one is demanding on the brain, one on the body. You can keep those two nicely balanced , your brain needs time to digest newly learned stuff and exercise helps a lot (as does sleep) , the third must be less of a braindrain and more in the way of relaxing.

You have only about 4 hours worth of intens brain work a day anyway. If you trained yourself right.

So keep to do lists small, and allow yourself much needed rest in between. Recovery is key. Only make new to to lists when old ones are fully done. Don’t put notes and reminders for future tasks on existing to do lists , it will distract.

Makes a nice bridge to the last tip for today, when doing work that needs a of your brain power , make sure you get rid of any distractions. Put away your phone, disconnect the internet, don’t open your mailbox. Make sure you fully focus on the task at hand. Make sure everyone knows you cannot be disturbed. Make sure you have a way of letting people know they cannot disturb you during those hours , only for emergencies. And let them know what an emergency looks like.

Make sure you don’t stretch yourself too much in those intensive brainpower consuming sessions. Set an alarm after an hour or two and take a real break. Jus eat something or enjoy a good coffee. Do not let your distractions in, no phone no email no internet. Just time for recovery. Limit the total amount of time to a max of 4 hours or so per day. Start with a half an hour and build from there. It’s hard focusing with such intensity.

I have made all the mistakes having way to many goals , too much on the to do list and every distraction possible at hand. It leads to frustration and anger because nothing gets done within the time frame you planned for it. Not even close. It’s not easy getting razorsharp focus. It needs a lot of training. The mindset isn’t just there the moment you decide it is. It needs training , consistency and rhythm to cement itself.

And for now , rule or recommendation 3, don’t be too hard on yourself. There will be days when everything goes easy , and there will be days, weeks even when nothing works. Just trust yourself and stick to it. You will get there and it will get easier to get your focus back. Make sure you evaluate your goals over time, is it still the right goal and does it need adjusting. Are the steps still the right ones. Have no fear of throwing goals in the bin if it’s not achievable for you. Just start a new one. I have trashed more than I finished. But made sure I learned from my mistakes. That’s why it’s important to evaluate.

And have fun, it’s not always fun, nor should it be. Some goals will be a necessity in order too get forward. But make sure you have fun along the way. And set fun goals, stuff that you know is fun from the beginning. And never give up on yourself and the process.

Under 3 – A new attempt

While preparing for my last marathon I set a goal , running under 3 hours. At the time it meant a 18 minutes discount from my personal best. Quite a bit, and a reach. But the effort of chasing this goal was a new Personal best , 3:09:25. Excellent progress, and thus proof that setting goals is a very rewarding activity. Now it’s time to try again.

The goal remains the same. A sub 3 hour marathon, the same location, Dusseldorf. What will be different this time is my training method, amongst other things. I have been training with a schedule for running a marathon and getting across the finish line in one piece. Which was a feat in itself 3 years ago after suffering my brain damage. Running saved my life when I got ill, simply because I had an excellent fitness level. Ever since it helps me function within my new boundaries to the best of my ability. So largely because of the running and the discipline it brings I am were I am today.

All the more reason to set this goal and get cracking. So the training schedule will be different. So the first step is figuring out what it takes for me to be able to run under 3 hours.
In the meantime I will keep training as usual. until I am largely confident of my new direction.

The second step will be nutrition , I already eat as healthy as possible without overdoing it. Om my longruns I always bring food and drinks , mostly gel and bananas for the food part. Only problem is I mostly don’t eat it. I simply forget when things go smooth, and when things get though, only then I start eating. Which means I am always too late.

When racing a marathon I never forget, simply because all the stations which can’t be overlooked.
But in order for me to get the most out of the nutrition I need to practice more. I am now looking into simply setting alarms on my watch so I don’t forget. Also the recovery food after my run can do with an improvement. So lot’s of work on that front as well.

Third step is a more efficient resting method. I already need lot’s of rest because of my brain damage. So I am not really sure how to improve this bit. I will need some research. Anyway I will update as much as possible on my progress and process. Until next time !

June 2019 Dividend

Dividend update June 2019, the eight miracle of the world, compounding is taking a hold on my dividends. Another significant increase in dividend payouts for my retirement. Whenever that will be. Anyway, most comes from the usual suspects. Some from newer positions but mostly existing ones. Comparing with last year it’s another nice increase of about 36%. Which is very nice indeed.

It only becomes real when you start accumulating real assets. In theory it’s all very clear. But you have to have a bit of faith in the long term plan. Which can be pshycologically challenging , and at times it is. But when you look at the growth and the numbers , it all makes sense. So just start and keep at it, remember showing up consistently is all it takes when talking about achieving your goals. In this case showing simply means keep investing.

So without further delay the overview :

Date	Stock	Currency	Amount
21-06-2019	Aegon	EUR	15,00
20-06-2019	Icahn Enterprises	EUR	1,77
20-06-2019	Vanguard dividend appreciation	EUR	1,26
18-06-2019	HAL Trust	EUR	53,14
14-06-2018	DOW inc	EUR	1,86
13-06-2019	Deutsche Pfandbriefbank	EUR	100,00
13-06-2019	Microsoft	EUR	8,14
05-06-2019	Unilever	EUR	8,21
Total		EUR	136,24