The Monday Read: Death to Distractions

Last year was kind of mixed for me. I got a lot done, was able to travel more, enjoyed not having a fixed schedule, and had very little stress.

But at the same time my health deteriorated and I found myself very distracted online. In particular, my smartphone use became problematic.

I started playing a ‘free to play’ game on my phone that is basically unlimited and requires tens of thousands of hours of grinding to play. I also often ended up in an email->twitter->facebook->instagram->linkedin->email endless loop. The combination of the two meant that over time I ended up reaching for my phone whenever I had a free moment, and spending a lot of low quality time on it.

No more.

Yesterday I deleted the game and all social media apps. Immediately my phone became much less interesting. It basically only has email on there now, so there is nowhere to loop to after checking that there is no new email 🙂

I already feel better, although I still find myself pulling the phone out for no reason.

Did a lot more reading yesterday too on my Kindle.

Something I should have done a while ago.

How about you? Do you have any harmful distractions in your life? Is there any way you could reduce or eliminate them?

YouTube

Thank you for your support of the RetireJapan YouTube channel. We made incredible progress last year, and it was largely down to your help and support.

This week we published a video about staying comfortable in Japan’s winters. Hope you find it useful! What tips did we miss?

RetireJapan TV

This week we’ll be talking to Martin from Smart Money Asia about personal finance, life in Japan, and crypto! He’s more into it than I am, so I’m looking forward to a friendly discussion about why anyone should care about crypto in 2024.

Check it out here on YouTube, here on Facebook, and here on LinkedIn from 20:00 on Monday January 22nd if you want to join the discussion live and ask questions. It’s going to be great!

The Forum

The Forum is doing well (32,203 posts so far). The forum rules are here. In essense, they are:

1. Be nice
2. Ask any question you like
3. Only answer questions when you have relevant knowledge or experience

Here are the latest active threads:

This week’s links

1. It’s the system, stupid: Human ‘behavioural crisis’ at root of climate breakdown, say scientists
2. Interesting analysis: What happens in China may not stay in China
3. We don’t have our emergency bags yet, even after going through 3-11: Disaster Preparedness: Emergency Bags in Japan
4. For UK citizens abroad, some important issues: British Overseas Voters Forum
5. Interesting scale. I guess we are between 4 and 5 on here: The 5 levels of financial freedom, according to married money coaches, who say they’ve reached level 3
6. A very pessimistic take (YouTube): Bear Market, Recession, Layoffs: Lots Of Ways For 2024 To Get Worse | John Rubino
7. Nice introduction to index investing (YouTube): If I Started Investing In 2024, This Is What I Would Do
8. Not sure about this long-term investment (he should definitely triple the price or something): Order now, get Kobe beef croquettes 38 yrs later: Delivery time growing at Japan butcher
9. Maybe Japan should stop hosting these white elephant events: Osaka Expo’s fate remains uncertain three months prior to vital deadline
10. Awful, awful, awful stuff. The prosecutors should be in prison: Aishima Shizuo: A Victim of Japan’s “Hostage Justice” System
11. I’m not sure this guy has fully thought through the logistics of having that many children while not being the ruler of Japan: Japanese Man, 35, Has 4 Wives And 2 Girlfriends, Hasn’t Worked In 10 Years As He Lives Off Them
12. The counterargument (I plan to do the opposite but I can understand the reasoning here): Why I Plan to Collect Social Security as Early as Possible
13. Seems a bit one-sided, but I agree. Just scrap the trainee thing and give people normal working visas and normal working conditions: From violence to cost, Japanese egg farmer cites problems with foreign trainee program
14. I love this kind of story: Indian teen invents gadget that may transform dementia care
15. Tokyo from the view of a visitor (more thoughtful than many articles on the topic): Impressions from a Longer Stay in Tokyo (2023)
16. Okay, now I feel bad about my annual review 😉 2023 Review — The year I learned to fly
17. Thankfully I have never struggled with alcohol, but my brother did: For you, who needs more than a Dry January
18. This was more interesting than usual from Ray Dalio: 2024: A Pivotal Year on the Brink
19. Low yen, new normal? The Houthis, A Disappointing Wage Report, and the Tumbling Yen
20. I like this. Going to have to take more time on RJ blog posts: On Slow Writing

What do you think? Anything interesting in there?

The Monday Read, going out to more than 2,874 subscribers each week. Please share this post/email with friends/colleagues who may be interested in it.

If you were forwarded the email you can sign up to our weekly or monthly list here.

Or you can subscribe through WordPress below if you want to get each post the moment it is published:

Check out the RetireJapan website for more information, the Forum for discussions about personal finance and investing in Japan, and our coaching page if you need more help.