2024 Quarter 1 Review and Updates

Hey friend!

I hope you are doing well and had a great Easter or Ramadan!

I spent the holy month of Ramadan in Turkey and now, I’m back in Germany.

As a humanitarian worker, these past few weeks have been a mix of emotions due to the tragedies and atrocities we're witnessing.

After two months of break, I'm excited to get out of monk mode and announce that my newsletter will resume every Sunday. Stay tuned for updates!

Visa/Travel Issues

In my previous issues and videos, I mentioned that we were having some issues with my wife’s and kids’ visa processes. We were supposed to move to Sweden in February but as we could not get the approvals for our visa for Germany everything has been delayed and we couldn’t apply for Sweden on time.

We applied for the German student and accompanying visa for my family in September 2023. My visa was approved in December but for my family, we were waiting for months, after 7 months of waiting for endless requests and questions, and going back to Turkey two times, finally, we were able to get it last week.

We managed to get our Sweden visas at the beginning of March, but as my university started at the beginning of February, they didn’t accept my late start. Now, I am in Germany and about to complete my semester and coursework part of the master's program.

How was my running/fitness over the last few weeks?

When I was in Germany, I was going to the Gym 3-4 times a week and ran 1-2 times a week. When I came back to Turkey, during Ramadan I switched to daily walking and decreased my level of physical efforts as I was fasting during the day.

During this month, I enjoyed the stretching, morning warm-up and evening calm-down exercises on the Nike Training Club app (IOS, Android). I’d suggest you check if you have never tried.

Also, I’m still logging and tracking all my daily activities on the Strava app, I’d be glad to connect and encourage each other if you are using it!

What books have I been reading/listening to?

In the past few weeks, I was re-reading Stephen R. Covey’s book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Every time I read this book, I learn new things and gain new perspectives. You can find my latest posts from the book on LinkedIn and X.

This week I also started to re-listen David Allen’s renowned productivity book “Getting Things Done“, although I know most of the principles and practices mentioned in the books, I find myself not following them, it’s great to remember the important steps and refine my practices.

Business/Work

On the business side, the past two months were not very busy, I was working on a few newsletter projects.

If you are into newsletters, you might be interested in my free e-mail course on newsletters. I’ll be launching the course tomorrow, you can sign up here; https://startyournewsletter.today/

Also, as I’m about to complete my master's degree courses, I started to make some job applications. In the next months, hopefully, I’ll start working!

Sleep

Sleep was the most challenging area for the past few weeks, as I was traveling and waking up in the middle of the night.

I had around 15 hours of Sleep Dept, which I managed to decrease to less than 10 hours today. I’m trying to decrease it and hope to pay in full with around 6 hours daily sleep and 1-2 hours naps in the next couple of weeks.

Final Words

Thanks for reading my newsletter, you can follow me on LinkedIn and Twitter for more frequent posts!

Finally, I’d be glad to hear if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, just reply to this e-mail or DM me on any platform.

Have a happy and healthy day and a week!

Selim