interesthings #5 - Writing your own manifest

Hey there! Last weekend I had to undergo an MRI-scan for my knee in a clinic. First of all, this clinic looked like it came out of a interior magazine. Second, an MRI is such a technological masterpiece. You are laying in a giant magnet that spins around your leg with 3 spins every second (see this video). Realising this while laying there was mindblowing.

This week in interesthings we discuss writing your own manifest, exploring the world and the art of Casey Neistat and Tom Sachs.

Have fun reading 🚀

- Mark

Thoughts - Writing your personal manifest

Last week I wrote about the difficulty of long-term planning. This week I want to tell you how a personal manifest contributes to long term planning and gives your goals purpose.

Since a few months I keep a personal manifest that defines me as a person and gives guidelines to the choices I make. This is inspired by an article by Ernst-Jan Pfauth, which I will add as a guide to making your own personal manifest

As mentioned, a personal manifest defines you as a person. A personal manifest is a collection of the roles you have in this world and the way you want to fill in these roles.

Some roles that I have in this world are:

• I am a colleague

• I am a cyclist

• I am a friend

• I am a brother

By defining the roles you have you can base your core values on these roles. A core value for my cycling role could be

This value defines my role. And based on this value I can set habits that correlate with this value. A habit for this value could be

Now I have a established habits that support the value I have in my role as a cyclist. By making habits and values for your roles you can get clarity in the decisions you make.

This makes it easier to base decisions and activities on these habits and values. Keeping your manifest up-to-date gives a great base for decision making.

Writing your own personal manifest

This guide by Ernst-Jan Pfauth helped me to write my own manifest. Use it as a starting point in making clear guidelines in your life. Based on his guide you just need a notekeeping tool such as Notion, Obsidian or Evernote to store and revisit your manifest every few months.

I hope that his guide helps you to write your own manifest and become a better person!

Cycling - Exploring the world

Having variation in my rides is - for me - one of the best things in cycling. To explore new places near me gives me a good understanding of the Netherlands and the different people that live here.

By using Strava, I can get a heatmap of all my rides. In this heatmap, it is possible to see where I have been. This looks like this:

As you can see, I have explored a lot of South-Holland. You can clearly see the cluster of rides around my old city Leiden and my current city Rotterdam.

Last year, I discovered a tool called Statshunters. This tool connects to your existing Strava heatmap and plots your heatmap on a map with grids (1 km by 1 km). Statshunters challenges you to explore new grids and go to special ‘Badges’. These ‘Badges’ could be epic climbs such as the Mont Ventoux, a racetrack such as Spa Francorchamps or a famous place such as the Erasmusbrug in Rotterdam. My Statshunters map of South Holland looks like this:

You can clearly see that I have some clusters to go. This challenges me to plan my trips to visit these clusters. Additionally I get rewarded for making biggest blocks (the blue ones) and adjacent grids (the green ones). I completed 2 badges (being the Erasmusbrug and a castle in Wassenaar) but need to do one in Pijnacker (a statue of a famous cyclist).

Statshunters has challenged me to ride to unexplored streets, places and areas. The website is free to use and links to your Strava to plot the heatmap.

I still have so many cool places to discover and explore. Have you ever used Statshunters or a similar app as Wandrer.earth? Let me know!

Try Statshunters for free here.

Things -

• Microsoft seems to be close to launching ChatGPT in their browser Bing. This article by The Verge shows some screenshots users made of the new feature.

• A creator I admire much is Casey Neistat. His way of filming and creating is such an inspiration. He recently posted a video about the Six Rules that Elon Musk sets for his employees on Tesla. Worth a watch!

• I found this cool website that gives you the exact time based on a paragraph from different books. Check it out!

• A movie about the creation of Tetris is coming soon to Apple TV.

• I bought this Thule Camera backpack with a integrated small camera bag. One of my newest and best essentials.

• On the 6th of February, the latest line of NikeCraft shoes by Tom Sachs will be released. Tom Sachs is one of my inspirations in the way he uses utility to create beautiful artpieces and structures his workplace. Nice things don’t have to look good, they have to last long.

Songs - Heaven by salute

This song grooves. Just an awesome banger to listen to while riding the car. Listen to it on Apple Music or Spotify.

Thanks for reading this week’s interesthings. If you have any feedback or things you want to see in the newsletter, let me know!

Have a great week!

- Mark