Okay, so I managed to catch up on my Kanji to Keyword flashcards and now I need to catch up with my

• Keyword to Kanji flashcards
• Korean – Japanese flashcards
• English – Japanese flashcards

I think the best way for me to get the ball rolling is to study the flashcards in this order:

• Kanji to keyword
• Korean – Japanese
• English – Japanese
• Keyword to Kanji

Also, I need to remember that getting good at studying flashcards is not the goal – it is simply a means to the end of being fluent in Japanese.

Therefore, I need to just do the minimum amount of flashcard study necessary so I don’t forget the words.

Basically, I should optimize for real world Japanese, and make sure that flashcard study is simply a stepping stone, not the end goal.

I think I had some serious jet lag.

I need to get myself into the habit of sleeping on a reasonable time and not falling asleep according to my past time zone.

I think right after I finish work in the morning, I need to just open my flashcards and study right away.

Or I need to go outside and go for a walk and resist the urge to go back to sleep which will mess up my sleep schedule.

I think I’ll have to do a combination of those two – after work, bring my phone and go for a walk.

During my walk, I’ll study flashcards with my smartphone.

Okay, so my sleep isn’t exactly back on track and my basic habits such as brushing my teeth, taking a shower, exercising, and diet are not optimal.

However, I did study some flashcards today.

I think the most important thing is to get my morning routine down.

So I’ll do some work early in the morning, and then after that, I should just blast through as many flashcards as possible, and try to clear all of them before noon.

And then even at noon, I can go outside to get my sunlight and vitamin D and keep on studying my flashcards.

I don’t want my flashcards to keep holding me back, so I need to start them as early in the morning as possible and finish them before I lose my willpower.

So I’ve got things kind of set up back at my current place.

I started watching my Japanese video lessons again.

Now for tomorrow, I need to get back to my flashcard practice.

I need to get them done as early in the morning and knock them out when I still have a lot of energy and willpower.

I also think taking an extra nap in the middle of the day to refresh my willpower a little bit.

Since I haven’t been studying my flashcards for almost a week now, I’m really far behind, and I’m going to have to do a lot of catching up to get back on track.

All right, so I’ve changed my time zones and my it’s time for me to reset my habits.

These past 2 flights really took a toll on my body.

I think I didn’t drink enough water and I was really dehydrated.

Anyway, I need to get back on track with my studying, work, research, etc.

It usually takes me a while to establish habits when I’m in a place normally, but now I’m going to have to really establish my habits as fast as I can.

Also, I’m going to have to re-establish my sleep schedule as well, especially since I’m going to have to wake up really early in the morning to start my work.

One concept that I’ve known for a while now is ‘Deep Focus.’

It is basically what it sounds like – the ability to focus on a task for an uninterrupted period of time.

It sounds easy enough, but in the age of notifications, pop ups, alerts, ring times, distractions, etc., it’s actually harder than one might think.

I actually managed to get a lot of organizing and cleaning done, and I did it basically in an uninterrupted period of 5 hours.

I still need to do a lot more, but a lot of things  that had been bugging me for months suddenly disappeared.

I think if I dedicated a full week to cleaning and organizing, I think it would be a life changing experience, at the cost of putting my language projects on hold.

I am also reminded of Marie London and her philosophy of tidying up and how it changes your life.

Maybe if I can tody up my house – and thus, my life – I think it might lead to less stress, more focus, and may allow me to work on my language projects better.

While I do think that many tasks are better done when they are broken down into little chunks over a long period of time, I feel like some tasks just need complete focus and you need to clear up an entire day to do them.

For me, that is reorganizing and cleaning up my apartment and getting rid of stuff.

For some reason my mind and body feel like cleaning up little by little every day won’t have a big effect.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I feel like when I do a whole lot of cleaning all at once, the visual impact and shock are really effective at motivating me.

Maybe cleaning little by little can be applied as a maintenance way of keeping a place clean that is already clean.

So I actually took time off from doing my projects to actually spend some focused effort on something that I’ve been putting off for a long time – cleaning my apartment.

I live by myself, and the place is relatively spacious for a someone living alone, and since I don’t have people over (it’s too far from downtown), it’s basically my man cave and things are just kind of everywhere.

So after spending a couple hours cleaning and organizing things, I felt a lot better. 

However, I feel like properly cleaning up, throwing things away, reorganizing, etc. – doing all of these things is a multi-day project, or multi-week project, depending on how much baggage (emotional and literal) a person has.

Now I’m going to analyze my projects from two lenses: 

1. Earning money
2. Getting the MEXT scholarship

Language Exams

1. Getting an N3 on the JLPT (and eventually N2)
2. Getting a Level 5 on the TOPIK

• Money Making Potential
  • Not necessarily / directly monetizable
  • Unless I make YouTube videos, blog posts, or guides about these tests
• MEXT Scholarship Portfolio
  • Directly applicable to building my “document stack” for applying for scholarships

Earning money 

1. Getting another English teaching job in Korea
2. Getting freelance writing work

• Money Making Potential
  • 2 is theoretically the fastest one for earning money right now
  • 1 is the backup plan 
• MEXT Scholarship Portfolio
  •  Not necessarily applicable
  • Unless I can show that my work helped me with developing my research portfolio

Publish Books and Language Research

A: Kanji Related Books

1.  Learning Japanese Kanji (Sound + Pronunciation) Quickly in English
2. Learning Korean Hanja (Sound + Pronunciation) Quickly in English
3. Same as 3, but in Korean

• Money Making Potential
  • These projects have good money making potential in the long-term
  • But not necessarily in the short term, unless I make videos, blog posts, or guides about them
• MEXT Scholarship Portfolio
  •  These could be used as samples for my research portfolio, but they are not Okinawa=specific
  • In fact, 2 and 3 are more applicable for applying for a Korean scholarship

B: Korean, Japanese, and Okinawan Vocabulary Related Books

1.  Comparing Korean and Japanese Vocabulary written in Pahanngana (modified Korean alphabet) in English
2. Same as 4, but in Korean
3. Same as 4, but in Japanese
4. , 5. , 6. Same as 1, 2, and 3, but with Okinawan added

• Money Making Potential
  • These projects may not have good money making potential in the long-term
• MEXT Scholarship Portfolio
  • These are very academic-focused and can be used as samples for my research portfolio

Today was a really great day and I got to catch up with 3 different friends.

I was basically out the whole day and didn’t really do any studying or research.

However, with one of the friends I met up with, I talked about all of the projects and things I’m working on.

Basically a lot of my projects are related to different end goals.

These projects have good money making potential in the long-term

1. “Remembering the Kanji” book for English speakers
2. “Remembering the Hanja” book for Korean speakers

These projects are closely tied to me building a portfolio to apply for the Japan MEXT scholarship to study in Okinawa (but not necessarily good money making potential, since they are very academic and research focused):

1. Rewriting Japanese in Pahanngana (modified Korean alphabet)
2. Rewriting Okinawan in Pahanngana

These projects are also related to applying for the Japan MEXT scholarship:

1. Getting an N3 on the JLPT (and eventually N2)
2. Getting a Level 5 on the TOPIK

And these are just focused on earning money now:

1. Getting another English teaching job
2. Getting freelance writing work