People often ask me what I’m up to, so I thought it was a good idea to join the /now page movement started by Derek Sivers and provide this website with a /now page.
Find it here 👉 franzvitulli.com/now
A simple link, easy to remember and easy to type, that brings you to a nearly-always updated page about how I keep myself busy.
I’ve been asked recently how I keep up with my workout schedule. I’m not even remotely a professional athlete, but I’m serious about what I do with my body. And as my life is full of personal and professional commitments, if I want to work out consistently I need a process. Here’s mine.
Reaching my full potential as a Brazilian jiu jitsu practitioner. Nothing less, nothing more. That’s my goal.
A good grappler is strong, fast, flexible. Has better, much better-than-average conditioning. I know myself, I know where I am right now, so to get where I want to be I can’t expect to improve significantly by just going to the BJJ academy on Monday-Wednesday-Friday. I need to train my jiu jitsu, and complement it with lifting some heavy stuff, and doing some yoga. At the very least. No excuses.
Your goal is obviously unique to you, and can’t be enforced from outside. It can be anything or everything, it’s yours and doesn’t have to be shared or justified to anyone else.
Maybe you’re planning a trip to a big city that you’re visiting for the first time and you don’t want to get tired after walking for one hour. Maybe you’re single and you want to get in better shape to increase your chances to find someone. Those are perfectly good goals. Just maybe don’t say things like “I want to be healthier”, that’s too vague and it’s not how humans work.
Normally, I try not to work out on a Sunday, but if I do, I do it on a Sunday morning. Sunday afternoon is all about relaxing. If there’s one reason for me to get my laptop on a Sunday afternoon, is planning my workouts for the week.
Here’s what I normally do. I open my calendar—nothing fancy, I use the macOS built-in calendar, with personal and work calendars on. I hide all the work events that I don’t have to attend. I only want to see when I’m actually busy.
Then I start putting workouts wherever I can, so that I can still do whatever I need to do (personal or work). At Human Made we don’t have working hours, but I want to have a strong, uninterrupted day of work, so I always workout very early in the morning or late afternoon / evening.
My weekly schedule at full speed usually looks like this:
Monday: BJJ 6-8PM.
Tuesday: Gym early morning, BJJ 9-10PM
Wednesday: Yoga in the morning, BJJ 8-10PM.
Thursday: Gym early morning, BJJ 7:45-8:45PM
Friday: BJJ 6-7PM
Saturday: BJJ 9-10AM. Gym late afternoon.
Sunday: Gym in the morning, if I had something else to do on Saturday afternoon.
Do I really do all those workouts? Sometimes I do, sometimes I skip a workout or two. But I have a clear process to decide when to skip a workout.
I may skip a workout for two reasons: my body is sending me clear, unequivocal signals that it needs to rest (i.e. I’m sick, there’s some body part that’s sore but it’s not good pain, etc.), or I have something important to do / somewhere important to be, that wasn’t in my calendar when I planned my workout week.
Because after all we’re all human, it happens sometimes that I ask myself if I can just stay home. The answer lies in those two reasons. I scan head-to-toe, is there anything unusually sore? I check my heart rate, is it uncharacteristically elevated—which would mean the body is fighting something back? Is there a commitment in my social life or work (a meeting, a conference, someone’s birthday, etc.) that I can’t give up?
If the answer to all those questions is “No”, then I have no choice. Pack the gym bag, and head to the gym or the BJJ academy, wherever I planned to be. Thoughts like “but it’s raining!”, “but I just don’t feel like it!” have no chances to be considered, because they go against my primary goal, and having my workouts clearly planned on my calendar puts me in a mental state where working out at that time of the day is just not negotiable.
You don’t need to do personal bests all the time. You don’t have to go to failure, or destroy yourself to reach that last rep every workout. Stop putting unnecessary pressure on yourself.
If you’re in the gym and you find your flow, you’re doing already more than enough. You find your flow when what you’re doing is neither too easy (you’d get bored) nor too difficult (anxiety and disappointment in yourself kick in). H/T Firas Zahabi for this.
Maintaining a workout schedule where you train twice a day is possible only if you look after yourself when you’re not training.
Tim Ferriss’ podcast episode with LeBron James and his top-secret athletic trainer Mike Mancias highlighted a concept that I adopted immediately: recovery never stops.
Sleeping 8 hours per day, eating enough protein, use ice packs on critical joints (knees, elbows, shoulders, etc.) are all things I constantly do. CBD oil, rollers for the back, the occasional dynamic stretch at home, those are all good complements to your recovery. Essentially, when you’re not training, you’re resting from the previous training session, and at the same time preparing for the next one.
My Fitbit Charge 2’s sporty strap was fairly worn out, so instead of spending ÂŁ8 on a strap for an old model, I decided to upgrade to the Fitbit Charge 3. Then I thought “hang on.”
The new Apple Watch was released not long ago, and as a product it seems to have reach the maturity to make me realise it’s worth the investment.
Apple Watch Series 4, welcome to my life.
First of all, I needed to decide if 40 or 44mm was the right size for me, which is why I didn’t buy it online. I went to my local Apple Store, try them both, and decided to opt for the 44mm, despite my skinny 12-year-old-like wrist.
F’ it, bigger is better. My eyes are usually not exactly happy with things that are challenging to see.
The watch comes with the Infograph watchface by default, and I thought it was a tad overwhelming. So I switched to Infograph Modular.
This is all new to me, so I’m still trying to find a good balance and frankly speaking at the beginning I’ve found the complications a bit confusing.
Luca Sartoni suggested to have more than a watchface ready to choose, as I might want to switch to a more minimal setup when I don’t need to be bombarded with options. I thought that was smart, so now I have Simple and Cronograph ready to go. It’s a good start, and I’ll definitely experiment more, especially once I’ve bought some other straps for non sporty outfits.
I’ve done a strength & conditioning session earlier today, and my Apple Watch recognised that I was running on a treadmill. I was expecting that, so I’m glad it happened.
I was also expecting the usual “stand up!” / “move!” / “breathe!” kind of notifications, which I’ve killed with fire immediately.
I wasn’t expecting the quick reply experience to be so slick. I received a couple of texts on Telegram while working out, and in between sets I’ve been able to send a couple of “OK” and “Thanks!” to someone. I’ll make sure this won’t create a false sense of urgency in my mind, because I don’t like getting distracted while in-the-zone for something (whether it’s physical activity or work), and I don’t want to think that because I can answer immediately I have to answer immediately. I’ll have to be more precise with the Do Not Disturb feature (phone, Slack, etc.) from now on.
As I’m coming from a completely different wearable device, I’m looking forward to hearing any tip or trick that you think I should absolutely know and that it’s not that obvious. Hit that comment section below with your suggestions!
Six weeks. Six weeks away from the mats. This is what I was given yesterday by the doctor who performed the follow-up visit to my shoulder, which dislocated during a Brazilian jiu-jitsu sparring session last week.
We sportspeople know very well how agonising it is to stay away from our favourite activity, but I strongly believe we could still somehow cultivate our knowledge of the sport while being far from the action.
This is how I intend to spend my 6 weeks away from the mats. Jiu-jitsu is a niche sport, so hopefully you’ll be able to adapt these tips to the sport you practice.
I normally train 4 or 5 times per week, which means that I’m normally exposed to many new techniques—attacks, escapes, takedowns and whatnot. Flow charts or diagrams help us get a better grasp of those and organise our knowledge so that the many things we learn find their place in the grand scheme of things.
Here’s a flow chart from Rickson Gracie that you can easily find on the Internet:
As you may know I’m a big fan of Trello, and I believe that Trello boards can be used for jiu-jitsu too. This is an example of a BJJ Trello board that I’ve found online, built by some BJJ practitioner, so you can build yours from this. You can use Trello to list principles, gather techniques, track your progress, the sky is the limit.
We’re lucky enough to live in an age of mass video content production and distribution: this little thing called YouTube is full of high level matches that you can watch whenever you want, wherever you want. All you need to do is searching for your favourite grapplers—you’ll find matches, but also post-fight analysis and conceptual breakdowns.
While YouTube has content for several lifetimes, you might really want to go for the extra mile. In that case, subscribe to UFC Fight Pass. It’s well known among MMA fans, as it provides you with the whole UFC history at a monthly cost of $7.99–$9.99 (ÂŁ4.99–£5.99 here in the UK), but many people don’t know its catalogue also features professional jiu-jitsu tournaments such as Polaris, Eddie Bravo Invitational, Combat Jiu-Jitsu, and several documentaries, original shows, and in-depth analysis of UFC fighters—there’s one on Demian Maia you really shouldn’t miss.
In case you didn’t know, this doesn’t force you to watch stuff on your laptop, tablet or phone—both YouTube and UFC Fight Pass can be enjoyed on your big screen via devices like Chromecast, Apple TV, Xbox, and Amazon Fire TV.
Ask me what’s the one thing I don’t want to lose during my 6-week forced holiday from jiu-jitsu, and I’m probably going to answer “flexibility.” I’m not the most flexible person around, so I don’t want to get things worse. If you’ve been doing the same stretching sequences for a while, scan YouTube for static & dynamic stretching exercises, and create new routines frequently.
I like starting from the bottom, stretching ankles, then proceeding with knee rotations, hips mobility exercises (super important for people like us who work in front of a computer all day), and stretch all the various parts of my body all the way up to my neck. Good range of motion is crucial!
Don’t forget to warm yourself up a little bit before stretching. If you’re at home, just doing some jumping jacks or running on the spots for 5 minutes does the trick, depending on your current condition / injury. I’ll abuse indoor cycling at the gym, because I don’t want to lose my current conditioning.
Solo grappling drills are also pretty good, do those that don’t affect your injured side of the body.
Again, YouTube is full of instructional videos, but there are also great books, DVDs (or digital-only version of those, which I happen to prefer), podcasts, etc. I don’t have unlimited time to dedicate to jiu-jitsu, so when I’m able to go to the academy I prefer to spend my jiu-jitsu time over there. Staying away from the academy because I’m injured means I have more time to consume that kind of content.
I’ve got two great books on Jiu-Jitsu—Mastering Jujitsu written by Renzo Gracie and John Danaher, and Jiu-Jitsu University from Saulo Ribeiro. Podcast-wise, The Grappling Central Podcast and Jiu-Jitsu Brotherhood are two I like. The Joe Rogan Experience has plenty of jiu-jitsu-related moments—don’t miss the episodes with John Danaher, Georges St-Pierre, Rickson Gracie, and so many other.
No matter what you do, information overload is always around the corner. Don’t overwhelm yourself with too many techniques, too many books, or unnecessary facts: excessive quantity of daily information will only confuse you.
Whatever your sport is, whatever the thing that make you feel alive is, we all experience some time off from time to time. If you have any other tip on how to maximise your days away from the action, hit that comment section below!
During May 2017, Stef and I had an amazing time in Portugal. The two of us, our carry-on’s, two DSLR’s, and a Ĺ koda Fabia that I rented in Porto and dropped off in Lisbon visited some of the best places in the country.
Whilst Stef put out there a report with things to see, eat, drink, etc., I wanted to go a bit deeper on the data. How much did I walk, drive or sleep? What’s the longest walk we’ve done? Where did I sleep better? Thanks to a couple of devices and some apps, it’s all here.
We arrived in Porto on the 19th evening and left the country from Lisbon on the 28th’s early afternoon, so I’m not going to count those two days. Therefore, I’m going to count as Day 1 the second day we spent in the country.
Continue reading “Road trip in Portugal: the data”WordCamp Brighton gifted each attendee with a brand new KeepCup and a reusable bottle of water. Whilst I have my trusty Nalgene with me all the time, the KeepCup is a nice addition to my messenger bag regular content.
One of the goals in WCBTN’s organisers’ mind was to create a conference that had zero impact on the environment. With reusable bottles and mugs, the event wouldn’t end with an enormous amount of paper cups and plastic bottles to throw away. And now I can keep the tradition going: I always politely ask baristas to fill my water bottle with tap water, now I can ask them to use my KeepCup for coffee without having to dispose a paper cup once I’m done.
If you follow me on the web, you know I’m a huge fan of Instagram.
I was a bit disappointed when they started stealing every possible feature from Snapchat, but I’ve kept using it on a daily basis, just like millions of other people. Uploading my own photos, liking/commenting other Instagram users, and messing around with Stories.
Here are 5 Instagram accounts I’m loving these days.
Continue reading “5 awesome Instagram accounts to follow”
We’re doing it again. After last year’s successful edition, we decided to put together another Out of Office event.
Click the image 👇 to know more and sign up
It’s a conference about all the things related to remote work. This year we’re having speakers from GitHub, Forbes, Zapier and other big guns of the Internet, touching on a fairly wide array of topics—from remote project management to culture, growth and team building.
It is ONLINE, so you will be able to watch it from any device as long as it benefits from an Internet connection. Wherever you are—co-working space, home office, living room, you name it.
It is FREE, so you won’t pay a dime for it. You only need to sign up and wait for today 4pm UK time. There’s still time.
It is INTERACTIVE, so you’ll be able to ask questions, upvote other people’s questions—Reddit style—and get answers from both our speakers and Human Made folks.
We’re on Twitter and will be live tweeting the event with highlights from our speakers and other details. Make sure you follow us, even—and I dare say, especially—if for some reason you can’t watch the event live.
Want to tweet about the event? Awesome! Please use the hashtag #outofoffice17 so all the conversations will be gathered under one stream.
Saying your goal is to prioritise people is easy. Doing it, a whole different beast.
People-first companies grow in number and like talking about themselves on the interwebs, but most workplaces around the world are still just workplaces—you put in your hours, get stuff done, and that’s it. As a result, resources on how to do things at companies that care about their employees are still limited.
At Human Made we live, work, and breathe in the open source culture. Restricting open source to just software? We’re not game. That’s why we’re releasing our staff Handbook: a constantly work-in-progress document where to find everything about working at Human Made, including work-related guidance and HR policies.
You are free to reuse it and apply its core concepts to your team. Please don’t assume it’s 100% fit for your own purpose: consult a HR professional to ensure it meets your cultural, operational, even legal requirements.
So here we go, without further ado…
