Posts

Like you, I struggle to set aside time to learn new things.

Time for learning needs to be extended, uninterrupted, reflective, and allow you to play with things in ways that modern workplaces, life, and task management time doesn’t. What’s my answer? Bowling Nights.

Let’s start with work. Since most people now depend on their jobs to be the source of training and learning. I’d argue, like Cal Newport, that the curse of the modern workplace is finding uninterrupted blocks of time to get things done and focus rather than shuffling information.

I’m a big fan of Padrino . It’s always filled this “more than Sinatra, no Rails bulk” gap for me while still being batteries included. Friendly community. Easy to understand and use. Most importantly, it’s helped me get apps built. Fast. And have them run well and without issue in production.

Case in point: A scientific app for a conservation NGO, chugging away happily without bugs or major issues for almost a decade ago (with a big upgrade 5 years ago) and despite traffic and time.

A lot changed since my 2019 GTD and CRM flow post . After trying lots of new software in 2022, I’ve come back full circle to org-mode. But the experiments with new things were super valuable. I caged and culled new ideas and ways of doing stuff from other software and feel it’s made my GTD setup and system fundamentally stronger and helps me execute better. Here’s how it all works.

I experimented with a lot of new software in 2022. The main reason being a Cambrian explosion in new apps promising gains above my current tools. In the end though, I circled back to roots by 2022’s end and took ideas from those newer apps with me to enhance my existing stack and flows. New software gains didn’t exceed tradeoffs. But, my stack got much more effective without really changing software. If anything, I’ve gone back to using fewer, more open tools, and come up with more creative ways to stopgap shortcomings over the new new things.

I read 45 books in 2022.

Nearly one in three you should probably read too. See the To Read list.

Star ratings out of 5 are below for every book. I’ve also included a “Do Not Read” list for books I wish I had not wasted my time on. I rate books differently: High stars given for new learnings, the surprising or entertaining, or things I can apply to my life. Rehashes or bombastic, unbacked opinions rarely rate. Oh, and am always a big fan of a good tale, well told.

Post-pandemic it’s been interesting seeing what people did with two years of lockdown reflection. I wrote earlier about hoping to see more people starting businesses, making science, creating art, and doing not-for-profits.

“The highest treason a crab can commit is to make a leap for the rim of the bucket.”
― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

While disappointed seeing people run right back to jobs they swore they’d leave, I’m also shocked at people making wild, ill-considered leaps to “follow their passions” without planning or contingency.

With COVID restrictions lifting, I’ve been traveling a lot since October. That, plus a recent post by Dutel inspired me to take a look how my setup has changed. Compare and contrast with my Travel Happy, Travel Light post from back in 2018. I was also interested to see how much actually has changed after 18 months sidelined and as I look towards being more remote work-wise.

First off: I travel with just one carry-on bag for virtually all travel. This is the way. If you are someone that simply cannot get on a plane without your checked 30kg of luggage, this post is probably not for you.

At some point as your career advances, you’ll get job offers. Often, like waiting for the proverbial bus, three come along at the same time. How do you choose between them and your current role? This is the simple framework I use to evaluate, and more importantly, discard… opportunities that I’m approached with. YMMV.

I have four factors I use to evaluate offers. In order. Pairs nicely with my quarterly assessment of existing roles .

The things you own end up owning you.
— Tyler Durden. Fight Cub.

Moving house is weird. Moving countries even weirder. Why? I think it’s the Tyranny of Stuff. Modern life accumulates possessions at a prodigious rate despite how minimalist you’re trying to make it. We live in an age of material abundance unimaginable even 100 years ago to our ancestors.

One thing I couldn’t believe packing up SG was the sheer amount of things I’d managed to accumulate in a short two years in the new house — even after throwing away about half of everything I owned when I moved-in. It was strange, how weirdly anxious moving out felt deciding on holding and getting rid of stuff. It was trickier than (expensively) storing it. Loss aversion kicked in hard, and I found myself one night sitting going round in mental circles trying to figure out what should stay and what should go. For many things, I really didn’t care about them but was somehow worried about discarding for the fact I might need them in some unforeseen future.

I mentioned a few posts back that I’m convinced the underlying database for my life really needs to be plain text files. Simplicty works. But, it’s surprising how few tools seem to be based on this idea.

I’d ignored Obsidian after initially checking it out because it had no live preview feature and having two panes open on a laptop took up too much real estate. Them adding the single in-editor live preview feature has completely changed my experience since I’ve hit a sweet spot between writing experience, bi-directional linking, and task management along with it being simple markdown files I control. Things painful or messy in other apps work smoothly. I’m also shocked at how good thier plugin ecosystem is already, allowing me to layer on functionality I want and not have any bloat I don’t need.