Honing my thoughts on Life, Productivity, and Children. Meditating on my porch with the light on, hoping to say hello....
I have this urge towards early-era GUI computing that really tried to create a physical desktop metaphor. I want a physicality to my digital spaces that feels missing right now. I want rooms, and desks, and folders. I want my things to stay where I put them. I'm so tired of my message threads moving around based on who I last chatted with. Everything digital gets arranged into lists, sorted by…
I made myself a peanut butter and honey sandwich last night, and it suddenly hit me: Crystalized honey is actually pretty great! Maybe... you're gonna hate me for this... Maybe even better than regular honey? I can scoop it with a spoon. It's still soft enough to spread. It doesn't drip! No more honey on my table, no more honey on my hands, no more honey in my hair! The texture is a little bit…
I have a recurring problem with frameworks. I pick them up, they speed me up for a while, but then one day I inevitably need to break open the abstraction, and the complexity demons come out. I see some people still choose frameworks for the speed boost, especially if there's a mature community around it for support. I see others eschew frameworks and even libraries, preferring the complexities of…
Level 0: Pure reactivity. Moving from Crisis to Crisis. Constant stress. Level 1: Freeform planning. Pausing daily to plan. Moments of respite, but Planning and Process and the Task List become heavy and daunting. Level 2: Buckets at appropriate scale. Depending on the size of your workday, this is probably somewhere between weekly and monthly. Buckets give space for Going Deep. Buckets reduce…
Why process emotions? Emotions are signals that help me set my direction. They are markers on my map. If I'm moving in an unwanted direction, processing my emotion helps me acknowledge the drive and then resolve it to adjust course. Why surf urges? Urges are drives. They are currents under my boat. They might carry me along my planned route on my map, or they might carry me way from it. Notice…
Does Mingming move faster if I give her time pressure? No, she moves more slowly. Does Mingming move faster if I give her time and space? Up to a point... and then she's off doing other things. How do I hold structured space for a 3-year old? Maybe it's like meditation. Take note that our focus has drifted, and gently guide it back. Or note that our focus has drifted, and let her gently guide it…
A lot of work-in-progress bloat comes from thoughts flitting through my head. A thought flits through. It feels important enough to develop. I start writing. I capture the seed thought, but I don't fully develop it. Now it's an open task in my in-progress list. Maybe I could not write it down and not capture as in-progress. But then, won't it be an open loop taking up brain space? I must cultivate…