Making a December plan. I’ve re-read David Allen’s Getting Things Done because adjusting to life with an challenging pre-schooler, adding another family member, and how seismic and difficult it’s been to transition from work to home with frequent extended breaks for family reasons, I felt I needed to install a system that would allow me… Continue reading Getting Things Done.
Installed new kitchen lights on an Analogue Day I run around the circle of my suburban Southern Indiana subdivision, chased by the same exterior lamposts that are required to be uniform by the housing authority, The Whisperer in Darkness plays in my ears matching the slight pushing of the wind and I hear talk of… Continue reading Analogue Days
Toni Morrison, this season's guardian spirit, cut up from a post by Austin Kleon. I remember Nancy Wheeler, played by Natalie Dyer on Stranger Things Season 3, saying to her boyfriend (Charlie Hutton) as they went off to pursue a lead to a story that the editor of the Hawkins, Indiana newspaper told her not… Continue reading Never ask for permission only forgiveness.
A leisurely time writing at Needmore Coffee The introduction to this book struck me, but like a lot of Newport’s work the first half is like beating a dead horse from an argument standpoint—because that’s his training as an academic. But the second half is filled with helpful suggestions. The introduction, however, is argumentative gold.… Continue reading Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgcM8II7L4o Cal Ripken's Many Batting Stances You’re probably like what? What does this have anything to do with writing and being a parent? Cal Ripken and Don Mattingly were my favorite baseball players growing up. What I liked about them is they were dependable, reliable, and highly competent in their jobs. That means they were… Continue reading What Would Cal Ripken Do?
This comes from Essentialism by Greg McKeown. I’m paraphrasing: That when you’re multi focusing you’re trying to focus on two things at the same time and humans are terrible at that. We're not even good at multitasking. I'm probably worse than most. Multi-tasking shallow activities is something we can do. Like we can drive a… Continue reading Do Not Multifocus.
Gerard Way in his home office, thinking thoughts about comics and music. The critical part of all of this is, really, to make use of the time you do have. It’s always changing, so you have to be adaptable. For me, I know making the best use of my time to write is to get… Continue reading How I make the best use of my time.
Noah Hawley's old home office desk from his instagram. This is kind of complicating and it involves how I approach the deep work block and layering in the work I need to do. So the first thing I do is use my Scrapbook for loose ideas, my Journal for outlines and important notes and Word… Continue reading Writing.
What my desk typically looks like when I'm in a deep work block. This means that in my Deep Work block these are the only things I can do: After my morning routine, in which I capture, decide, and organize my day I start a Deep Work Block on whatever I’ve identified as the most… Continue reading How I recognize and eliminate distractions.
Standing desk specs in a notebook from last year. After the morning routine, I decide and organize my day. This one is based on a Charles Soule newsletter on how he schedules activities. In the past, I’ve used his methods to create a framework for My Productivity. It’s like this: 1. Schedule the task: Plan… Continue reading Decide and Organize
