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11-21-2022

This week 202211210928 - CHASE THE FUTURE 202211211009

Lunch options:

  1. Chaat Bhavan
  2. The Press Cafe Delivery & Takeout | 1987 Santa Rita Road Pleasanton | Menu & Prices | DoorDash
  3. Ikes, Curry Cravings, both in the same plaza

Outcomes

Summary

  • Decided to use The Archive for all my notes, and I feel really good about it! I’m already comfortable with using this app, and it’s a lot better if I impose my own structure in a free-form way than use the Obsidian template, even if it does work really well for certain people.
  • Going to hop back on the Dominion vibe!
  • Message for Daniel for 202212090801:
    • I understand that different people have different expectations, and load balancing isn’t an exact science. At the same time, I know that I’m the best person to advocate for protecting my own focus time, and I want to make sure my time is being treated at the same level as everyone else’s.

Artifacts

Notes:

  • I don’t like Arc. It feels a bit more sluggish, and the process of creating a new tab feels inherently slower for some reason than Chrome.
    • I feel like part of the value-add of Arc is that it makes tabs easier to manage, but the way it does that is just by making it harder to make new tabs.
    • I like the notes and easel features, but I haven’t had a reason to use them.

uid: 202211210801 tags: #journal

February 22, 2023

# Publishing your work increases your luck

source: https://ift.tt/lhVEOjk tags: #literature #writing #advice uid: 202210042120 —

How can we increase the odds of finding luck? By being a person who works in public. By doing work and being public about it, you build a reputation for yourself. You build a track record. You build a public body of work that speaks on your behalf better than any resume ever could.

“The amount of serendipity that will occur in your life, your Luck Surface Area, is directly proportional to the degree to which you do something you’re passionate about combined with the total number of people to whom this is effectively communicated.”

This is a common blind spot for people who are executing at a high level! They’ve forgotten just how much they know. They think that they’re not doing anything interesting because they assume that everyone knows as much as they do. This effect is only exacerbated when everyone in your immediate vicinity is at a similar—or higher—skill level. As you become more of an expert, your quality bar gets higher and higher and you forget that everything you know is not known by everyone.

Of course not everything you do at work is shareable. If the specifics aren’t shareable, the concepts, lessons, and takeaways likely are. While you’re working, keep a scratch pad open and jot down any problems you come across, interesting patterns you see, or things you found confusing.

Sharing things you’re learning or making is not prideful. People are drawn to other people in motion. People want to follow along, people want to learn things, people want to be a part of your journey. It’s not bragging to say, “I’ve made a thing and I think it’s cool!” Bringing people along is a good thing for everyone. By publishing your work you’re helping people learn. You’re inspiring others to create.

Don’t be afraid to publish along the way. You don’t have to wait until you’re done to drop a perfect, finished artifact from the sky (in fact, you may use that as an excuse to never publish). People like stories, so use that to your benefit.

Do the work. Don’t be afraid to dive deep into your curiosity and your expertise. We need more people that are intensely curious. We need more people with deep expertise.

Tell people. Press publish, bring us along, share the journey. Tell us what you’ve learned, what you’ve built, or what you’re excited about.

February 22, 2023

Being able to remember what you did gives meaning to life

Highlights

  • But I do want a noteworthy life on my own terms. I want my life to resemble one of these bullet point lists within the reasonable bounds of what I can experience and achieve given my abilities, resources, and will. Especially when I’m older, I want to be able to sit at a computer and type out the actions, events, and people that I remember and be proud of the list before me. This is my personal heuristic for meaning in life. Both in the short and long term I try to do things which one day could be put on a bullet point list about me. Or maybe I just try to do things I’ll remember.
    • Tags: #favorites
  • “I understand there’s a guy inside me who wants to lay in bed, smoke weed all day, and watch cartoons and watch old movies. My whole life is a series of stratagems to avoid and outwit that guy.”
  • Resisting this reality is literally a constant challenge. One way I try to resist is to consider which specific actions which will result in discrete memorable experiences. That is, I try to do things I’ll remember even if I don’t remember the day itself. For instance, what am I more likely to remember doing tonight: playing another three out of literally thousands of hours of Crusader Kings 2, or watching a new movie? The movie, of course. Even if the movie is bad, or boring, or forgettable, I will still vaguely recall having seen it years from now, but there is almost no chance I’ll remember those random three hours of Crusader Kings 2 regardless of how much I enjoyed them.
  • I noticed that I would read a book and then forget 99% of it a month later, and I wondered why I was even bothering to read books at all. I began to write summaries of books, and that helped. So then I started writing longer summaries of books, and that helped even more. And so I began to write novella-length summaries of books combined with info from Wikipedia, Googling, academic articles, and other sources, and I found that helped the most. I haven’t reread my Enron piece in almost six months, but I’m fairly certain I could verbally walk through the vast majority of the essay right now if I wanted to. Same for the Hundred Year War, the liberalism of Genghis Khan, and why Peep Show is so evil.

February 22, 2023

All In (body language)

4 stages of expressiveness

Different stages have different purposes. If you’re giving a report about something serious, but still to have body language/energy level, you can try using surface in.

  • All out

    Flag, monotone, not using body language

  • Surface In

    Acting out a story on a surface in front of you (as if you have a little stage, a little surface)

  • ALL IN!

    Acting out the story as if it’s happening to you now in first person

    • All in doesn’t mean just moving your hands around — it means acting out situations. There’s a difference.

  • Hyper In

    • Taking a concept that’s more abstract, and breathing life into it

Demo

Pre-work

Always

  • Body

    • Feet firmly on the ground

    • Arms open, on the table or on your knees

  • Cliff

    Any situation where things don’t get as intended

    1. Something isn’t paying attention
    2. Something that trips you up.

    • Stop, take a deep breath, and walk on your way away from the cliff

    • Instead of fighting it, acknowledge it

      Okay, I hear you, I acknowledge you. Then you can take a deep breath, and let it go. It doesn’t matter to me right now.

    • Label it as a neutral observation — don’t feed your inner critic

  • Breath

    • Breathing is deeper if it’s coming from your belly

      Consciously taking deep breaths (putting one hand on your belly, and trying to breathe from your belly), can be a really good technique for settling yourself.

  • Demo

    • When you’re feeling like you don’t know what to say, just saying “thank you” is a decent way to wrap up! #tips

    • Bringing in more full-length pauses is a way to have your audience get a chance to process what you’re saying. Don’t be afraid of taking pauses. #takeaways

      It comes as you have more confidence in what you’re saying. If you know what people are engaged, and willing to hear what you have to say (even if you pause), you’re not going to be afraid.

  • Random thoughts

    • It’s less effective to try to hit a certain level of nerves or not than it is to try to control behaviors that you can handle.

    • The best technique to deal with rambling is pausing. #takeaways

    • Big public speaking muscle — flexibility

Take the stage

Energy

  • Must be different

    The energy level in the first 30 seconds should be different than what was previously in the room.

    This sets you apart and wakes up your audience.

    • The variety is key.

  • Projects confidence, and pre-empts objections

  • Different tools to tweak energy:

    • Tone

    • Volume

    • Velocity

    • Words used

  • Ways to practice:

    • Read a book, and practice switching from high-energy to low-energy every sentence.

  • Random thoughts:

    • When you’re rambling, you’re staying at a high-energy level (because you’re going fast), and it’s draining for both you and your audience. That’s why pauses are helpful.

Calibration

  • Create Rapport vs. Break Rapport

    I don’t want to use energy in a way that breaks rapport with people. It’s slightly different from what’s going on, and it can wake people up.

  • 5-10% Higher Energy

Anchoring

How do you move your body around effectively?

Effective for several reasons:

  1. Putting an idea in a physical space. Moving your hands to place ideas in a physical location.
  2. When you’re using your body and gesturing to different locations, it includes in-built pauses and gives your audience time to understand the differences.

Spatial Anchoring

  • Possible gestures:

    • Two hands

    • Pointing

    • Placing gesture

    • Open handed gesture

    • Top-to-bottom gesture with your hands

    • Count 1-2-3 with your fingers

  • Should have a decent amount of physical separation between the gestures

  • Recommend 2-4 points (hard for people to remember more than that)

  • Can anchor even when you’re on a phone call. It’ll still make a difference because it forces you to pause verbally.

  • Don’t use the same anchor for two different types of comparisons or ideas.

Emotional Anchoring

  • Negative emotions away from you, positive emotions close to you.

Engagement

Be interested

If you’re not interested, others won’t be either

Enrolling question #takeaways

A lot of people used this! Start off with asking a question.

What do you think about travel? Too broad.

“How many of you have traveled outside the country?”

Also has to be relevant to the topic.

RAISE HAND WHILE ASKING QUESTION

Sentence starters:

  1. How many of you?
  2. Who here has

Response:
Can be simple
Should be inclusive of everyone

Re-enrolling question

Pause

  • Give your audience a little pause to process. It makes them feel like a part of it because mentally they get a chance to process your question.

Follow-up question

  • Makes sense? Sounds good? Okay? Checking to see if people are on the same page.

Direct question (to someone in the audience)

  • Should also be a specific question, not open-ended

Reference others

  • Show people in the audience that you’re paying attention to them.

  • “Let’s say me and ___…”

Demo thoughts

  • Enrolling question - should be short and sweet

  • Michelle had an enrolling question and re-enrolling question

  • Consistent energy is nice, but it’s cool to have one peak and valley of energy — “here’s the ONE TIP”

  • If you ask a direct question and someone gives an answer that you don’t expect, you can ask another direction question to clarify. (You can also do it as a re-enrolling question.)

Repeat what you’re saying

  • You can repeat what you’re saying with the exact same words, for emphasis

  • This also conveys that your thoughts are connected somehow

Comment on statement

  • Comment on a statement that you’ve made yourself

Zoom in to a specific moment in the story (three months ago, I found myself holding a fishing rod…)

Connect

1-on-1 (in person)

  • Virtual triangle (for online) #takeaways

    Start off looking at the camera. Then, look at the bottom right (might be people there). Then look at the bottom left (it might be looking at your notes or more people). It gives you variety. It gives you the ability to look at other people (their screens) and, once you’ve rotated, provide them with the impression that you are looking at them.

    • You never want to be looking at the other monitor all of the time. The rotation is super essential (so that at some point, you’re directly looking at the camera)

  • Have multiple 1-1 conversations (in person)

    Look at someone until you’ve finished a thought.
    Once you’ve got a reaction from someone (a nod, a smile), you can move on and talk to someone else).

Step Forward

  • People often don’t make good use of the front-back space (distance between you and your computer)

  • Usually you just do it for a moment.

  • Indicates confidence

uid: 202207101358 tags: #literature #communication #howto

February 22, 2023

Tangent

https://www.tangentnotes.com/ One of the note-taking apps I’m currently using: 202204102217

Things I like about it:

  • Navigation history — both thread view and map view are a joy to use.
  • Cards view for viewing all the files in a specific folder. This could work super well for something like daily notes.
  • I really like the red link view when it can’t find a note. This is also present in Nota 202207051532. The perfect counterpart to this would be some view that collates all of your orphan notes, and makes sure that you fill them out at some point. I’m kind of doing this in The Archive with my # inbox notes, but there’s a little more friction while doing so.
  • The focus mode is great.
  • There’s some support for templates — there’s these things called “creation rules”, which automatically create/open notes in specific folders with certain titles. However, you can’t (at the moment) control anything about the content of these notes, which makes this very difficult to use. This does seem like the kind of thing that could be fixed pretty easily. Also, these naming rules in combination with Alfred snippets would basically provide a comprehensive solution for templates.
  • It has header links and embedded links, which are both great.
  • It has the same good linking principles as Nota 202207051532 — just wrapping a selection with double brackets makes it a wiki-note, which is much easier than my The Archive system.

Things I don’t like about it:

  • No tag support
  • No way of searching notes. This is a major red flag.
    • Both of these two features are in active development.
  • Not a native app, and doesn’t have a URL scheme
  • I’m going to have to modify my zettel notes to make them fit the wikilinks scheme of this app. To be fair, this is the same wikilinks schema that Obsidian, Nota 202207051532, and a few other apps use, so it wouldn’t be the end of the world if I had to switch my note-taking app to this. In fact, this is more of a downside of The Archive, as I’ve noted here 202207051535.
  • There isn’t a way of navigating up/down through your list of notes using a keyboard shortcut.

[Aside: if I had some way of making a template for things I like / things I don’t like about note-taking apps, that would be awesome. I could easily do this with apps that enable a schema for notes 202207051412]).

Created from: The Archive vs. Nota 202207051535

uid: 202207051621 tags: #notetaking

February 22, 2023

The Archive

Created from: Daily Notes Don’t Feel So Important Anymore 202207051407

What makes The Archive special?

I realized that one of the things that I love about using the Archive is that navigation between files (literally as simple as going to the next and previous files in a list) is possible through a non-arrow keyboard shortcut. I don’t know why this is so difficult for other apps to implement, but it has a huge contribution to how smooth the note-taking experience feels. It makes it so you feel like you’re flying through your notes. This is also something that Nota 202207051532 provides, although it’s a little less intuitive (you need to jump out to the notes page first using cmd + shift + E, and it’s a different shortcut while you’re navigating through searches — it’s control + n/p). However, it mostly works just as well. This then raises the question of what’s unique about The Archive (relative to Nota)? 202207051535

#update 12-27-22: I just realized that this was nvALT’s killer feature! The Archive is basically a souped-up, Zettelkasten-focused nvALT.

Things I like about it

The fact that anything in the double brackets automatically gets searched (instead of just looking for a direct file link) works so well with the “links to nowhere” / “breadcrumbs for future links” model espoused by Taylor Hadden in his Links to Nowhere. An example: 202211232312

Feature requests

  1. I wish that there was a “Jump to Previous Link” menu item just as there is a “Jump to Next Link” one
  2. It’s a little hard to tell when the focus is on the search bar, the notes sidebar on the left, or in editing mode. This is especially apparent when you click on a link, although I just realized that when you click on a link, the text in the search bar is highlighted, meaning that focus is definitely in the search bar.
  3. The Archive doesn’t work very well when links are super long and you have a bunch of them together in the same place. I wish there was a way to hide links, although I doubt the developer will ever do this since this seems to be against the general design philosophy of the product.
  4. Funnily enough, I think the name is pretty terrible. It’s not very memorable for a lot of people and it’s difficult to grep for (needs the quotes).

uid: 202207051453 tags: #notetaking

February 22, 2023