Macro
- opened presents
- went to the local softplay
- had curry for lunch
- went to the playground
- had ice cream in the park
- made a plastercast unicorn she got from her uncle.
- watch a couple of episodes of Paw patrol
- had pizza for dinner
- not flossing every day
- drinking more coffee than I’d like
- snacking on chocolate during the day
- Floss when after brushing your teeth
- drink water
- Eat fruits instead of chocolate
- They act out because they are tired — I act out of tiredness
- They shout at each other — I shout at them
- They aren’t patient — I lose my patience.
- / - / ➡
- Plus is for the good things from the week
- Minus is for the bad things from the week
- And next is for the things I want to do differently next week.
- intelligence and surveillance to identify networks
- educating communities to spot the signs of traffickers and trafficked people
- policy which allows trafficked people safe haven
- support structures for their long-term recovery.
- Mac – Arc (cheating I know, but I’d need it for work). excluding that, Obsidian.
- iPad – Reader from Readwise
- If I feel grateful for someone helping me, how can I be helpful?
- If I’m grateful for learning something, can I share what I learned?
- If I feel grateful for some part of nature, can I share it by taking someone else to the spot?
- 32"
- 4k
- USB-C connection monitor.
Keeping things special in an age of abundance
It was my daughter’s 5 birthday yesterday.
We did all her favourite thing:
It was a real feast day.
Funnily enough, there’s a lot that we do often, but the combination of it all together really makes it stand apart. One of the challenges I wonder about, as a parent, is helping to keep things special.
There are things my kids can have every week (or even every day) that I only had a couple of times a year. On the one hand it’s great they live in this abundance, on the other hand I wonder if they don’t appreciate things in the same way.
It make me wonder about abstinence: not indulging often so we can appreciate things more when we do have them.
It requires patience (refusing cartoons can start a family civil war) and planning (having other activities and alternatives ready to go is a must) that make it far more work for us parents. But it helps to keep things more special.
And often the alternatives are better anyway.
This isn’t just true for parenting of course.
A bad habit list
Last week I made a shocking discovery.
Fruit is great in hot weather.
I know, revolutionary insight but if you looked at my habits, this idea was a real shock.
I don’t have anything against fruit and eat it when offered, but I just don’t choose fruit or go for it. Instead I’m more likely to snack on a piece of chocolate or sandwich. But during this heatwave I realised that fruit was clearly the more refreshing choice.
And that made me think about my habits.
I know it’s not great, but …
There are a lot of my habits which don’t match my intentions or goals.
The fruit one is one small example.
It’s such a small thing that could be corrected with a minor lifestyle change (buy more fruit in the shop, keep sweets at home, choose fruit at snack time) and yet I wasn’t doing it. Why?
Well I wasn’t really thinking about that habit.
So I decided to make a list of the bad habits I have (in obsidian of course). Here’s a sample:
And once I made that list, the alternatives were pretty obvious:
Not every bad habit is so simple or unentrenched, but some are.
And guess what, just making the list has helped me change these habits.
I’m still not perfect, but they’ve far lesser.
More tricky habits
There are a couple of bad habits in my list that are more sticky.
Not least of which is “being impatient with people”.
While it’s not something that just magically changes, I’m glad it’s on this list. Unless I acknowledge this is an issue, I won’t be willing to change it. And now it’s there, I can plan for change.
Not magic, but maybe worth a go
A lot of good coaching and therapy starts with awareness.
Sometimes, that’s enough.
And sometimes we need to do more. But either way, maybe making a bad habit list will help you with some of your bad habits that you know about, but do nothing over, or even ones you are less aware of.
If you give it a go, let me know what you think.
Who's the adult here?
My kids are almost 2 and 5.
Both of them are going through a period of temper tantrums.
It’s annoying and frustrating. Especially when the elder one turns around and sets off the younger one, usually with a punch or a poke after being asked not to.
On my better days I stay calm and manage to get through the conflict.
But most days aren’t my better days.
Instead I can lose my cool and try to physically or vocally stop the conflict: It always increases it.
Doing the same negative behaviour
The irony is I’m often doing the exact thing I’m annoyed at my children for.
I fail the same measure I evaluate them by.
On being the adult in the room
I realised this all about three months back.
My child was acting like a child (as should be expected) but I, the adult, was also acting like a child.
How did I expect my children to learn the values I wanted if I didn’t embody them myself as an adult?
So I made a change and used this mantra:
I am the adult in the room.
Any time I face these kinds of situations, I say those words to myself and force myself to respond like an adult.
I wish I could say this has been a magical panacea — it hasn’t — but it has helped. A lot.
I don’t know if this will help you, but as a parent, I know I could use all the help I can get.
The simple but effective end of week review I totally stole
It’s the end of my Friday workday so I’m doing my simple weekly reflection. It’s called plus, minus, next and I heard about it from Anne-Laure Le Cunff of Ness Labs.
I like using the symbols
So simple, but that’s its power. By being so low effort, I can almost always do it; it’s just 5 mins at the end of the day. Now I have a record of what I’ve struggled with and what was easy and good.
You can do it on paper or digitally and I have templates for both Obsidian and DayOne.
One last thing to note, this isn’t a full weekly review in the GTD sense. Instead, I split that onto Sunday evening when I plan for the week ahead.
Anti-human trafficking isn't about being a hero
There’s a movie going around that’s getting some major press. It presents an anti-trafficking group as the saviours of children caught in the child sex trade.
The only problem?
It’s a fantasy.
Sure, there’s elements of a real story — organisation, people, even rescue missions — but the truly effective work of anti-trafficking is less glamourous. Instead of sting operations, it’s more about policy changes and resources for local groups to provide effective assistance.
Heroes need not apply
By seeking to be heroes some groups are harming efforts more than helping.
Conducting a sting on a human trafficking group might help arrest some low level members, but if there isn’t a support system in place, the kids freed won’t go back to their families. And even if they do, they need help to recover from their trauma and protection from the people who sold them in the first place.
You see while there are gangs who snatch children, most people end up in trafficking situations due to a person they, or their family knows.
So why aren’t we doing more for anti-trafficking support?
Anti-trafficking is tough.
It involves many parts to make sure we can catch the perpetrators, help the abused recover, and ensure they aren’t trafficked again. That typically means
That costs a lot more than taking down a few local crooks and patting yourself on the back saying job well done. It also doesn’t help that safe haven policies are anathema for right of centre parties (and some left of centre ones too).
And finally, it’s a global challenge.
To prevent trafficking of people from developing to developed countries we need the right structures in place in both countries and coordination between each. With budgets stretched and a lack of political appetites for cooperation, that makes it extremely challenging.
It’s far easier for a group to claim they are the heroes doing what governments won’t, all the while merely putting people back into the same situations that lead to them being trafficked in the first place.
How to actually take a stand against human trafficking.
There are many long standing human trafficking groups such as Stop the Traffik who are making meaningful, long-term changes to help end human slavery.
Look for groups such as these rather than wannabe soldiers.
I’m indifferent on the Oxford comma
I used to be a massive defender of the Oxford comma, now I think most examples where it adds clarity are usually the result of poor writing.
For example, “He met with his parents, the Pope and Barak Obama.” Is this a list of three people or are the Pope and Obama his parents?
All that needs to be done is to put his parents at the end. “He met with the Pope, Barak Obama and his parents.”
There are perhaps a few situations where it can add more clarity (a list of groups) but it’s hardly the saviour of English grammar some writers make it to be.
Technology gaslighting
For the last few years I’ve felt like tech companies and tech journalists are all trying to tell me I shouldn’t be happy with the “amazing revolutions” that came out only a year ago (but of course these new ones will all fix my problems). It’s things like the iPad which was finally a pro device when the iPad pro came out, or maybe when it got the m1 chip, or perhaps stage manager? No, sorry. It was when final cut pro and logic came out last month.
There’s nothing wrong with improvement (and sometimes “improvements” are steps backwards.) but maybe we could drop the technology gaslighting where we’re told that we’re not happy with the things we loved and they are clearly terrible now.
🔗 What if you could only use ONE APP on your iPhone? – Shawn Blanc
What if you could only use ONE APP on your iPhone? – Shawn Blanc
So this is a completely random but fun experiment… but what app would you pick if you could only pick ONE?
I read this quick post from Shawn a few days back and knew my answer almost instantly – Drafts.
I’d certainly miss the camera (but I have a ricoh gr), podcast, and the sat nav in some situations, but with drafts I’d cover the other 80% I use my phone for. I could even manage my tasks there too if I needed.
Continuing with the other devices… I’d probably pick
I’d never choose obsidian on the iPhone, it’s just not fast enough. In fact, it almost makes me wonder if I could just switch to drafts…
What about you?
You don't have to go full YouTube guru to benefit from the thing
I’ve noticed (and I feel the temptation too) to think of task management/PKM/bullet journaling/jorunaling/whatever as a binary thing — either you have some incredible complicated system which you use everyday the way the gurus on YouTube use theirs, or your “not doing it right”.
Rubbish.
Task management is about managing your task. If a post-it works for you, that’s great! You have a system that works.
PKM is about storing and retrieving ideas - if a pocket notebook works for you, great! You have a system that works.
Journaling is about getting thoughts out of your head and on paper. If you do that every now and then and find it useful, great! You have a system that works.
Maybe you would benefit from adopting some practices or ideas (or more consistency) but you shouldn’t do that out of some sense of envy or guilt. You can always try things out and stick with what works for you.
Give yourself grace to experiment.
A journaling prompt I'm trying to turn gratitude into generosity
Writing what you’re grateful for is a common journaling activity and for good reason.
Practicing gratitude is one of the most effective ways to increase your happiness. If you aren’t doing it, I highly recommend you start.
But it’s easy to stop there. To feel better about ourselves and what we have but not respond out of that. There can be knock on effects such as a more positive and warm outlook to those around us, but what if there was a journaling prompt that encouraged us to be more generous too?
Here’s one I’m trying today.
What am I grateful for today? How can I help others share this gratitude?
It might seem like a small addition, but I’m hoping it will lead me to take action.
Sometime it might be trite, but just perhaps a small act of generosity will make someone else grateful too.
A journaling experiment I'm trying to help improve my patience
I’ve been less patience recently.
It’s been a growing issue since my daughter learned the word “why” and now her brother is “stealing attention” from her, at least from her perspective.
Blaming my situation is the easy and half-true option.
While I certain have some extra pressures, these are an opportunity for me to demonstrate greater patience. Plus I can always choose my response to even the worse situation. And that’s where my journaling experiment comes in.
A journaling prompt for patience
“What are some situations that typically trigger impatience in you? How can you prepare and respond more calmly in these situations?”
I stumbled upon this journal prompt yesterday and started to write out my answers.
As soon as I did, I saw some common trends in my triggers. But more importantly I noticed that the solutions had even more in common.
Accepting the situation as it is
Mentally preparing for the situations
Taking actions to prevent those situations from arising.
I still need to see how I actually live these ideas out and I’m journaling every day to track what happens, but I’m hopeful. I’ll let you know how it goes.
On boring blogs not brand sites.
Today I came across a writer with a boring site.
He has a single profile picture at the top along with links to navigate to his various writings and podcastings.
It was wonderful. I was soon on a wikipedia-like spelunking trip through his various article.
His site feels like such a breath of fresh air in an age of full page cover images with email popup forms. Admittedly, the depth of articles he has written helps a lot. And I’m publishing this on Micro.blog where this kind of design is the norm.
While there is a place for the website with landing page, I’m grateful that some people still publishing on boring blogs.
3 Quick Journaling Prompts That I Keep Coming Back To
I am not a consistent journaler.
Over the last 8 years, I’ve tried lots of different system with varying degrees of success, but every time I keep the habit going, I gain a lot from it.
In my experiments, I’ve found three prompts which have helped me more than any others. So I thought I’d share them with you.
What’s on your mind? - answer this often reveals a hidden fear.
What are you grateful for? - this shifts my perspective to one of gratitude.
What would make today great? - it often does take much, but this prompt helps me improve my days.
There you have it, 3 quick prompts that you may find valuable.
I’d love to hear any prompts you’ve found beneficial.
Random thoughts on the person who keeps plugging themself.
UPDATE: I’ve realised that even these thoughts aren’t completely correct. I’ve noticed exceptions to my main issue. My new working theory is that I just wished we were all a little self obsessed, and when someone is less obvious with it, it make me realise the issue in myself.
I’m finally preparing the latest edition of my newsletter to send and got caught on the invitation for suggested content.* I always assumed people would refer someone else’s content which has happened but I have one reader who sends their own content every time I open the invitation.
At first I thought it was my cultural background that makes me view that so negatively. Then I wondered if it was the implicit, if not explicit, request for other people’s content. But as I really thought about it I realised the strongest reason for my reaction.
I don’t trust someone’s opinion of their own creation.
People generally have good taste when it comes to other people’s work and certainly don’t share everything they like with everyone. But that instinct frequently get’s turned off by the kind of person who promotes their stuff all the time.
While I was selfishly asking people to act as a filter and finder of quality instead of taking that responsibility myself, this reader redistributes that work back to me again. So I suppose it serves me right really!
*In the end I cut it. I couldn’t be bothered to work out a good way to phrase it. At least not today.
🔗 I disconnected from the electric grid for 8 months—in Manhattan | Ars Technica
I disconnected from the electric grid for 8 months—in Manhattan | Ars Technica
On May 22, 2022, I began an experiment. I unplugged everything in my apartment, with the goal of drawing zero power from the electric grid for one month. I had no idea how I would make it past a few days.
Nevertheless, I opened the main circuit, disconnecting my apartment from the grid and committing myself to solving what problems arose as they came. As I type these words in January, I’m in my eighth month. My Con-Ed bills continue to show zero kilowatt-hours.
A really interesting read and it has extra resonance for me since reading The Life We’re Looking For. What if we had fewer constantly on devices, and more instruments we turn on only when we need them? It would certainly be needed for such a lifestyle.
I can still remember my amazing productivity when I first came to Poland and had no regular Internet. Every minute at the library was precious and I’d do more in those 30 minutes than most evenings now.
Revisiting minimalism
I’ve been thinking about minimalism again. My main prompt is reading “The Life We’re Looking For” by Andy Crouch. He lays out how “devices” can take as well as give and advocates for technology that makes us more engaged with our whole being rather than passive. As is common, I’ve started to see patterns everywhere. Suddenly stoicism seams very minimalist, I started to look at some of Patrick Rhone’s old essays and I’m wondering about how Christian “simplicity” is similar and different to minimalism. Oh and I’ve coincidentally decided to clear out my desk and draws at the same time.
In the past I commented that my big issue with minimalism is that it provides a diagnosis without a prognosis. I still believe there’s truth to that critique, but it doesn’t make the diagnosis less true.
Now excuse me while I go back to holding some old T-shirts and asking “does this spark joy?” Over and over again.
Appreciating the inbetween week
I’ve got the week off work (but my daughter is still going to pre-school) so I’ve drawn up a list of things to do that I would normally struggle to do due to lack of time or her presence! There’s a lot of big topic conversations with my wife plus making sure I’m fully present and engaged with her in the evening.
First item on my list - cleaning up my desk, notes and old clothes that need to be thrown out.
Turning down an upgrade
I had to renew my phone contract and had a chance to upgrade my four year old phone. In the end I decided against it. The offer sounded good but I wouldn’t have wanted to upgrade this year anyway so it was just spending money I didn’t want to spend.
As I reached the conclusion that I should declining the offer, I felt an uncomfortable pain. I knew it was a good offer, I knew I wanted the new shiny thing, but I also knew it wasn’t a good use of money and I’d be getting a phone and deal I wouldn’t have chosen otherwise.
I knew the decision was right, but I didn’t want it to be the right decision.
My 3 favourite pieces of tech hardware from 2022
The end of the year is in sight.
And while there’s still time for me to purchase a new piece of tech, I think it’s safe for me to create this roundup list (especially with my current financial situation).
I haven’t bought too many items this year, but these three stand out above the rest.
AirPods Pro
My wife is the best.
I had resisted replacing my old AirPods with news ones but my wife convinced me.
She was right. They’ve helped me with countless video calls, blocking out noisy neighbours (and kids) not to mention hours of podcast listening.
And It sounds like the second gen are even better.
Samsung M7
There’s no perfect cheap monitor for Apple computers, but this is close.
It’s a
Back when I was deep in spreadsheets, reports and editing every day, this screen was invaluable. Now it is amazing for editing videos, recording screen casts (I can record a limited space on the screen and have notes in the rest) and for opening a ton of resources from Logos.
Caldigit ts3+
The two ports on the Macbook Air just aren’t enough.
Well, not when I make a video and have my camera, microphone, streamdeck, iPad, monitor and external hard drive all hooked up. This handy little device has made it all a dream.
Previously, I had a dongle that required some careful planning to get everything connected. Now I hook one thunderbolt 3 cable into my Macbook, and away I go.
**What about you? **What have been your favourite hardware tech purchases of the year.
I wouldn't have believed a random project 6 years ago would turn into this.
6 years ago I started making some simple videos for students of English as a foreign language because it was a more valuable “proof of work” as a freelance teacher than the alternatives.
Today, I’m using those skills (and more I’ve learned since) for the onboarding videos project at work.
Plus I got a review copy of Logos 10 for the video review I published earlier this week.
You never know where a little decision might lead you in the future. Or how a fun little skill project might open other doors.
But also, don’t feel ashamed about having a hobby which is just a hobby.