Connected thinking

I am taking to Obsidian.md pretty well.

Graph view of linked notes

I started this week being more deliberate with actually capturing thoughts. I added to my daily morning processing, all accomplished by Shortcuts, a templates daily note. I’d already been running through all my events and tasks for the day so it was fairly easy to compile that into a note to write in for the day. The other looks something like this:

Date

Events

• Meeting 1
• Meeting 2
• Time block for task 1
• Lunch
• Etc Notes/Thoughts New tasks to add

The idea being anything I think of that I want to remember or maybe do something with later, it goes into this note now.

Before, let’s say an email came in asking of X control or workflow or whatever needed to do Y to be keyboard accessible. I’d write my response, double check my assertions with a few sources, and send the email.

This week, I’d capture that response, the sources, and related ideas into a daily note. At the end of the day, I look through the note and move any new tasks that I didn’t already do go into my task manager and then do something with that note.

Take 8/4’s note:

Example of a rendered note

So I did some research on HTML roles that I wanted to capture. So I wrote it down and at the end of the day, turned that into a NEW note and embedded it back into the daily note.

So the actually note looks like this:

Example of actual note text

The !Text is the transclusion link to the now-separate-but-linked note on the Role attribute.

So this is… kinda revelatory. The top most image is the start of my interlinked notes nodes. I’ve imported allllll the writing I did at Wrestling With Franklin over the years and am pulling out useful concepts and creating the links. I’m doing the same with accessibility-related writings that I’ve got all over the place. You see some of the central nodes starting to form.

More complex days include meetings that become their own notes in a meeting folder that includes notes and tasks and other links out to things. So it’s an ever growing network of stuff outside of my head that I can now manipulate and expand.

It’s a second brain made manifest. In the future, when I have an idea I can add it here and add links and wander those links to generate new ideas. Neat, right?

Permalink: Http://blog.angrybunnyman.com/connected-thinking

Starting with obsidian

Of course the first ting you do with a new system is find or create the most obnoxious 80s style theme.

Permanent link: Http://blog.angrybunnyman.com/starting-with-obsidian

Flip the internal narrative on loss

I’m not egotistical enough to claim everyone should feel blessed I was in their lives, but please be happy of the legacy I leave behind. Even if it is dad jokes and bad blog posts. Be happy you had something and not sad it’s gone.

Then it suddenly hit me. This is exactly the opposite of what I have been doing about working from home. I have been moping around and morning the loss of WFH instead of being happy that I had the opportunity to experience it for more than a year. I had no right to work from home, but had an excellent experience that I was lucky to have. An experience, during a pandemic, that many did not have and their lives have changed for the worse because of it.

Source: Be Happy It Happened, https://www.gr36.com/2021/07/27/be-happy-it.html

I’m guilty of this for sure. I definitely think work in America is pretty messed up but, at the end of the day, I don’t control the decisions of my employer and being miffed about it isn’t solving anything.

Am I glad to be back in the office? Not entirely. But I get to see some friends regularly again and my office itself is pretty done.

Does working from home work well for me? In the majority, very much so.

Do I want 💯 % WFH? Mo, I don’t think I actually do anymore. But having a day or two a week where I could very specifically target more long focus, creative work for the home days would be huge. Right now, I effectively do that by just disappearing somewhere on campus.

We’ll see what Delta brings but I will start looking back at a good experience I was pretty lucky to have.

Permanent link: Http://blog.angrybunnyman.com/flip-the-internal-narrative-on-loss

It is not just social media

Because that’s where Twitter lives.

Twitter is a parasite that burrows deep into your brain, training you to respond to the constant social feedback of likes and retweets. That takes only a week or two. Human psychology is pathetically simple to manipulate. Once you’re hooked, the parasite becomes your master, and it changes the way you think. Even now, I’m dopesick, dying to go back.

Twitter did something that I would not have thought possible: It stole reading from me. What is it stealing from you?

Source: You Really Need to Quit Twitter by Caitlin Flanagan, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/twitter-addict-realizes-she-needs-rehab/619343/

I have legitimate concerns that Instagram, especially with its hard turn into short video content, and Pokemon Go have inserted themselves into that spot between surface thoughts and the ability to focus.

The pandemic was stressful. PoGo in particular was a salve and helped me find new friends that could exist well in Discord. But… I haven’t read a real book in a while. I’ve not had much novel thinking either.

So maybe I need to find the right flute to coax that beast away.

Where flute is something like technology imposed time limits.

(He says as this automatically cross-posts to social media…)

Permanent link: Http://blog.angrybunnyman.com/it-is-not-just-social-media

To hustle is not to leisure

While adults used to have hobbies, now we have hustles and if you’re not monetizing those side hustles then what are you doing? Oh, and make sure you keep Slack notifications on so that you don’t miss that late night message about the work thing that can’t wait for tomorrow.

Life is better in many ways, of course, but the “we’ll be able to work less and live fuller lives at home” never came to pass.

Source: A Four Day Work Week? Yes, Please! by Matt Birchler, https://birchtree.me/blog/a-four-day-work-week-yes-please/

Hustle is a verb. Hobby is a now. Right, obvious, but so much of modern work and leisure culture centers around this active state of everything. If you’re not hustling, you’re not doing it right.

And I know. I ran a side business for years that came from a hobby. I stopped because, despite being profitable from day one, it was eating any time I had for anything else. I got no joy from it.

This is late stage capitalism. If you’re not monetizing everything you’re doing… do you even matter, bro?

Permanent link: Http://blog.angrybunnyman.com/to-hustle-is-not-to-leisure

Infinite limbs

Giannis still, more than anything, resembled a toothpick. His body wasn’t developed enough, his skills weren’t honed enough, to merit a comparison to any of those legends, let alone all three. But he had a unique skill set, an intriguing build—one that people didn’t yet know how to define. He was, as Grantland put it, “a human wormhole—all infinite limbs and impossible strides, twisting our conception of space inside out.”

Source: The Fire That Forged Giannis Antetokounmpo by Mirin Fader, https://www.theringer.com/2021/7/21/22585355/giannis-antetokounmpo-book-excerpt-the-improbable-rise

That’s just a magnificent description at the end.

Permanent link: Http://blog.angrybunnyman.com/infinite-limbs