I posted nine blog posts this week, relaxing that once-a-day bottleneck that I’ve been using for the past few years. Mainly, it’s because I want to talk about Emacs more than once a week while still keeping lots of variety so that I can talk about non-tech topics too. Daily readers: Is the volume unmanageable? How can I make this better for you?

On my consulting gig, I leveled up in terms of using Tableau. I think I’ve gotten the hang of dashboard actions now, and I’m more comfortable using calculated fields for attributes and aggregates. Whee!

This has been a good week for planning ahead and learning from others. The Quantified Self Toronto meetup on Monday got me thinking about an Epic Quest of Awesome, and that spun off a long, thoughtful conversation about questions. I’m looking forward to fleshing that out a bit more over the next few weeks.

Oh, and I finally applied for my passport, picked up my Cultural Access Pass, and took care of a number of other errands. Have day pass, will Get Stuff Done.

The Emacs microhabit I’m going to focus on this week is selecting multiple things in Helm, since that’s one of its key features. =)

Blog posts

1. Weekly review: Week ending January 16, 2015
2. Minimizing upward or downward skew in your sketchnotes
3. Improving my evil plans for Emacs
4. Breaking down the skill of outlining
5. Developing Emacs micro-habits: Abbreviations and templates
6. Move your goalposts to get around an inability to finish projects How redefining your projects can help you satisfy a novelty-seeking brain, and how you can deal with interests or experiments that don’t have clear ends
7. Emacs Chat with Steve Purcell
8. Visualizing the internal citation network of my blog
9. Filling in the occupational blanks

Sketches

1. 2015.01.17 Evening tweaks – index card #routines
2. 2015.01.17 My Evil Plans for Emacs are yielding results – index card #emacs #sharing
3. 2015.01.17 Playing with the index card format – index card #drawing
4. 2015.01.17 Thoughts from Sketchnote Hangout – colour – index card #color #drawing
5. 2015.01.17 Weekend routines – index card #life #routines
6. 2015.01.18 Digging into my thoughts about emptying one’s cup – #emacs #writing
7. 2015.01.18 Emacs microhabit – Switching windows – index card #emacs #microhabit
8. 2015.01.18 Journey to Emacs – Beginnings – index card #emacs #beginner
9. 2015.01.18 Journey to Emacs – stages – index card #emacs
10. 2015.01.18 Narratives – index card #storytelling #perspective
11. 2015.01.18 The Sense of Style – index card #book #writing
12. 2015.01.18 Thinking about evil-mode and Emacs – index card #emacs
13. 2015.01.19 A good way to track writing revisions – index card #editing #tech
14. 2015.01.19 Deeper outlines – index card #writing
15. 2015.01.19 How can I get better at research – index card #learning
16. 2015.01.19 Imagining an editing experiment – index card #delegation #writing #editing
17. 2015.01.19 Improving my sharing – index card #writing #sharing
18. 2015.01.19 Quantified Self Toronto – epic quests, kids, stopwatches, art projects
19. 2015.01.20 Asking better questions – index card #asking
20. 2015.01.20 Skill trees – asking questions – index card #skill
21. 2015.01.20 Skill trees – web – index card #skill #coding
22. 2015.01.20 Skill trees – writing – index card #skill
23. 2015.01.20 What do I want from this quest list and skill tree visualization – index card
24. 2015.01.21 Goal strategies – index card #popular-goals
25. 2015.01.21 Playing with popular goals – Happiness – index card #popular-goals
26. 2015.01.21 Popular goals – Fame – index card #popular-goals
27. 2015.01.21 Popular goals – Health – index card #popular-goals
28. 2015.01.21 Popular goals – Knowledge or experience – index card #popular-goals
29. 2015.01.21 Popular goals – Meaning – index card #popular-goals
30. 2015.01.21 Popular goals – Power – index card #popular-goals
31. 2015.01.21 Popular goals – Wealth – index card #popular-goals
32. 2015.01.21 Popular goals – tranquility, equanimity – index card #popular-goals
33. 2015.01.21 What if I tried on common goals – index card #popular-goals
34. 2015.01.22 Book – Leading the Life You Want – Friedman 2014 – index card #book
35. 2015.01.22 Buffet of other goals – index card #goals
36. 2015.01.22 Goals and skills – index card #goals
37. 2015.01.22 Imagining a good quest or skill discussion – index card #goals #conversation
38. 2015.01.22 Thesis projects for 2015 – ideas – index card #sharing #plans
39. 2015.01.23 Book – Leaving a Trace – Alexandra Johnson – index card #writing #book
40. 2015.01.23 Passport – mail or pickup – index card #decision
41. 2015.01.23 Rough notes on goals and questions – for follow up – index card #rough #notes
42. 2015.01.23 Tech upgrade triggers – index card #decision
43. 2015.01.23 What would help me enjoy travel – index card

Link round-up

• Oleh Krehel: ElTeX – generate full LaTeX documents from Emacs Lisp: Neat markup and approach – complex Emacs Lisp to generate simple LaTeX instead of struggling with defining complex LaTeX macros.
• org-mode as a node graph?: Useful comments. I need to use the BLOCKER: property more often, I think.
• How to Represent a Year in Numbers: Various annual reviews
• The Power of Self-Limiting Messages: And Drawing Straight Lines:
• A Powerful Exercise inside Google Analytics to Set You Up for a Successful Year of Blogging:
• Emacs for Writing: Trying out org-wc, nanowrimo, and hl-sentence.
• punchagan: org-drill for making it stick!: org-drill tweak for prompting for answers

Focus areas and time review

• Business (40.9h – 24%)
  • Earn (9.3h – 22% of Business)
    • ☑ Deposit cheque
    • ☐ Earn: E1: 1-2 days of consulting
  • Build (18.2h – 44% of Business)
    • Drawing (7.1h)
    • Delegation (0.0h)
    • Packaging (0.0h)
    • Paperwork (1.8h)
    • ☑ Fix cucumber for travis
    • ☑ Look into recently uploaded images
  • Connect (13.3h – 32% of Business)
    • ☑ Go to Quantified Self Toronto meetup
    • ☑ Post Quantified Self notes
    • ☑ Check out Sketchnote Hangout
    • ☑ Check out #lrnbook
• Relationships (3.7h – 2%)
  • ☑ Call pharmacy
• Discretionary – Productive (21.0h – 12%)
  • Emacs (5.9h – 3% of all)
    • ☑ Have Emacs Chat with Steve Purcell
    • ☑ Move my text-scale-increase binding
    • ☑ Check out speed-type
    • ☑ Figure out how to make pivot tables in Org
    • ☑ Figure out how to define abbreviations in Org Mode
    • ☐ Revise transcript for Steve Purcell
    • ☐ Look at Yasnippet doc TODOs
    • ☐ Try out Tern
  • ☑ Apply for passport – State “WAITING” from “STARTED” [2015-01-16 Fri 15:51]
  • ☑ Redeposit into TFSA
  • ☑ Invest in bonds in TFSA
  • ☑ Analyze index cards so far
  • ☑ Make Epic Quest of Awesome sheet
  • ☑ Pick up cultural access pass from Front and Parliament
  • ☑ Reflect on asking questions
  • ☑ Apply for passport
  • ☐ Type in goals
  • ☐ Brainstorm ideas for final project
  • ☐ Start git directory for drafts
  • Writing (8.1h)
• Discretionary – Play (6.6h – 3%)
• Personal routines (22.8h – 13%)
• Unpaid work (14.7h – 8%)
• Sleep (58.3h – 34% – average of 8.3 per day)

This was a good week for writing code: little utilities to help me manage my sketches and Evernote entries, some code for my consulting client, and so forth.

The Emacs microhabit I focused on was switching windows. I found that C-u C-u with ace-window (which I’ve bound to C-x o) is handy for deleting windows, and binding a windmove-type keymap to the yy keychord is useful for switching windows with my cursor keys.

Next week, I’ve got an Emacs Chat with Steve Purcell. Looking forward to it!

Blog posts

• Weekly review: Week ending January 9, 2015
• Sketched Book: Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action – Simon Sinek
• Deliberately making sense
• 2015-01-09 Emacs Hangout
• Think more effectively by typing to yourself
• Thoughts in context: Connecting posts to my blog post index
• Drawing thoughts on index cards

Link round-up

• punchagan: How I learnt to use Emacs’ profiler: Org Agenda performance improvements and how to use the profiler.
• Japanese Master Craftsmen Dry Fitting Huge, Insanely Complicated Wood Joints: Boggle at the awesomeness.
• Michael Fogleman: 2014: A Year of Emacs: Neato! Didn’t realize Michael’s only been into this for a year. Spaced repetition, hangouts.
• Why learning online is better than in-person, and how to make use of your technology: Practical ways to use tech, such as simultaneous editing of parallel Google Docs
• Lessons Learned Building A Productized Service: I know a number of freelancers curious about this.
• Zoom in / out with style: Emacs – how to define repeatable command keymap. Elegant definition. Must figure out places to use this.
• How To Think: Probe thinking, slow down, use mental models, integrate.
• Make Your Dreams a Reality with the WOOP Method: Wish, outcome, obstacle, plan.
• How to overcome the imposter syndrome and build a 6-figure consulting business – with Noah Fleming:
• Yi-Tang’s post on learning Jekyll: With time analysis. Awesome. See also Yi-Tang’s weekly review – yay, someone else tracking time in Emacs! =)

Sketches

1. 2015.01.10 Favourite meals – index card #cooking
2. 2015.01.10 How did schools of philosophy work in ancient Greece and Rome – index card #independence #philosophy
3. 2015.01.10 Lessons from ancient Rome – index card #philosophy
4. 2015.01.10 More about philosophers – index card #independence
5. 2015.01.10 The idea of the Minimum Viable Post – index card #writing #blogging
6. 2015.01.10 What is the goal of my tracking – index card #quantified
7. 2015.01.10 What questions do I want to explore with data – index card #quantified
8. 2015.01.10 Writing into the future – index card #writing #blogging
9. 2015.01.11 Current state and future states – index card #writing
10. 2015.01.11 Learning from what I like about books – index card #writing
11. 2015.01.11 Making better use of Evernote – index card #evernote
12. 2015.01.11 Neko sleeping – index card #cat
13. 2015.01.11 Snacks we can make – index card #cooking
14. 2015.01.11 What makes a good other-focused post – index card #writing
15. 2015.01.12 Considering ideas for QS mini-guide – index card #quantified #planning
16. 2015.01.12 Emacs microhabit – window management – index card #emacs
17. 2015.01.12 How I stopped looking for answers – index card #reading
18. 2015.01.12 More thoughts about QS mini-guide – index card #quantified #planning
19. 2015.01.12 Quantified Self and small steps – index card #quantified
20. 2015.01.12 Reverse outlining – index card #writing #organization #outlining
21. 2015.01.12 Structure for QS mini-guide on small steps – index card #quantified
22. 2015.01.12 Undirected questions versus directed questions – index card #writing
23. 2015.01.12 Weekly reviews – index card #writing
24. 2015.01.12 What am I learning about – index card #plans
25. 2015.01.12 What will this QS guide look and feel like – index card #quantified #planning
26. 2015.01.12 When is Emacs a good fit – index card #emacs #beginner
27. 2015.01.13 Emacs and the beginner’s mind – index card #emacs #beginner
28. 2015.01.13 Evaluating posts written for others – index card #writing #questions #blogging
29. 2015.01.13 Hacklab – index card #connecting
30. 2015.01.13 How can I do morning index cards more effectively – index card #drawing
31. 2015.01.13 In terms of Emacs, where can I help – index card #emacs
32. 2015.01.13 Layout studies for QS mini-guide – index card #study
33. 2015.01.13 Other Emacs mindset tips – index card #emacs #beginner
34. 2015.01.13 Using Node as a scripting tool – index card #javascript #nodejs #coding #scripting
35. 2015.01.13 Visual studies for QS mini-guide – index card #study
36. 2015.01.13 What’s getting in my way when it comes to reverse outlining – index card #outlining #writing #obstacle
37. 2015.01.14 Breaking down excuses – index card #excuses #breakdown
38. 2015.01.14 Filling in the occupational blanks – index card #experiment #occupation
39. 2015.01.14 How to keep your drink safe from cats – index card #life #cats
40. 2015.01.14 Projecting my trajectory – index card #writing #sharing #pipeline
41. 2015.01.14 Projecting my writing trajectory – index card #writing
42. 2015.01.14 Setting constraints for my writing chunks – index card #writing #constraints
43. 2015.01.14 Understanding different types of inspiration – index card #inspiration #breakdown
44. 2015.01.14 What does it mean when something takes too much time – index card #excuses #breakdown
45. 2015.01.15 Helping people me more selective about email questions – index card #teaching #email
46. 2015.01.15 How to Read and Why – Harold Bloom – index card #book #raw #reading
47. 2015.01.15 Imagining coding amazingly – index card #wildsuccess #coding
48. 2015.01.15 Imagining packaging amazingly – index card #packaging #wildsuccess
49. 2015.01.15 Imagining working out loud amazingly – #wildsuccess #sharing #writing
50. 2015.01.15 Imagining writing amazingly – index card #writing #wildsuccess
51. 2015.01.15 Planning a bibliography Org file – index card #emacs #org #reading
52. 2015.01.15 Slowing down e-mail – index card #email #connecting #pace
53. 2015.01.15 Think Better – Tim Hurson – index card #book #raw #thinking #creativity
54. 2015.01.15 What if I required people to pay it forward – #workingoutloud #sharing #teaching
55. 2015.01.15 Writing on Both Sides of Your Brain – Henriette Anne Klauser – index card #book #raw
56. 2015.01.16 How can I improve my experience of e-mail – index card #email #kaizen
57. 2015.01.16 How much time does it take – index card #response #question
58. 2015.01.16 Morning routines – index card #life #routines
59. 2015.01.16 Reflecting on reflecting with index cards – index card #thinking #drawing
60. 2015.01.16 Thinking about why I don’t meditate – index card #reason #meditation

Focus areas and time review

• Business (37.0h – 21%)
  • Earn (7.1h – 19% of Business)
    • ☐ Earn: E1: 1-2 days of consulting
  • Build (20.2h – 54% of Business)
    • Drawing (10.1h)
    • Delegation (0.0h)
    • Packaging (1.9h)
      • ☑ Change sketchnotes to Dropbox
    • Paperwork (0.2h)
    • ☑ Upload image to Flickr using node
    • ☑ Make a cal-heatmap of my Flickr
    • ☑ Simplify Gemfile in order to improve Travis CI performance for Quantified Awesome
    • ☑ Parse XML from Evernote and extract all the journal entries
    • ☐ Fix cucumber for travis
  • Connect (9.7h – 26% of Business)
    • ☑ Talk to journalist about Quantified Self
    • ☑ Send resources to journalist
    • ☑ Photograph for Star
    • ☐ Go to Quantified Self Toronto meetup
    • ☐ Check out Sketchnote Hangout
    • ☐ Brainstorm ideas for final project in learning course
    • ☐ Check out #lrnbook
• Relationships (1.6h – 0%)
• Discretionary – Productive (21.8h – 13%)
  • Emacs (1.6h – 0% of all)
    • ☑ Set up next Emacs Hangout and announce on mailing list
    • ☑ Make sure Emacs Chat is set up on iTunes
    • ☑ Set up schedule
    • ☑ Update EmacsWiki:Yasnippet
    • ☑ Blog about most recent Emacs Hangout
    • ☑ [#A] Create Emacs Chat event on Google+ for chat with Steve Purcell
    • ☑ Get node to store Org links, oooh
    • ☐ Finish Avdi’s transcript
    • ☐ Revise transcript for Magnar Sveen
    • ☐ Research tidbits for Emacs Chat
    • ☐ Clean up uDemy formatting for Emacs Basics
    • ☐ Have Emacs Chat with Steve Purcell
    • ☐ Contribute to Yasnippet docs
    • ☐ Try out Tern
  • Writing (11.2h)
    • ☑ Outline mini-guide for QS small steps
    • ☑ Revise writing post to include images
  • ☑ Ask two guarantors for passport
  • ☑ Dip into Learning How to Learn course
    • ☑ Complete quiz 3
  • ☑ Pick up my lunch
  • ☑ Redeposit into TFSA
  • ☑ Review dangling sketches and posts
  • ☑ Start bibliography Org file
  • ☐ Apply for passport
  • ☐ Invest in bonds in TFSA
• Discretionary – Play (4.7h – 2%)
• Personal routines (25.4h – 15%)
• Unpaid work (15.0h – 8%)
• Sleep (62.5h – 37% – average of 8.9 per day)

This was the first week back from vacation. It had a good balance of writing (2 days), coding (2 days), and consulting (1 day). I wrote a couple of long posts that you’ll see over the next few weeks. I fixed some bugs on Quantified Awesome, and I used the Flickr API to remove duplicates and link photos with my blog posts. Fun!

I started a new habit of drawing my thoughts on at least five index cards each day. It’s a good way to get my brain going in the morning. After scanning them, I split them by topic into piles on my desk. It’s an easy way to see where my thoughts are building up so that I can pull them together into blog posts.

I filed some tax-related paperwork, too: my second T4, and my first T5. I’m looking forward to finding out whether I’ve figured this all out correctly once the other tax slips come in.

Also, it was J-‘s birthday, so we had sushi and cheesecake. Yay!

Blog posts

• Review: Week ending January 2, 2015
• Morning, afternoon, evening, commute: thinking about what to do when (sketched)
• Monthly review: December 2014
• Emacs kaizen: ace-isearch combines ace-jump-mode and helm-swoop
• Predictable advice about productivity
• Thinking about how to make better use of Yasnippet in my Emacs workflow

Sketches

1. 2015.01.03 Making better use of basement – index card
2. 2015.01.03 Making better use of kitchen – index card
3. 2015.01.03 Making better use of phone – index card
4. 2015.01.03 Sketched Book – So Good They Can’t Ignore You – Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love – Cal Newport – Blogged
5. 2015.01.03 Social – index card
6. 2015.01.03 Social bookmarking – index card
7. 2015.01.03 Why Emacs – index card
8. 2015.01.04 Automating text – index card
9. 2015.01.04 Rhythm for learning – index card
10. 2015.01.04 Thinking in terms of an exchange of time – index card
11. 2015.01.04 What kind of difference do I want to make, and for whom – index card
12. 2015.01.05 A reflection on diminishing returns versus compounding growth – index card
13. 2015.01.05 Developing my imagination and initiative – index card – Blogged
14. 2015.01.05 Different ideas about mastery – index card
15. 2015.01.05 Figuring out the technical details of this idea or visual archive I want – index card
16. 2015.01.05 How can I get better at summary posts – index card
17. 2015.01.05 Managing my idea pipeline – index card – Blogged
18. 2015.01.05 Quick idea studies – index card – Blogged
19. 2015.01.05 Seeing opportunities for abbreviations and text automation – index card
20. 2015.01.05 Surprise experiment, self-directed life – index card
21. 2015.01.05 Thinking about my archive – index card – Blogged
22. 2015.01.05 What can I learn from artists about learning – index card – Blogged
23. 2015.01.05 Why studies for drawing or writing thoughts – index card – Blogged
24. 2015.01.06 Abbrevations – index card
25. 2015.01.06 Competence and mastery – index card
26. 2015.01.06 Figuring out information flow – index card
27. 2015.01.06 Is this enough for me – index card
28. 2015.01.06 Phrases – index card
29. 2015.01.06 Planning my safety nets – index card
30. 2015.01.06 Safe, a little better, comfortable – index card
31. 2015.01.07 Code insertion – index card
32. 2015.01.07 Mapping the connections in my blog – index card
33. 2015.01.07 Real Work – index card
34. 2015.01.07 Sketched Book – The Progress Principle – Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work – Teresa Amabile, Steven Kramer
35. 2015.01.07 Templates – index card
36. 2015.01.07 Text transformation as part of expansion – index card
37. 2015.01.08 How to use what you read – index card
38. 2015.01.08 Imagining Emacs hangouts – index card
39. 2015.01.08 Imagining coaching or guiding others – index card
40. 2015.01.08 Learning as an event – index card
41. 2015.01.08 Team-building activities – index card
42. 2015.01.09 Cross-pollination of ideas – index card
43. 2015.01.09 Take notes while you read books – index card
44. 2015.01.09 Time is greater than money – index card
45. 2015.01.09 What am I learning more about, and how can people help – index card
46. 2015.01.09 What do I do on my non-consulting days – index card

Link round-up

• My org-protocol setup, part 2.: Neat. I just got org-protocol working on Windows 8.
• Why You Need Mentors (and Why You Don’t Have Them Yet): High action-to-advice ratio
• Emacs as my <Leader>, 1 Year Later: A former Vim user’s transition
• Sebastian Wiesner: My Emacs Configuration with use-package: Good write-up for use-package. I should look into using :idle.
• Distinguish Between Uncertainty and Risk to Minimize Decision Anxiety: Useful distinction. High uncertainty but low risk? Don’t worry too much about it, just try things out.
• You Need an Inventory of Your Stuff (and It’s Easier Than You Think): Good reminder – I should do a comprehensive inventory.
• What Products Should You Sell From Your Blog?: Structure for creating and selling information products, with recommended pricing
• The keymap arms race: How to deal with conflicting keymaps

Focus areas and time review

• Business (36.8h – 21%)
  • ☐ Earn: E1: 1-2 days of consulting
  • ☐ Revise transcript for Magnar Sveen
  • Earn (6.7h – 18% of Business)
    • ☑ Prepare invoice
  • Build (24.4h – 66% of Business)
    • Drawing (10.3h)
      • ☑ Organize my sketches for 2014
      • ☑ Post The Obstacle Is The Way to blog
    • Delegation (0.0h)
    • Packaging (1.8h)
    • Paperwork (5.8h)
      • ☑ File T5 for 2014
      • ☑ File T4 for 2014
    • ☑ Parse XML from Evernote and extract all the journal entries
    • ☑ Remove duplicates from Flickr list
    • ☑ Fix csa_foods
    • ☑ AJAXify clothing log
    • ☑ Fix the menu on small screens
    • ☑ Change error message since I don’t get notified about stuff
    • ☑ Clear up Documents/Documents confusion
    • ☑ Re-cross-reference blog posts with Flickr. What’s a nice, sustainable way of doing this?
  • Connect (5.7h – 15% of Business)
    • ☑ Talk to journalist about Quantified Self
    • ☑ Find contact information and timezone
• Relationships (7.7h – 4%)
  • ☑ Check protocol and copy dates
• Discretionary – Productive (26.4h – 15%)
  • Emacs (1.3h – 0% of all)
    • ☑ Revise transcript for Thomas Kjeldahl Nilsson
    • ☐ Blog about most recent Emacs Hangout
    • ☑ Developing Emacs micro-habits: Text automation
  • ☑ Get passport pictures
  • ☑ Scan passport
  • ☐ Apply for passport
  • ☐ Pick up my lunch
  • Writing (16.8h)
    • ☑ Smooth out image workflow for writing
• Discretionary – Play (9.7h – 5%)
• Personal routines (20.7h – 12%)
• Unpaid work (8.4h – 5%)
• Sleep (58.2h – 34% – average of 8.3 per day)

I wrote that in December, I planned to:

• Continue helping my consulting client with prototyping and analytics: I updated our Tableau reports, and I’ve been turning over more prototyping to the new developer. Yay!
• Dive into Emacs improvement: Didn’t get to do as much of this as I liked, but I was happy to see that @rubikitch has started a daily Emacs tip series. It’s in Japanese, but Google Translate will get you most of the way there.
• Help out with family projects: This is mostly what our vacation’s been like. Awesome!
• Do a calendar-year annual review: Yup, done. Although I really should put this in January’s plan anyway, since I like waiting for the numbers from Quantified Awesome…

I’m mostly normal again in terms of sleep and energy, but I’d like to get back into exercise.

In January, I plan to:

• Set up a rhythm of monthly Emacs hangouts and Emacs chats
• Shift my finances around a bit so that I’m more relaxed
• Sort out some small snags with consulting
• Get the exercise ladder habit going again. Sure, I know it might get disrupted, but the important part is to keep starting.
• Make little improvements around the house, so it doesn’t end up waiting for vacations

Blog posts

• Emacs
  • Emacs Hangout #3: Emacs can read your mind
  • Recording from Emacs Hangout #2
  • Emacs Chat: Karl Voit Karl Voit talks about Org Mode, Memacs, Lazyblorg, Yasnippet, and other cool Emacs things.
  • Emacs configuration and use-package
  • Emacs: M-y as helm-show-kill-ring
  • Emacs kaizen: ace-jump-zap lets you use C-u to zap to any character Quick Emacs tip for using ace-jump-zap-to-char-dwim or ace-jump-zap-up-to-char-dwim for deleting characters up to a specified character anywhere on your screen
  • Org Mode publishing workflow for Sketched Books collection
  • Improving how I organize notes with Org Mode I describe how I organize my Org Mode files, and I think about using tags and links to organize my Org Mode files more effectively.
• Productivity
  • Learning slack
  • Relaxed routines Where I tell people it’s okay to have a relaxed, not-crammed-to-the-gills schedule, and I extol the benefits of slowing down and taking notes
  • When you feel like you’re spending a lot of time on low-impact activities Embracing your constraints, laying the groundwork for action, acting in tune with yourself, and accumulating gradual progress can help you keep moving forward even if it feels like you’re taking such tiny steps.
• Learning
  • Learning more effectively by exploring various unknowns
  • Figuring out what to read by figuring out what you want to become or make or do
• Drawing
  • Sketchnote Army Interview: Sacha Chua
  • Where am I in terms of design?
  • Exploring sketchnote colour styles Comparing fifteen colouring styles and experimenting with decorations, accented text, toned text, background, and flood
• Blogging
  • Building a better time machine
  • Connecting to previous thoughts and covering more ground
  • Making personal blogs useful for other people too Looking for a middle ground between dry advice and personal journals, using the metaphor of travel guides and photo albums. A travelogue might be a good metaphor.
  • Start your titles with a verb to make them stronger; or reflections on titles, filler phrases, and my life as a gerund Self-directed and other-directed posts in terms of titles (vague gerunds versus clear, concrete verbs); thinking about better titles and post structures
• Sketched books
  • Sketched Book: Just F*cking Ship &#8211; Amy Hoy, Alex Hillman
  • Sketched Book: The Stoic Art of Living: Inner Resilience and Outer Results &#8211; Tom Morris
  • Sketched Book: The Inner Game of Work &#8211; W. Timothy Gallwey
• Reviews
  • Monthly review: November 2014
  • Weekly review: Week ending December 5, 2014
  • Weekly review: Week ending December 12, 2014
  • Weekly review: Week ending December 19, 2014 Preparing the floor for tiling; also, EPUBs for Emacs Chat transcripts and my blog
  • Weekly review: Week ending December 26, 2014

Sketches

1. 2014.12.01 Colouring inspiration guide – drawing – Blogged
2. 2014.12.01 The Inner Game of Work – W Timothy Gallwey – Blogged
3. 2014.12.04 Sketchnote Army Interview – Sacha Chua – Blogged
4. 2014.12.10 Sketched Book – The Stoic Art of Living – Inner Resilience and Outer Results – Tom Morris – Blogged
5. 2014.12.11 What is good for me to do when – Blogged
6. 2014.12.12 Sketched Book – Just Fucking Ship – Amy Hoy and Alex Hillman – Blogged
7. 2014.12.13 Sketched Book – Start With Why – Simon Sinek
8. 2014.12.14 Sketched Book – Write Faster Write Better – David A Fryxell – Blogged
9. 2014.12.25 Sketched Book – Take Charge of Your Talent – Three Keys to Thriving in Your Career, Organization, and Life – Don Maruska and Jay Perry – Blogged
10. 2014.12.31 Sketched Book – The Checklist Manifesto – How to Get Things Right – Atul Gawande – Blogged

This week was about making little improvements. We installed weather-stripping to stop the drafts under the exterior walls. We added more lights to the basement, including an undercabinet light at my desk. I organized the tangle of USB cables plugged into a hub behind my monitor, tucking them into a box with a few input and output holes so that there’s less visual clutter. I also set up my Cintiq 12WX again. Using it to draw book sketchnotes is more pleasant than using my tablet PC. I wrote some Emacs Lisp to help me with my monthly reviews, and some Javascript to add blog links to more than a hundred of my sketches. I set up a Tasker scene to help me track my time on QuantifiedAwesome.com with just two clicks. Fun!

I posted my annual review. I think my focus for 2015 is going to be on little improvements and micro-habits. Getting really good at that will likely have all sorts of benefits.

Next week, W- will be back at work, and I’ll probably spend Thursday consulting. The rest of the time, I’m looking forward to revising transcripts, sketching books, and planning my next series of 2-4 week experiments.

Blog posts

• Weekly review: Week ending December 26, 2014
• Sketched Book: The Inner Game of Work – W. Timothy Gallwey
• Start your titles with a verb to make them stronger; or reflections on titles, filler phrases, and my life as a gerund Self-directed and other-directed posts in terms of titles (vague gerunds versus clear, concrete verbs); thinking about better titles and post structures
• Org Mode publishing workflow for Sketched Books collection
• Learning a little more quickly
• 2014 in review

Sketches

• 2014.12.31 Sketched Book – The Checklist Manifesto – How to Get Things Right – Atul Gawande – Blogged

Link round-up

• Sketchnoting
  • Practical Sketchnoting workshop – Hat tip to Graphic Coaching for the link. Check out the related presentations on Slideshare for even more tutorials.
  • Sketchnoting: Tips for Students | Brain Bonbons: Suggestions for students (particularly in science)
• Emacs
  • Grant Rettke: All Emacs Users Should Probably Run auto-compile: Added to my configuration.
  • Endless Parentheses: Asynchronous package upgrades with Paradox: Neat.
  • Grant Rettke: The Emacs Widget Library: I’ve never played around with defining my own widget interfaces. Hmm.
  • A pretty different configuration of Emacs by Casey Muratori of Handmade Hero: This and other Handmade Hero videos (like Instantaneous Live Code Editing look interesting. Yay for more people sharing their workflow and working out loud!
  • A New Emacs Blog: Neat! Subscribed to oremacs.com.
• If you tell a story three times, blog it: Totally. Actually, I tend to blog things when I catch myself telling the story once. =)
• Most popular posts of 2014 (John D. Cook): Notable for the link to What would Donald Knuth do, which amused me greatly. (Probably requires computer science or related degree/interest to appreciate.) Check out the comments as well.
• The Best of Farnam Street 2014: Quite a few gems.
  • How to get smarter: Read a lot. Grab ideas and do sensible things.
  • Finding your purpose and living a meaningful life: “In short, he has not dedicated his life to reaching a pre-defined goal, but he has rather chosen a way of life he KNOWS he will enjoy. The goal is absolutely secondary: it is the functioning toward the goal which is important.” – Hunter S. Thompson
  • How to think: Cognitive flexibility and cognitive self-control. Helping people develop grit through feedback.
• Kanbanote Organizes Your Evernote Notes in Trello-like Boards: Looks interesting. Doesn’t work with shared notebooks yet, though.

Focus areas and time review

• Business (12.6h – 7%)
  • Earn (2.4h – 19% of Business)
    • ☐ Earn: E1: 1-2 days of consulting
  • Build (4.8h – 38% of Business)
    • Drawing (2.9h)
      • ☑ Sketchnote So Good They Can’t Ignore You
      • ☑ Sketchnote The Checklist Manifesto
    • Delegation (0.0h)
    • Packaging (0.0h)
    • Paperwork (0.0h)
      • ☐ File payroll return
    • ☑ Fix forgot password process
  • Connect (5.4h – 42% of Business)
• Relationships (39.5h – 23%)
• Discretionary – Productive (11.6h – 6%)
  • Emacs (2.1h – 1% of all)
    • ☐ Revise transcript for Magnar Sveen
    • ☐ Revise transcript for Thomas Kjeldahl Nilsson
    • ☑ Reach out to possible Emacs Chat people
  • ☑ Get Org Mode to talk to my Vagrant VM
  • ☑ Make something that updates my Flickr photo descriptions in bulk
  • ☑ Write Emacs Lisp code for monthly review
  • ☑ Get passport pictures
  • ☐ Apply for passport
  • ☐ Pick up cultural access pass from Front and Parliament
  • Writing (7.9h)
• Discretionary – Play (12.3h – 7%)
• Personal routines (23.4h – 13%)
• Unpaid work (8.8h – 5%)
• Sleep (59.9h – 36% – average of 8.6 per day)

First, a list of posts I particularly want to remember from this year. If any of them sound interesting, feel free to check them out – I’d love to hear what you think.

• When you feel like you’re spending a lot of time on low-impact activities (Dec) – Embracing your constraints, laying the groundwork for action, acting in tune with yourself, and accumulating gradual progress can help you keep moving forward even if it feels like you’re taking such tiny steps. This post helped me realize that I like the “inefficiencies” of my life. Related:
  • Becoming my own client; also, delegation (Jan) and a conversation about writing, and reflections on taskmasters (Jan) – These two posts fleshed out my approach of choosing what to focus on and treating my self with loving-kindness when it comes to working, as opposed to the taskmaster relationship many people seem to have.
  • On “Hell, yeah! or No” and other approaches (Oct) makes a similar point about the value of activities I don’t enjoy as much as my main ones.
• Dealing with uncertainty one step at a time (Nov) – I realized that my desire for certainty was an illusion, and that embracing uncertainty could help me be of more use. Stoic impressions: Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down (July) uses a playful metaphor for this.
  • On a related note, Reflecting on risk aversion showed me that although I feel like I’m becoming more risk-averse, when I look at my decisions, they’re actually getting bigger and more confident. Odd.
• What could I do if I showed up in a bigger way? (Nov) – Among the different communities I care about, Emacs still tickles my brain the most. Combining that with my reflection on figuring out a path to awesomeness (Nov), I think it makes sense for me to focus on building bridges.
• What’s in your handbook? (July) – I collected the different mantras and reminders I use.
• Developing opinions (July) – This gave me a process for learning about things when I don’t want to settle for what books suggest I think.
• Goal factoring, reflecting on what I can do with my time, and enjoying a buffet of goals (March) – This was a great metaphor that helped me make more sense of having multiple interests.
• A No-Excuses Guide to Blogging (PDF, EPUB, MOBI – free!); also, notes on publishing (Feb) – This resonated with a lot of people.
• Stepping up to publishing (Feb) – In which I realized that it’s good to provide ways for people to be part of your tribe if they want to.
• What you’re really there to learn in computer science (Feb) – Also resonated with a lot of people. I wish I’d realized this when I was teaching introductory computer science. I would have said it up front.

Second, a snapshot of everyday life, so that I can remember what it was like at this time. My routines haven’t changed much since last year, except perhaps that I spend more time writing, cooking, and snuggling with W- and the cats. I try to drop by my consulting client on Thursdays, having successfully off-loaded most of my responsibilities to the team members I’ve trained. I go to Hacklab most Tuesdays to help cook a free vegan dinner for the open house; it’s enjoyable cooking practice, and sometimes I get interesting conversations out of it. W- has taken on a bigger role at work, but that still gives us plenty of time for family projects (we’re working on the basement at the moment). J- often has friends over to study and hang out, so we keep the house stocked with a variety of snacks.

Some memories from this year:

• We took our cat Leia for a lion cut to deal with some of the mats in her fur. It was very amusing.
• I started keeping a more deliberate private journal using Org Mode and Evernote. It’s a good complement to blog posts.
• Mixed results in the garden, but we were pleasantly surprised by getting one zucchini, two bitter melons, and two winter melons out of it. We’ll keep trying.
• I became a Canadian citizen! I’ve been remiss about actually applying for the passport, though. I’ll get that sorted out soon.

Third, overall themes:

In 2013, I resolved to spend more time focusing on my own things instead of giving in to the pull of consulting. So in 2014, I collected more resources into e-books (and even one print book). I experimented with writing a four-part course. I took a Coursera class on analyzing data with R. I played around with Emacs and wrote blog posts for hours.

And yet my data tells me I actually spent more time working on other people’s projects. It went from 9% of my time in 2013 to 12% of my time in 2014, which works out to about six additional hours extra per week. This is coincidentally the same number of hours I reduced my socializing by, although a chunk of that can be explained by shifting socializing to Hacklab (which I track under Business – Connect).

The special project I did in September really changed the balance (27.5% of my time in that month!), as did the fact that I didn’t take any month-long breaks. Even hermit-mode November involved working from home 6% of the time (~10 hours a week).

It’s funny how perception doesn’t match data. Despite the extra time spent consulting, I felt a lot more self-directed this year – maybe because I produced more tangible stuff, and my tasks were more aligned with each other. But I’m drifting off course from becoming my own main client, and I want to adjust that heading in 2015.

Data collected using Quantified Awesome – compare 2014 and 2013

In terms of technical skills, I picked up more experience in:

• Tableau: I learned how to take advantage of custom SQL and filter actions, and I became more comfortable with calculated fields, parameters, and filters.
• Javascript: I got better at writing short Javascript functions and testing them. The new API for the social platform I work with on my consulting gig allowed me to build all sorts of nifty new tools. I’ve also been helping another developer pick up skills.
• NodeJS and AngularJS: I built a prototype survey tool that also automated other things we wanted to do during a special event.
• Rails 4: I finally upgraded quantifiedawesome.com to Rails 4.

Also, Emacs Chats and Emacs Hangouts have been awesomely fun and inspiring. Can’t wait to set up more of them!

In terms of writing, I got better at working with outlines as a way to organize my thoughts within each blog post. I’m still working on getting the hang of outlines to help me organize my thoughts across multiple blog-post-sized chunks, but the basic Emacs Lisp course was a good start. I also started building up an Emacs Org to EPUB/MOBI/PDF workflow for quick publishing and updating, so that I can can get more e-books up on Gumroad. Because I offer these resources on a free/pay-what-you-want basis, every time someone does buy it, I’m delighted to have that opportunity to connect.

My 2013 review included a number of themes:

• Smooth consulting transitions: We’re on the way there, I think. I’ve been training one of the team members to cover the work I used to do, which is great.
• More initiative-taking: Yes, especially in terms of professional development and publishing. I’m getting better at figuring out what I would like to learn and how to try things out.
• Cardio and strength exercise habits: W- shared the Couch-to-5K program he picked up at work. We’d gotten all the way through it together (even though I covered much less distance than he did), but then I had to drop the habit because of other considerations. I’d also started the Exercise Ladder, but it got hit by the same restrictions. We’ll see how next year turns out! It’s good to know that I can do it and enjoy it, and I’m looking forward to starting even if I have to start from scratch.
• Intentional interaction: I love spending time with W-. I’ve also been spending more time connecting with people in person at Hacklab open houses (at which folks are welcome to visit me, too, so it’s a great way to have low-commitment conversations). I feel great about my online conversations, too; there’s resonance there.On the flipside, I spent less time setting up get-togethers in person or treating people to lunch. I didn’t bother with a birthday party for the second year in a row; I realized I enjoy the peace and quiet.

  I’ve been pulling myself in, focusing on a small core. Still, compared to last year, this year’s interactions feel more natural and more relaxed for me. Perhaps I’m more selfish and withdrawn than the ideal, but I’ll grow at my own pace. I’m probably going to stay similarly reserved in 2015 to give myself space to explore things, but I’ll reconsider this in 2016.

• Simple living: Wow, Epictetus, dude. You do make it easier to separate what’s important and what’s just nice to have. Aristotle has a lot to say about the good life, and Seneca has something to say about the short life. Good stuff.This year, I let go of quite a few anxieties, attachments, previously-unexamined commitments, and desires. I am getting a little attached to flexibility, though, so that’s something I may want to experiment with.
• More harvesting and sharing: That worked out well. I’m excited about writing bigger chunks with outlines and using my publishing workflow to package even more useful resources. This will be fun.

It’s been a good year for the stock market, although all of that is still paper gains for me since I haven’t sold any stocks and all my dividends are reinvested. We had some pretty large expenses (in line with our priorities, at least) that required me to dip into my savings. I issued my first dividends last year, so if things work out the way I expect them to at tax-time, planning should be smoother.

Here’s a more detailed time breakdown of some things I care about:

Hmm. I didn’t spend that much more time, but it feels a little awesomer this year; the posts grew into more conversations with people, and I learned more from those. Maybe it’s that test-driven learning thing. What you learn becomes more real to you and more useful to others when you create something from it, so it can make sense to aim for creating something from the beginning.

I’m getting a little clearer about what I want to do with my writing, drawing, and Emacs-tweaking:

• Learn more stuff myself: Because this is fun and it tickles my brain
• Delight and inspire people with the cool stuff out there. (Selfish reason: I get to learn, too!)
• Connect with people: something about resonance and swapping notes and casting a little light on different roads…

Experiment update: 2015 will be the fourth year of my five-year experiment. Boggle! When I thought about what five years looked like in 2012, it felt like such a big space – more than university, more than the time I spent at IBM.

• The first year, I learned how to experiment with business models, hitting the ground running with consulting.
• The second year, I focused on consulting and event sketchnoting.
• The third year (2014), I scaled down consulting so that I could learn more about creating.

2014 was the year that people’s generosity showed me that I really like writing as a way of creating value. There were countless conversations and even the occasional purchase of free/pay-what-you-want (PWYW) resources. I liked waking up in the morning to a notification that someone had decided to express their appreciation and invest in me (and themselves!). I liked the responses to my thank-you notes, the questions and suggestions and ideas. It was more of a gentle thrum rather than the highs and lows of programming, but I liked it.

If my life can continue to fit within investments and savings and little streams of income, I’d like to keep doing this. It’s not going to be an extravagant life, but there’s room for what’s important. So the fourth year, 2015, will be a good opportunity to explore sharing further. Can I keep this going through the extra uncertainty we might be dealing with next year? Can I create and receive value with this commitment to openness instead of following the trend toward exclusive courses and premium content? Can I build resources that will save or improve 10-100 hours of people’s lives so that they’re willing to give me the equivalent of a few of their hours to make this even better?

In 2015, I’m looking forward to:

• Improving my technical skills:
  • Getting even more deeply into Emacs and taking advantage of the many useful packages that are available
  • Writing shorter, better-tested code in Javascript and Rails
• Writing with even more resonance and helpfulness: digging deeper into the things I’m learning and sharing them with other people in ways that help and engage
• Successfully taking on more uncertainty with even better safety nets and equanimity

It’ll be fun. =) Thanks for great year!

Previous reviews:

• 2013: learned to work on my own things
• 2012: started my experiment with semi-retirement
• 2011: settled into happy married life, started planning experiment in earnest
• 2010: became a permanent resident, got married
• 2009: developed websites using Drupal, delegated
• 2008: introduced W- to my family, adopted cats
• 2007: wrapped up thesis, graduated with M.A.Sc., started working at IBM; no review?
• 2006: grad school, getting used to Canada; no review?
• 2005: continued internship in Japan, returned to the Philippines, then moved to Canada
• 2004: taught computer science, went on technical internship in Japan
• 2003: graduated from university; didn’t write a summary, but made resolutions for 2004