sacha chua living an awesome life

Blog posts

• Developing a sense of time with Tasker alerts on my Android phone
• Starting from scratch with Windows 8
• Dealing with professional envy
• Dealing with presentation block
• Dealing with distractions

Accomplished this week

• Business
  • Earn: Consulting – E1 – Thursday
  • Earn: Consulting – E1 – Tuesday
  • Talk to Stephen Friedman about sketchnotes
  • Talk to Naomi Fein about sketchnotes
  • Send Vivien information
  • Renew my mailbox
  • Participated in GenArtHackParty, learned how to work with paper.js and d3js
  • Worked on UK visa application for Emacs conference
• Relationships
  • Cook yakiudon
  • Have coffee with Myles
  • Make snow fort!
  • Go to appointment
• Life
  • Set up event page for Visual Thinkers Toronto

Plans for next week

• Business
  • [ ] Consulting – E1: Tuesday, Thursday
  • [ ] Map some artist styles
  • [ ] File annual resolutions
  • [ ] File Ontario annual return
  • [ ] Sketchnote a book
  • [ ] Practise presentation for Pecha Kucha
  • [ ] Present at Pecha Kucha Toronto
  • [ ] Get visa photo
  • [ ] Draft Emacs talk
  • [ ] Sketch past ENT101 talks?
• Relationships
  • [ ] Copy Quantified Self Toronto videos again
  • [ ] Go to HackLab on Wednesday
• Life
  • [ ] Go to visa appointment
  • [ ] Declutter
  • [ ] File federal annual return http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cd-dgc.nsf/eng/cs03958.html
  • [ ] Study for the Canadian citizenship test

Time review

• Business: 38.9 hours (E1: 16.7, Connect: 7.9, Drawing: 1.0)
• Discretionary: 44.9 hours (Social: 2.2, Writing: 3.3)
• Personal: 16.6 hours (Routines: 10.6)
• Sleep: 56.7 hours – average of 8.1 hours per day
• Unpaid work: 11.0 hours (Commuting: 6.0, Cook: 1.6)

It snowed and snowed and snowed on Friday. The news said that it was one of the biggest snowstorms to hit Toronto in five years. We stayed inside, for the most part. On Saturday, W- and I cleared the deck so that the melting snow wouldn’t seep into the foundation. He also climbed up to the roof to clear that, and then we had to clear the deck again.

Then we had a huge pile of snow in our backyard…

… and I got to make my very first snow fort. Snow cave. Thing. W- showed me how to dig it out, and he helped make it a cozy little two-person cave that we could both comfortably sit in. Whee!

=D

!

Myles said this thing is called a quinzhee.

I think it’s awesome.

Also, W- and I have been playing Persona 4 Golden, which is a lot of fun and which has thrown off our sleeping patterns a little. It’s a good game. Now I’m looking at life like an RPG…

Blog posts

• Weekly review: Week ending February 1, 2013
• Disabling touch on Windows 8 on a Lenovo X220 tablet
• Quantified Awesome: Time and building mastery
• Monthly review: January 2013
• Thinking about joining HackLab.to
• What I’m learning from the sketchnote index

Accomplished this week

• Business
  • Sketchnote Index
    • Move to server
    • Add a Recent Activity page
    • Set up the main page like the way Sketchnote Index is now
    • Add a bulk view
    • Add autocomplete to the sketch creation form
    • Allow people to sort the columns
    • Work on interface
    • Index new sketchnotes
    • Fix up the creation views
    • Fix all the index views
    • Pass tests on model
    • Set up Spork
    • Set up basic data structures
  • Meetups
    • Split up Quantified Self MP3 and extract the talks we care about
    • Reupload video with better sound
    • Set up communication plan for Awesome Foundation Toronto
  • Drop by Hacklab.to on Tuesday
• Relationships
  • Cook okonomiyaki
  • Draw a card for my mom’s birthday
  • Talk to my mom
• Life
  • Declutter
  • Research iPad features, Twitter hacking, stories
  • Review letter of invitation
  • Prepare another large batch of food

Plans for next week

• Business
  • Earn
    • [ ] Earn: Consulting – E1 – Tuesday
    • [ ] Earn: Consulting – E1 – Thursday
  • Connect
    • [ ] Talk to Stephen Friedman about sketchnotes
    • [ ] Talk to Naomi Fein about sketchnotes
    • [ ] Attend QS organizer meetup
    • [ ] Attend GenArtHackParty seminars
    • [ ] Send Vivien information
  • Build
    • [ ] Buy foam core and markers from DeSerres
    • [ ] Renew my mailbox
    • [ ] Map some artist styles
    • [ ] Sketchnote a book
• Relationships
  • [ ] Cook yakiudon
  • [ ] Go to appointment
  • [X] Celebrate Chinese New Year with the in-laws
• Life
  • [ ] Write about fear and self-talk
  • [ ] Write book section

Time review

• Business: 33.8 hours (E1: 1.0, Connect: 3.4, Coding: 19.8)
• Discretionary: 48.9 hours (Social: 5.3, Writing: 3.2)
• Personal: 16.9 hours (Routines: 9.6)
• Sleep: 53.4 hours – average of 7.6 hours per day – Persona 4 Golden
• Unpaid work: 15.1 hours (Cook: 5.4, Tidy: 2.6)

A sprint of work! =) Got lots done, sketched a new idea, drew a two meetups… I think I’m on the trail of something interesting, and I’d like to dig into it more next week.

Blog posts

• Weekly review: Week ending January 25, 2013
• Things I value unequally
• Experiment notes: Accounting, sales, and marketing–all the other parts of a business
• Imagining an index of sketchnotes
• First thoughts on Windows 8
• Reflections on sketchnoting TEDxOCADU

Accomplished this week

• Business
  • Earn
    • E1: Reporting, homepage tweaks
    • Deposited MaRS cheque
  • Connect
    • E1: Went to Friday get-together
    • Went to visual thinking get-together
    • Sketchnoted Awesome Foundation Toronto event
    • Helped Chris with advice
    • Met Randy, discussed sketchnotes
    • Went to Union get-together
    • Uploaded Quantified Self Toronto video
  • Build
    • Prototyped sketchnote index (Ember.js, jquery.csv.js)
    • Entered data for sketchnotes
• Relationships
  • Went to krav and yoga on Wednesday
  • Worked on project
  • Helped out at Hack Lab
• Life
  • Make lasagna

Plans for next week

• Business
  • Build admin interface for sketchnote index
  • Add other sketchnotes
  • Set up communication plan for Awesome Foundation Toronto
  • Drop by hacklab.to on Tuesday
  • Kick off visa process for London
• Relationships
  • [X] Go to krav classes
  • Prepare another batch of food
• Life
  • Write about fear and self-talk

Time review

• Business: 50.0 hours (E1: 23.0, Connect: 14.2, Drawing: 0.3, Coding: 1.2)
• Discretionary: 25.6 hours (Social: 6.6, Writing: 0.8)
• Personal: 19.6 hours (Routines: 10.6)
• Sleep: 61.4 hours – average of 8.8 hours per day
• Unpaid work: 11.4 hours (Commuting: 7.1, Cook: 1.7)

Cancelled many of my evening social things because of the weather and because of early-morning priorities. Brr!

Blog posts

1. It’s my dad’s 65th birthday today
2. Weekly review: Week ending January 18, 2013
3. An embarrassing failure is the result of a series of unfortunate decisions, and that’s a good thing
4. Helping people learn more about programming
5. Accelerating my business learning: setting a goal for a new business every month
6. Planning my code/development learning

Accomplished this week

• Business
  • Delegation
    • Delegate sketchnote typing
    • Add sketchnote text to my website
  • Drawing
    • Tag the sketchnotes in my inspiration notebook
    • Capture TEDxOCADU site and ask for a testimonial
    • Go through pre-workshop resources
  • Sales
    • Follow up with GROWtalks
    • Sketch sponsor pitch for F
  • Connect
    • Connect with Stephen Friedman
    • Go to Quantified Self Toronto meetup
  • Development
    • Find a Foundation-based WordPress theme
    • Research the current favourites
    • Review Android open source apps
    • Read all the documentation for AutoHotkey
  • Map business ideas as a spreadsheet
  • Sort out how to properly record taxes
• Relationships
  • Write Sameer Vasta a letter
  • Write Mel Chua a letter
  • Write more letters
• Life
  • Connect with agentfin
  • Announce the next pitch night for Awesome Foundation Toronto
  • Connect with Alison
  • Read http://devblog.avdi.org
  • Enter business ideas into my WordPress site
  • Check if Global Pet Foods will accept a scanned receipt

Plans for next week

• Business
  • [ ] Sketchnote a book
  • [ ] Deposit M cheque
  • [ ] Go to visual thinking event
  • [ ] Go to Awesome Foundation Toronto pitch night
  • [ ] Meet with Randy Sabourin
  • [ ] Go to E1 get-together
• Relationships
  • [ ] Help Emma with WordPress
  • [ ] Help Rachel with programming
  • [ ] Work on project P
• Life
  • [ ] Declutter
  • [ ] Study for the Canadian citizenship test

Time review

• Business: 53.9 hours (E1: 16.1, Connect: 2.7, Coding: 5.9)
• Discretionary: 20.7 hours (Emacs: 0.2, Social: 1.3, Writing: 8.0)
• Personal: 14.5 hours (Routines: 11.6)
• Sleep: 60.1 hours – average of 8.6 hours per day
• Unpaid work: 18.8 hours (Commuting: 8.4, Cook: 4.9, Tidy: 3.0)

There’s something I have to tweak about my schedule, because I think I’m getting further away from my ideal day instead of closer to it. I was a bit stressed last week – forgetful, frazzled, frayed. I think it’s because I’ve been scheduling like it was December and I really should adjust to the fact that three days of my week are spoken for (with good work, yes, but still spoken for!). That, and my evening events have come back in full force. I want to spend more time at home, more time writing, and more time cooking. More time drawing for myself, too, and more time coding again. These are the things that centre me.

I’d been working on connecting with people, but maybe there are better ways to do that. Meeting people in person is high-fidelity and high-bandwidth, for sure, but it does take up a lot of time. There’s still so much I can do to build things that help people and to connect with people over the Internet.

Time to slow down and gather myself up.

Blog posts

1. Weekly review: Week ending January 11, 2013
2. The smugometer
3. Emacs Org: Task-related keyboard shortcuts for the agenda
4. Sketchnote about mindmapping: Rock the Monkey: Visual Facilitation Skills and Brain-based Learning–Chuck Frey
5. Quantified Awesome: Taking inventory of stuff in closets and drawers
6. Visual book review: Cool Time: A Hands-on Plan for Managing Work and Balancing Time–Steve Prentice
7. Figuring out my guidelines for time
8. In which I do the same thing again and again

Accomplished this week

• Business
  • Earn
    • Follow up on invoice
    • E1 – analytics
  • Sell
    • Follow up with GROWtalks
    • Set up TEDxOCADU templates
    • Send pitch to M
    • Follow up with Shawn re F
    • Estimate costs for packages
    • Follow up with MC
    • Follow up on sketchnotes for MEGA Networking event
    • Draw pitch for MEGA Networking sketchnotes, answer questions
  • Build
    • Consider upgrading my RBC account
    • Order backup power
    • Do another weekly review with Criselda
    • Investigate Logitech loose wiring?
    • Sketch Rock the Monkey webinar
    • Talk to Patricia Kambitsch about TEDxOCADU
    • Attend TEDxOCADU dress rehearsal
  • Connect
    • Send Jay 5-10 questions
    • Have coffee with Sharon Sehdev
    • Check with Patricia Kambitsch
    • Find out why contact form didn’t work
• Relationships
  • Help W-’s parents with computer
  • Help Rachel learn programming with Processing
  • Learn how to cook with quinoa
• Life
  • Pick up books from Runnymede
  • Declutter

Plans for next week

• Business
  • [X] Sketchnote TEDxOCADU
  • [X] Follow up with GROWtalks
  • [ ] Deposit MaRS cheque
  • [ ] Call Shawn
  • [X] Sort out how to properly record taxes
  • [ ] Go to Quantified Self Toronto meetup
• Relationships
  • [ ] Write more letters
  • [X] Pitch in for Papa’s party
• Life
  • [ ] Study for the Canadian citizenship test

Time review

• Business: 50.4 hours (E1: 24.4, Connect: 5.1, Drawing: 1.1)
• Discretionary: 16.5 hours (Social: 3.7, Writing: 4.6)
• Personal: 28.9 hours (Routines: 15.9, Bike: 5.0)
• Sleep: 55.4 hours – average of 7.9 hours per day
• Unpaid work: 16.8 hours (Commuting: 7.1, Cook: 4.1, Tidy: 3.3)

It was an awesome week. I hit the ground running in my consulting engagement, coming up with a useful feature for the theme and learning more about analytics. I’ve also been working on learning more about sales. The sales script I drafted helped me a lot with a phone conversation, and I’ve been working on drawing and writing more pitches.

I’ve been working on exploring more of the vegetables and ingredients at the supermarket. This week, I prepared fennel and celery salad, and today I cooked quinoa for the first time. (Turns out to be yummy with dried fruits and nuts as some kind of breakfast.)

And I biked! Whee! Temperatures had been above zero for a number of days, and since there was no rain forecast, I biked to work on Thursday. The Martin Goodman trail I usually take to work turned out to be maintained and lit during winter (except for a small dark patch). Aside from a couple of snowbanks that I carefully walked my bike through, it was easy riding, and I made it in around the same time it normally takes in fall. The earliest I’d biked last year was February 21. If I can bike in January – and if I can slowly work my way up to biking in other weather conditions – that opens up lots of possibilities.

… and I’ve been going to krav maga and fitness classes with W-, so yay!

My calendar’s starting to fill up, but it’s a good sort of filling up. The year is off to a great start.

Blog posts

My favourite blog post from this week was #7 (Reading old letters and relearning how to write), because it felt good to explore that.

1. Cooking: Warm lentil salad with sausages
2. Emacs Org: Display projects with a few subtasks in the agenda view
3. Planning by the numbers: Checking the length of my runway
4. Visual book review: The Art of Pricing: How to Find the Hidden Profits to Grow Your Business–Rafi Mohammed
5. Sketchnote: ENT101 Lived It Lecture–Kunal Gupta, Polar Mobile
6. Business experience report: Amending my T2 corporate tax return
7. Reading old letters and relearning how to write

Accomplished this week

• Business
  • Earn
    • Achievement: Wrote a sales script and made the call!
    • Achievement: Asked for an introduction and drafted one!
    • Resumed consulting with E1 – analytics, theme
    • Followed up on I2 learn page
  • Build
    • Drew pitch for FITC
    • Contacted Whiteboard Studio regarding event
    • Asked for an introduction to GROWtalks organizers
    • Checked if authorship worked
    • Followed up / drafted testimonial for Jennifer and Nathan
    • Set up interview with Pat
    • Did another weekly review with Criselda
    • Talked to Patricia Kambitsch about partnering
  • Connect
    • Met Raj Dhiman
    • Attended “superpower league” get-together
    • Followed up with quick notes from conversation with Matt Gray
    • Drew thank-you cards
    • Met Matt of Bitmaker Labs
• Relationships
  • Went to appointment
  • Brought Leia to vet for vaccinations
  • Learned another vegetarian dish
  • Prepared something vegetarian for superpower league
• Life
  • Tried biking in winter!
  • Reached out to last month’s Awesome Foundation Toronto winner for an update
  • Reset my sleep schedule

Plans for next week

• Business
  • [ ] Earn: E1 – analytics, etc.
  • [ ] Earn: Follow up on invoice
  • [ ] Build: Read Work the System
  • [ ] Build: Follow up with GROWtalks
  • [ ] Build: Simplify sketchnote based on Tipera’s feedback
  • [ ] Build: Draw pitch for MEGA Networking sketchnotes, answer questions
  • [ ] Build: Sketch Rock the Monkey seminar
  • [ ] Connect: Have lunch with Sharon Sehdev
  • [ ] Build: Do another weekly review with Criselda
  • [ ] Connect: Go to EdTechTO get-together?
  • [ ] Build: Prepare for TEDxOCADU
• Relationships
  • [X] Learn how to cook with quinoa
  • [X] Help Rachel learn programming with Processing
  • [ ] Help W-’s parents with computer
  • [ ] Write more letters
• Life
  • [ ] Declutter
  • [ ] Study for the Canadian citizenship test

Time review

• Business: 46.8 hours (E1: 24.4, Connect: 6.3, Drawing: 1.0, Illustration: 1.1, Coding: 1.7)
• Discretionary: 22.9 hours (Social: 8.7, Writing: 1.9)
• Personal: 23.9 hours (Routines: 11.6)
• Sleep: 61.4 hours – average of 8.8 hours per day
• Unpaid work: 12.3 hours (Commuting: 4.0, Cook: 2.5, Tidy: 4.5)

W- took this week off too, so I kept my workload light in order to spend time with him. He rewired the house so that our DSL connection would be more reliable. Yes, this is what my husband does for fun. ;) I pitched in with some iptables fiddling so that we can configure the DSL modem from behind the router instead of having to plug into the modem directly. It was fun geeking around again!

The New Year holiday was a good excuse to tidy things up, review the past, and plan the next steps. I sketched some ideas for life and business, and I’m looking forward to exploring them soon.

Blog posts

My favourite blog post this week was #9 (Imagining the next five years and planning 2013) because I liked the drawing I made for it, although #7 (sketching twelve business ideas) was a close runner-up.

1. Weekly review: Week ending December 28, 2012
2. Visual book review: Running Lean–Ash Maurya
3. Stocking up on chicken stock stock stock
4. Emacs Org: Display a subset of tasks by context
5. Looking back and looking forward
6. Visual book review: Blue Ocean Strategy–W. Chan Kim, Renée Mauborgne
7. Sketching twelve business ideas
8. Web app idea: Stamp mix calculator
9. Imagining the next five years and planning 2013
10. Monthly review: December 2012

Accomplished this week

CD: could probably delegate part of this; PD: partially delegated!

• Business
  • Planning
    • Printed out business model for sketchnoting conferences and events
    • Printed business ideas
    • Drew multiple lean canvases
  • Work
    • Edited UPV image (cd:graphics)
    • Checked in with client E1
  • Marketing
    • Added more quotes to the website (cd:data-entry)
    • Looked up Brad Feld endorsement and add it to my quotes page (cd:data-entry)
    • Drew sketchnote describing my services (cd:graphics)
    • Added draft pitch to website (cd:web)
    • Set up development version of site (cd:wordpress)
    • Tweaked the underline to make it more swooshy (cd:graphics)
  • Sales
    • Followed up with Andrew regarding FITC (cd:writion)
    • Printed conference sketchnotes
  • Connecting
    • Planned ahead for meeting with Nathan and Jen
    • Sent Joe Anandarajah AndroidTO marketing tips (cd:writing)
    • Found Jeff and thank him for the nice words
    • Braindump tasks after meeting with Nathan and Jen (cd:data-entry)
    • Responded to Vivien about TEDxOCADU requirements for Jan 19 (cd:writing)
  • Paperwork
    • Contacted Fido re for electronic bills from March to May (cd:phone)
    • Called CRA to ask about documentation for amending T2 – operating expenses (cd:phone)
  • Other
    • Updated venue preferences for scheduling (cd:writing)
    • Scribed the first 20 minutes of Chip Heath’s podcast
• Relationships
  • Scanned old photos
  • Filed digital copies of photos and letters
  • Dropped off letters
  • Prepared celery root soup
  • Prepared warm lentil salad
  • Chose pictures
  • Wrote get-well card for Tita Naty, sent c/o my mom / Mrs. Castillo
  • Took inventory of the things in closets and boxes
  • Decluttered
• Life
  • Added authorship links to my blog (cd:wordpress)
  • Emacs (cd:emacs)
    • Added the ability to create a task directly from the agenda
    • Remapped x to mark a task as complete
    • Set up projects with subtasks in agenda view
    • Removed table code from website so that people can scroll through Emacs entries
    • Fixed sacha/org-share-emacs so that I can call it repeatedly
    • Displayed a sample of tasks by context so that I can see them all on one page
  • Quantified Awesome
    • Added ability to mark record categories as inactive (cd:rails)
    • Added bulk entry to Quantified Awesome stuff tracking (cd:rails)
  • Learning
    • Researched podcasts (cd:research)
    • Outlined book (cd:writing)
    • Brainstormed a list of concepts
    • Plan my editorial calendar for the year
  • Awesome Foundation Toronto
    • Improved the newsletter description (cd:writing)
    • Set up communication plan (cd:writing)
    • Set admin account as the Twitter contact for awesomefoundto (cd:web)
    • Added awesomefoundto to my Twitter monitoring (cd:web)

Plans for next week

• Business
  • [ ] Earn: Resume consulting
  • [ ] Build: Simplify sketchnote based on Tipera’s feedback
  • [ ] Build: Check if authorship worked
  • [ ] Build: Do another weekly review with Criselda
  • [ ] Build: Set up interview with Pat
  • [ ] Connect: Follow up with Tamara regarding business schools
  • [ ] Connect: Follow up / draft testimonial for Jennifer
  • [ ] Connect: Attend “superpower league” get-together
  • [ ] Connect: Sketchnote ENT101
  • [ ] Connect: Meet Raj Dhiman
  • [ ] Connect: Meet Matt Gray
• Relationships
  • [ ] Prepare something vegetarian for superpower league tomorrow
  • [ ] Bring Leia to vet for vaccinations
  • [ ] Go to appointment
  • [ ] Go to krav on Tuesday
  • [ ] Go to krav on Thursday
  • [ ] Learn another vegetarian dish
• Life
  • [ ] Try biking in winter
  • [ ] Reset my sleep schedule

Time review

• Business: 24.2 hours (E1: 0.4, Connect: 0.8, Drawing: 8.3, Illustration: 0.3, Coding: 0.8)
• Discretionary: 37.5 hours (Emacs: 3.2, Social: 3.9, Writing: 11.3)
• Personal: 19.4 hours (Routines: 12.2)
• Sleep: 66.1 hours – average of 9.4 hours per day
• Unpaid work: 20.8 hours (Commuting: 1.4, Cook: 4.0, Tidy: 12.3)