Blog posts

• Weekly review: Week ending September 6, 2013
• Monthly review: August 2013
• Reorganizing WordPress categories with Term Management Tools and other tweaks
• How I prepare for professional digital sketchnoting
• Sketchnote: Reboot Your Business, Reboot Your Life: Your Future Depends On It – Mitch Joel (Third Tuesday Toronto)
• Dealing with SIGSEGV in php5-fpm and Nginx
• Sketchnote Lessons: Having fun with words
• Balancing writing with other things

Other things I learned

• I still have to get the hang of using a steel to start a fire (or using a lighter, even!), but it’s fun. =)
• Sometimes I need to storyboard a presentation or figure out how to organize information on a poster. This is where working on paper really shines. Instead of using pre-printed templates, I use lots and lots of index cards. (Or Post-It notes, but index cards are cheaper and handier.) Index cards are great because you can move them around easily, so you can add, remove, or swap out cards right away.
• How to keep ssh agents through sudo: Defaults env_keep+=SSH_AUTH_SOCK – Link

Link roundup

• The One Weekend Challenge (The Simple Dollar)
• The big secret to a more simple life (Penelope Trunk) “… is arranging everything so that you’re doing only whan you’re great at.”
• A New Type of Presentation: SketchKeynote from Jurgen Appelo – I like the build-up of colours and images.
• Reflections on freedom (Mel Chua) – the freedom to be your own master
• What should a woman’s speaking voice sound like? (The Eloquent Woman) – W- and I are looking forward to seeing “In a World” sometime. On a somewhat related note, I answered the phone one evening with my customary “Sacha Chua speaking. Hello!” and the telemarketer said, “Hi! May I please speak to your mom or dad?” I told her they were unavailable and had a good laugh about it with W- after hanging up.
• Essential Tools to Organize Your Book Manuscript (Grub Daily) – I like the islands and connections approach. I sometimes use that for blog posts, stashing snippets until they make sense. I also do that on a larger scale, collecting blog posts until more of them link together.
• Don’t do research when you hit your writing groove (Lifehacker, 99u) – One of the benefits that outlining provides is that I can defer research (or even filling things in) until later. Good stuff.
• A Scientific Guide to Saying No (Lifehacker) – It turns out that commitments are excellent. I can say, “I’d really love to do that, but I’ve made this previous commitment to work on my own content / work only on public things / etc.” and say no nicely.
• How to maintain your skills during a career hiatus (Lifehacker/Simple Dollar) – Projects, reading, classes, online education. I also like making stuff – projects don’t always have to be for clients.
• Sketchnotes: “How to Be a High School Superstar” by Cal Newport (Mel Chua) – Maximize your interestingness
• Overcoming the Social Costs of Being Different (Zen Habits) – Frugality and this experiment makes us a little bit different, but being different can be a great way to learn.
• Just One Thing: A Better Email Strategy (Pushing Social) – I’m curious about e-mail lists and if I can create value through them.

Focus areas and time review

• Business (36.4h – 21%)
  • Earn (20.3h – 55% of Business)
    • [X] Earn: Consulting – E1 – Thursday
    • [X] Earn: Consulting – E1 – Tuesday
    • [X] Work on new slides
    • [ ] Earn: Consulting – E1 – Thursday
    • [ ] Earn: Consulting – E1 – Tuesday
    • [ ] Follow up with SR
    • [ ] Follow up with B
  • Build (13.0h – 35% of Business)
    • [X] Think about how to reinvest profits
    • Quantified Awesome (0.5h)
      • [X] Renew quantifiedawesome.com, file as business expense
    • Drawing (3.3h)
      • [ ] Package sketchnote lessons as a PWYC PDF
    • Paperwork (3.8h)
  • Connect (3.1h – 8% of Business)
    • [X] Prepare template for sketchnoting Third Tuesday Toronto
    • [X] Talk to Mike Rohde about having a gig board on sketchnotearmy.com so that people can refer work
    • [ ] Process and upload another QS Toronto video
• Relationships (0.0h – 0%)
  • [X] Assemble Altoids kit
  • [X] Go to Walmart
  • [X] Sew pouch
  • [X] Call vet to ask about next behavioural steps to deal with inappropriate elimination
  • [X] Practise with stove
  • [ ] Go for a walk
  • [ ] Set up appointment with U
• Discretionary – Productive (10.0h – 5%)
  • [X] Set up SSH tunnel
  • Writing (1.2h)
    • [X] Plan topic-focused blog
• Discretionary – Play (27.2h – 16%)
• Personal routines (18.7h – 11%)
• Unpaid work (16.0h – 9%)
• Sleep (60.9h – 36% – average of 8.7 per day)