Monthly review: December 2014

Posted: Jan 6, 2015 - Modified: May 29, 2019| monthly, review

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
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