I want to draw more expressively, and
experimenting with distinguishing between emotions
seems like a good start. I followed up on our idea
of drawing cats after Stick figure out feelings.
It was a lot of fun drawing various kitties based
on Geoffrey Roberts' emotion wheel. It turns out
I'm still sometimes iffy on what a cat looks like
in different poses, but maybe enough of the
cat-ness has come through in these little doodles.
=)
Over the past few days, I've been reflecting on the personality trait
of conscientiousness, which is something that can
be a bit of a struggle for me. From Wikipedia:
Conscientiousness is the personality trait of being responsible, careful, or diligent. Conscientiousness implies a desire to do a task well, and to take obligations to others seriously. Conscientious people tend to be efficient and organized as opposed to easy-going and disorderly. They tend to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement; they display planned rather than spontaneous behavior; and they are generally dependable. Conscientiousness manifests in characteristic behaviors such as being neat, systematic, careful, thorough, and deliberate (tending to think carefully before acting).
Conscientiousness and me
I think of myself as not very conscientious. At
school, I struggled with completing homework,
sometimes not even turning in assigned essays. I
forgot about deadlines and accidentally left my
stuff behind. I did well on standardized tests
because I could read quickly and eliminate
probably incorrect answers, but other types of
tests were a drag. There were some subjects I
liked enough to do well in (well, mostly teachers
I found engaging). For the most part, though, I
didn't particularly care about grades. Even as an
adult, I occasionally forget to finish something
I'm working on, I lose things and time due to
disorganization and attentional hiccups, and I've
used my "Oops" fund a number of times. (W+ is more
conscientious than I am, and occasionally
patiently reminds me to take care of stuff.) I
tend to follow the butterflies of my interest.
Fortunately, I've figured out some things that
work well for me. Coding is great because even
though it needs me to be pretty exact, I can work
in small chunks, write tests to help me
double-check, and automate repetitive tasks that
my brain tends to hiccup on. When I worked at IBM,
I had a lot of fun working on projects I cared
about, like building systems to help professionals
transition into teaching or helping food banks
distribute food. I also did well skimming pages
and pages of internal discussions so that I could
summarize key themes for workshops. For my
consulting clients, I tend to focus on prototyping
their crazy ideas. If the idea proves worthwhile,
we can then turn it over to other people to get it
ready for production. Org Mode helps me keep track
of what I want to do and when. In the Emacs
community, I tend to focus on breadth rather than
depth: Emacs News instead of package maintenance
or core Emacs development. (And besides, it's
volunteering anyhow, so when people bump into bugs
in my code, it's either an opportunity for them to
help out or something they might just put up with
or work around.) I like experimenting, and I don't
feel stuck; I can move on from an experiment when
I've gotten enough data or when things change.
I've shifted my life so that most of the tasks on
my to-do list are things that I want to do that
aren't time-sensitive, so I can do them when I
want.
Noticing when my brain likes to do the work
I recognize myself in other descriptions of
conscientiousness. I like to plan and I like to
take notes. I get somewhat stressed by the idea of
being late, although I've learned to chill out a
little about that because kids mean being flexible
about time. I like considering decisions carefully
and doing little experiments. I find risky
behaviour stressful rather than fun. Still, I tend
to think of myself as someone who doesn't do the
extra work, who often doesn't pay attention to the
fiddly details. A few counter-examples might help
me figure out more about when my brain likes to
spend the extra time on things:
In a cryptography course that I took in
university, we had an assignment to break a
simple monalphabetic cipher. Each student was assigned
one line. I had fun crunching through all of
them (puzzles! piece of cake) and I distinctly
remember relishing the teachers' surprise the
next day.
I signed up for more school, getting a master's degree in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto. I got interested in it for two reasons:
I enjoyed teaching computer science at my alma mater. Getting an advanced degree was strongly recommended. I experimented with a masters in education but I wasn't that interested in it.
I was also interested in personal information management thanks to Emacs and Planner Mode, so I was curious about exploring the usage patterns of people who had highly customized their PIM tool. Several papers in that area had been written by a researcher at the University of Toronto, so I applied there for a master's. That researcher left shortly after I arrived, so we looked around for another topic. Eventually we settled on social networking platforms in organizations, which was also interesting for me because it was about how people use technology to organize collective knowledge.
I also signed up for parenting knowing
that it's a ton of extra work including
stress-testing my abilities, being responsible
for helping an entirely separate little being
figure out things I'm still figuring out myself,
and handling endless problem-solving and
adaptation in the face of uncertainty.
I notice that I'm getting a little better at
slowing down and practising piano, singing, and
drawing. I've tried all these things before, but
now I can approach it differently because I'm
going into it with more life experience.
For piano, I can treat it like a moving
meditation on the quirks of my monkey mind,
and be amused at how my brain learns. I
enjoy feeling the motions become more
automatic. I also like the thoughts and
memories that the pieces evoke. (As part of
this beginner course I'm doing, I just
practised a very simple version of "Thus Spake
Zarathustra", which makes everything feel more
epic.) Eventually I think it would be nice to
be able to play the music that A+ and I might
want to sing to. It seems to be my current
hyperfocus. I enjoy spending the time
practising, knowing that there's no way to
skip that part (and perhaps this is even
supposed to be the fun part).
For singing, I can be mystified by all the
weird movements that I have to figure out in
my larynx and my diaphragm and other parts I
haven't even figured out how to name yet, much
less activate. It gives me some empathy for
how kids are learning about things we can't
easily teach them.
For drawing, I can be amused by the gap
between how things really are and how I
imagine them to be, and the gap between what I
imagine and what I can draw. The video
tutorial assures me that taking the time to
slow down and shade or add texture is
worthwhile, and is even the fun part of
drawing. I still get impatient occasionally
(do I really want to spend all this time on
one sketch?), but it's an interesting
perspective. I think it might be nice to
develop art into a relaxing activity. If I go
through the steps, I'll probably get there.
Also, I like doodling to break up the wall of text
in a blog post like this one, so that's another fun way to practice.
So maybe I can be a bit more conscientious when
it's something I'm curious about or care about.
Supporting my brain
For the tasks that I need to be conscientious
about, there are other things that help:
I'm getting better at accepting my limits. For
example, when I had a pie in the oven last
night, I told A+ that I couldn't go off to play
Minecraft with her because I might forget about
the pie and accidentally undercook or overcook it.
Writing notes helps me keep track of where I am,
what I wanted to do next, what I'm figuring out
along the way, and so on. The possibility of
sharing those notes (and thus having more
opportunities to learn from my past self or from
other people) also encourages me to get to a
point where those notes can be shared. Here I
really appreciate how Org Mode helps me capture,
manage, and post my tasks and notes, thanks to
literate programming. People occasionally tell
me that they think I'm very organized, but
that's probably just because I write about stuff
so that when I forget, I can look them up again.
Checklists are also handy. Most of the time, I
just make a checklist on my phone using Orgzly
Revived, but maybe I can make these more visual.
I notice that I'm not particularly influenced by
the gamification strategy of a streak count
and mildly influenced by XP bars.
Journal entries and blog posts also give me a
record of what I've worked on, and even little
bits of progress accumulate.
I'm also learning to to distract the
fidgety part of my brain with music or
movement, and to manage it with timers. Timers
are great. Timers to get started, timers to
check in with myself, timers to come back…
Automation is wonderful. Getting a computer to
do the work is often more fun and less
error-prone than my doing it myself. Even
semi-automation is helpful.
Despite not thinking of myself as particularly
conscientious, I'm pretty happy with what I've
been figuring out about my life and the world. I
can think of how I work as building on my
strengths instead of just working around my
weaknesses. I enjoy learning about and dabbling in
lots of different interests, and the combination of
ideas can be very useful (like dancer curiosity).
Framing many decisions as experiments helps me get
to 80%-fine quickly, and I don't spend a
lot of time chasing down that last 20% that takes
most of the effort. I don't fit the hustle culture
of many self-help books, blogs, and videos, and
that's okay.
Not far from the tree
I think my dad was not particulary conscientious
either, at least not in terms of planning ahead,
paying attention to details, following
conventions. He was always in motion, happiest
whenever he had a crazy project. Fortunately, he
was really good at inspiring other people to
handle the logistics. He came up with the ideas
("I want to fly across the Philippines in an
ultralight") and people like my mom figured out
how (fuel, landing spots, etc.). His spontaneous
road trips drove me a little batty when I was a
kid. But also, when it came to the things he cared
about, he could spend hours, days, weeks on
getting it right. I remember how he'd stay up
late to figure something out, whether it was
digital photography or Microsoft 3D Pinball. I've
written about how he repeatedly drew variations on
the same sketch in order to figure out what he
wanted. He did okay. He found his way, even though
it looked nothing at all like the standard paths.
I'm probably doing all right, too.
My mom was more conscientious and deliberate than
my dad was. She handled the business while my dad
got to focus on his passions. From her, I picked
up the habits of reading and writing. I think I'd
like to be more of a mix between their styles
rather than one or the other.
Growing
Apparently, conscientiousness tends to increase
with age, so that's interesting. I feel slower
when it comes to some things (probably because of
adapting to all those distractions and periods of
sleep deprivation, or maybe age, or simply a more
realistic evaluation of my abilities), so it's
easier to give myself time to do things that are
slow. Maybe I'll get better at enjoying the act of
practising and paying attention to the details.
I'll probably benefit from more orderliness, too.
I wonder how I can get my brain to enjoy
decluttering and figuring out the right homes for
objects. It's a little like preparing the space so
that I can see what I like and it's easy to work
on what I enjoy. (Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing
Magic of Tidying Up might be relevant here,
although even she has found keeping a tidy house
with kids to be a challenge…)
Tangent: A quote from Marie Kondo
When I first became a mother, I felt frustrated when I couldn’t tidy my home exactly the way I wanted. Then, I had two more children, and I found I didn’t even have the energy to consider some of my former practices around the house!
With this in mind, here are some tips that help me keep my home in order with two young children.
Motherhood has taught me to be more forgiving of myself. The joy that comes from parenting exceeds any satisfaction that could have come from a perfectly neat home. My children also remind me that our lives can shift daily (if not every minute) — and that the best we can do is honor where we are in the present moment.
I've been trying to think of a neutral or
positively-coded word for the opposite of the
conscientiousness personality trait. I asked
Claude AI to generate a bunch of antonyms. I don't
quite identify with "free-spirited" or
"spontaneous", but I like "adaptable" and
"improvisational," and "interest-driven" is an
accurate description of the way we spend our
energy. Those words don't quite cover the same
cluster of meanings that "conscientious" does, but
they give me other ways to think about the
personality trait as something more positive.
Learning on my own and with others
I'm always curious about how I can work with what
I've got. New challenges, new experiences, new
capabilities… I get to learn even more about how
my brain works and what I can do, especially as I
build systems and processes to support myself.
Figuring out more about building on my strengths
will also help me parent A+, so this work is extra
worth it. I can even learn from the worries that
sometimes flutter up when I see her also wandering
far from what the school system would probably
prefer that she focus on.
Thinking about processes and tools and
self-acceptance also makes me think a little about
Andy's recent blog post My 10 Years with Emacs, in
which (among other thoughts about what he's
learned about using Emacs and other people he
wants to thank for helping) he mentions thinking
of me as kind of the community mom. I was 18 when
I started using Emacs, I've grown up in this
community, and I've got blog posts and videos that
help me catch glimpses of myself throughout the
years. It does feel interesting to notice the
shifts in my brain, from kind of an enthusiastic
puppy bursting with energy to something more about
experimentation, reflection, and connection. If I
can get better at understanding myself and the
tools I can build to support who I am and what I
want to do, I wonder if that'll help other people
too. I'm looking forward to being able to someday
bring grandparent energy to this. What could that
be like? There are people even older than I am in
this community, which is wonderful. I'm looking
forward to seeing how we all figure out how to
work with what we've got.
Summary: Life with a cargo bike has been working out really well for our family.
I used to walk for an hour to get to some of A+'s
playdates, pushing her in the Thule bike trailer /
stroller that she still fit into. I liked bringing
popsicles during the summer so that A+ could share
them with her friends, so I often balanced a small
cooler on top of the stroller and walked as
briskly as I could. The popsicles were usually
still reasonably cold by the time I got to the
park. We'd spend a few hours playing there, and
then there would be another hour's walk back. A+
usually napped on the way, so it was a chance for
me to listen to podcasts.
Sometimes we biked to the playdate instead. That
was much faster in terms of getting there, even
with a popsicle break halfway through. Those
popsicles were only for us, since I couldn't bring
a cooler on my bike. Also, A+ was usually too
tired to bike back, or it was too dark for her to
be safe biking on the busy streets between the
park and our house, so we often waited in the mall
parking lot for W- to pick up A+ and her bike in
his car. Then I biked back by myself.
We'd been considering cargo bikes for a while, and
eventually things lined up to make it possible. It
was a carefully-considered decision. I did a bunch
of test rides using different models of cargo
bikes. My height (or lack of it) ruled out many of
the models designed for taller people. A+ was
quite vocal about her preference for the
suspension on the R&M Load cargo bikes, and she
liked the view from the front-loaders more than
the longtails. I rented the Load 75 and the Load
60 to try them out, accidentally tipping over onto
the side an embarrassing number of times; A+ was
safely buckled in but very grumpy about it.
When we confirmed that a cargo bike fit into our
life, I bought a Riese & Müller Load 75
from Curbside Cycle. We picked the Load 75 over
the Load 60 because the rain cover was nicer and
the extra room could give us more years of use as
A+ grows.
I love it. Biking is my favourite way to get around.
There's just something so cheerful about
it. A+ and I sing as we go around town. We smile
at dogs in sweaters. She takes pictures of trees.
Sometimes there are cargo bikes in front of us as
we wait at the traffic light, and we wave and nod.
We got the Bakkie bag, too. It's designed to tow a
kid's bike. That way, A+ can bike wherever she
wants. When she gets tired, she can hop into the
cargo bike and I can buckle her bike into the
Bakkie bag, towing it all the way home. We've been
able to go on more bike adventures by ourselves
and together with W- because we don't have to
worry about exceeding A+'s range.
Since we could get to the playground in 15 minutes
instead of 60, it was a lot easier to bring snacks
to share. We pretty much kept the playground kids
well-supplied with free popsicles (and the
occasional much-coveted ice cream treat) all
summer, and the ice packs came in handy for
treating the occasional bumps too. We even brought
disposable cups and insulated bottles of hot water
for making hot chocolate and instant apple cider
in the colder months.
Aside from taking A+ to a wider range of places,
we've also used it to bring several bags of
potting mix or a propane tank home from the
hardware store, carry other bulky items, and take
lots of stuff to the community environment days
for recycling/donation.
We are very lucky to have cargo biking as an
option. When people ask me how much it is, I
ruefully tell them, "Well, it's less than a second
car." We weren't actually choosing between this
and a second car; even though W- rarely uses his
car these days, I'm too anxious to drive. My brain
gets a little squirrelly and is prone to
attentional hiccups. I don't want a moment of
distraction to result in someone's death or
serious injury. I'm still on alert when I bike,
but it feels a lot more like something I can
handle. And biking is so fast and convenient. I
don't have to nudge A+ out of a playdate so that
we can make it out before the subway gets packed
like sardines, or shepherd A+ back home from the
subway station ("I'm tiiiired.").
I got the bike in November 2023. Here's how much I
biked over the past year:
Month
KM
Nov
208
Dec
157
Jan
69
Feb
78
Mar
176
Apr
82
May
106
Jun
143
Jul
135
Aug
96
Sep
212
Oct
120
Figure 1: Graph of kilometres by month
I was pleasantly surprised that even during the
cold months (and A+'s reluctance to go outside if
it was very cold or slushy), and even during the
schoolweek, we still managed to get out on the
bike.
Figure 2: Kilometres by date
I got data from the ebike-connect site using Spookfox using the code below.
Javascript code for extracting distances and times
I want to get better at working in tiny chunks. Some of the things I find hard are:
getting incomplete thoughts out of my head when the kiddo interrupts so that I don't get grumpy (because of the Ovsiankina effect)
managing the stack of interrupting tasks and yak-shaving temptations
still making time for larger projects or things with less-immediate or more uncertain payoffs
Some general ways to improve:
Reduce friction so that more things can fit in less time.
Take notes
Improve workflows and tools
Create templates
Build momentum: focusing several chunks on one project to minimize context switches and make more progress
Lower expectations and split things up.
Start with a rough cut and then refine.
Use different types of work:
Organizing information can be easier than thinking up something new
Recognizing things from a list can be easier than recalling them from scratch
How can I get better at using tiny chunks in different aspects of my life?
Code:
Now that I'm on a more powerful computer, I'm looking forward to learning how to take advantage of LSP, completion, and other modern conveniences.
I can replace social media doomscrolling with reading APIs, guides, and code samples.
I can take more notes and review them.
Writing:
If I sketch my thoughts, that can help me think through things in a more nonlinear way at the beginning. Mindmaps and sketchnotes might actually be easier than using text outlines, since I can do them off my computer.
Dictation might help me turn other pockets of time into writing time, and then turn computer time into editing time.
Improving my workflows makes it easier for me to get the text out into a blog post that has a sketch or a video or a screenshot.
Drawing:
I can ask smaller questions so that I can get to an answer faster. I also don't have to flesh out the full thought in the drawing - I can use dictation or writing to add more details.
I can crop the image to remove the pressure to use the full page. I used to draw my thoughts on index cards. That was a good size for a small thought, and they were easier to build up into larger chunks.
I can use visual organizers, metaphors, and other structures to help me think through things. That might also give me additional insights.
Bigger projects: One of the things that sometimes frustrates me is having bigger projects that I can't figure out how to fit into smaller segments, or that take a lot of setup time and therefore tend to get deprioritized in favor of things with more immediate payoffs.
I have a few 1.5-hour chunks of focused time because of A+'s virtual school, and I might be able to reserve more time eventually. It might be good to have that time when I'm not prioritizing short tasks and quick wins. Aside from that, if I get focused time in the evening, the trade-off is usually that A+ binge-watches YouTube videos when I'm not focusing on her. Sometimes I'm okay with this because I really want some thinking time. It's better when I'm getting that focused time because she's off doing something with W-, though.
I tend to work on whatever I've been thinking about lately (availability bias), but it might be good to review longer-term projects/interests to keep them on my radar or make peace with archiving them.
Even the stuff that feels like very slow progress can be worthwhile.
Life:
Sometimes I feel a little distracted by things I want to do, but it's worth figuring out how to put stuff aside so that I can play. Bluey has plenty of examples of short games that could be fun to play with A+.
There's always time to work on health. Sometimes doing a single pushup makes it easier to do another, especially when the kiddo jumps in and starts exercising too.
Similarly, a small chunk of time is great for tidying.
I've been really enjoying playing sungka with my eight-year-old daughter. We've been playing it for a number of years now. Usually she likes to start out with one shell in each cup and working our way up to seven shells in each cup over a series of rounds.
Over the last week, she's gotten a lot better at playing. In the past, she used to make her moves fairly randomly, and she liked having the advantage of starting off with a few extra shells in her home. Now she doesn't need that starting point, and she's beginning to plan ahead. She counts the shells to predict where she's going to end up. She recognizes common patterns like clearing out the cups closest to her home. She loves moving shells out of the way so that she can make a very large capture, cupped hands full of shells.
Sungka has taken over as her current hyperfocus. It's the game she asks to play with me when her virtual school is on a recess break. I enjoy playing with her. Even when I'm losing, I enjoy watching her become more dextrous as she drops the shells in one at a time, and I like watching her plan ahead.
I played sungka a lot when I was a kid around her age. I think the school had some sungka boards that people could borrow after class, and I played with the other kids until it was time to go home. I don't know if this is a game that I can bring to the playground. It'll probably be a challenge with sand and kids and lots of small pieces. I think this will just be a game for home and for us, but it's wonderful that I get to share it with her.
Is it the Emacs lifecycle that you tweak your
config for few months and then you live off of fat
of the land for >4 years? My Emacs config is a
Org-tangle spaghetti that I touch only if I want
to set some more sane config variable.
I realized that this isn't quite how I consider
things. I'm lucky in that when it comes to
computer things, I get to choose most of the
things I spend my time on. My consulting clients
have very long wishlists that I pick from based on
interests and priority, and I play with Emacs for
fun.
Because I enjoy tinkering around with Emacs, I
often build a little Emacs hacking into my tasks.
15 or 20 minutes of exploring an idea can make
it even more fun to do the actual task it's
supposed to help with because then I want to test
it out. Then after the task is done, I get to
write about it. It's like making a little task
sandwich with really nice bread. This is also a
little related to sharpening the saw, which is pretty fun in Emacs. (Vim people
do it too!)
These little changes add up over time, making
things even more enjoyable. It's a little like the
way desire paths show where people actually walk
between buildings and give a sense of how much
they are used, or how rivers smooth down the edges
of stones. The easier I make something, the more
likely I am to do it, and the more I'll get to
enjoy the results of my code. It's a little like
the Igors described in this essay.
When I think about something I might tweak about
my Emacs configuration, I usually consider the
following:
I like looking for ways to reduce manual work or looking-up.
I tend to have a hard time with tedious, repetitive tasks.
I also keep an eye out for things I've been meaning to learn.
2. What's the smallest step I can take? What can I fit in 15-30 minutes?
Small steps make it easy to squeeze in things here
and there. I know my brain's going to suggest half
a dozen things along the way, so it helps to start
as small as possible and capture most of the other
things in my inbox for later. That way, I can get
to experience the benefits right away without
feeling lost.
Another advantage of picking really small tasks
and using Org Mode to capture the rest of the
ideas is that I can try to avoid the Ovsiankina
effect.1 I spend most of my
day taking care of our 7-year-old, so I squeeze in
my focused-time tasks early in the morning before
she wakes up. Sometimes I have little
opportunities to work on things throughout the
day, like when she wants to read a book or watch a
video. She might do that for 15-30 minutes before
wanting to connect again. If I pick the
wrong-sized task or I don't dump enough rough
notes into my inbox so that I can get the open
loops out of my head and trust that I can pick
things up again, the unfinished part pulls on my
brain and makes it harder to enjoy time with her.
Then I get tempted to let her binge-watch
Minecraft or Rubik's cube videos2 so that I can
finish a thought, which doesn't quite feel like
good parenting.
Lastly, I don't usually understand enough about my
needs to build something complex from the start.
Trying things out helps me discover more about
what's possible and what I want.
3. What's nearby?
Thanks to Emacs's amazing community, there are
usually relevant functions or packages that I can
borrow code from. I mostly have a sense of things
from the blog posts and forum threads that cross
my radar because of Emacs News, and I should
probably get used to skimming the descriptions in
the "New packages" list because that can help me
find even more things.
When coming up with possible approaches, I also
sometimes think about other related ideas I've had
before. Filing those ideas into the appropriate
subtrees in my Org files sometimes helps me come
across them again. If I can take a small step that
also gets me closer to one of those ideas, that's
handy.
I also like to think about next steps and
possibilities. For example, even if I spend an
hour or two learning more about data visualization
with Org Mode and plotting, that's something I
can use for other things someday. This works
pretty well with keeping things small, too, since
small parts can be combined in surprisingly
interesting ways.
Let me try to trace through a web of related
features so I can give you a sense of how this all
works in teeny tiny steps.
If you view this on my blog with Javascript enabled, the SVG should stick to the top of the browser window and get highlighted as you go through the different sections.
defun: I often wanted to write about a
specific function, so I wrote some code to find
the function definition and copy it into my
export post hidden inside a details tag with
the first line of the docstring as the summary.
2023-01-02
my-include:...?from-regexp=...&to-regexp...:
Sometimes I wanted to write about longer pieces
of code. I wanted to include code without
repeating myself. The regular #+INCLUDE can
handle line numbers or headings, but neither of
them worked for the Elisp files I referred to
since the line numbers kept changing as I edited
the code above it and it wasn't an Org Mode
file. I made my own custom link so I could
specify a start and end regexp. 2023-01-08
my_details: I wanted to put the code in a
details element so that it could be
collapsible. I made an org-special-blocks
template for it. special-blocks
:summary: For Org source blocks, I wanted to
be able to do that kind of collapsible block by
just adding a :summary attribute. 2023-01-27
defun-open: I wanted to sometimes be able to
keep the function definition expanded. 2023-09-12
emacsconf-el: Since I was writing about a lot
of EmacsConf functions in preparation for my
presentation, I wanted a quick way to link to
the files in the web-based repository. 2023-09-12
defvar: Made sense to include variable definitions too.
web links: The emacsconf-el links were so
useful, I wanted to be able to use that type of
link for other projects as well. 2024-01-07
Embark: I
wanted to be able to copy the final URL from a
custom link at point, so I used Embark. 2024-01
QR code: I started livestreaming again, so I
wanted a quick way for viewers to get the URL of
something without waiting for stream notes. 2024-01-10
:comments both: While scanning Reddit to find links for Emacs News, I learned about :comments both and how that includes references to the Babel file that tangled the code. 2024-01-07
context: Now that it was easy to link to the web version of an Emacs Lisp file, I thought it might be fun to be able to automatically include a context link by passing link=1. I also wanted to be able to navigate to the Org source code for a tangled function. 2024-01-11
my-include:...?name=...: I wanted to be able to refer to Org Babel source blocks by name.
In the course of writing this blog post, I learned
how to use URLs in Graphviz, learned how to
include inline HTML for export with
@@html:...@@, used position: sticky, figured
out how to highlight the SVG using JS, used CSS to
make a note that should only show up in RSS feeds,
and submitted a pull request for meme.el that was
merged. And now I want to figure out sidenotes or
at least footnotes that don't assume they're the
only footnotes on the page… This is just how my
brain likes to do things. (Oooh, shiny!)
4. What kinds of notes can I leave for myself or others?
I might take years before revisiting the same
topic, so good notes can pay off a lot. Also, when
I share what I've been working on, sometimes
people e-mail me or comment suggesting other
things that are nearby, which is a lot of fun. The
ideas I come up with are probably too weird to
exactly line up with other people's interests, but
who knows, maybe they're close enough to what
other people work on that they can save people
time or spark more ideas.
Inspired by
Mats Lidell's EmacsConf 2023 talk on writing test
cases, I've been working on writing occasional
tests, too, especially when I'm writing a small,
function to calculate or format something. That's a good way of
sketching out how I want a function to behave so that I can see examples of it when I revisit the code. Tests also mean that if I change things, I don't have to worry too much about breaking important behaviours.
Ideas for next steps
How can I get even better at this?
Popping the stack (untangling interruptions and
ideas): When I let myself get distracted by a
cool sub-idea, I sometimes have a hard time
backing up. I can get back into the habit of
clocking time and practise using my org-capture
template for interrupting task so that I can use
C-u with C-c j (my binding for
org-clock-goto) to jump to a recently-clocked
task.
Braindumps can help me use non-computer time to
flesh out notes for things I'm working on or
ideas for next steps.
If I skim the descriptions of new packages in Emacs News
(maybe even the READMEs instead of just the
one-liners), I'll probably retain a brief sense
of what's out there and what things are called.
Vector search across package descriptions
and function docstrings could be an even more
powerful way to discover things that are close
to something I want to do.
Using elisp-demos to add more examples to
functions can help me look up things I
frequently use but don't remember.
Figuring out more modern IDE features like
refactoring support, on-the-fly error checking,
and code navigation could help me code faster.
So that's how I tinker with Emacs for fun: start
with something that mostly works, keep an eye out
for opportunities to make things better, use
tinkering as a way to make doing things more fun,
look for things that are nearby, and
I used to think this was the Zeigarnik
effect, but it turns out the Zeigarnik effect is
about remembering incomplete tasks versus
completed tasks, while the Ovsiankina effect is
more about intrusive thoughts and wanting to get
back to that incomplete task.
Inspired by Arne Bab (who mentioned being inspired by my sketches)
I've been drawing daily moments since 2023-03-20. Nothing fancy, just
a quick reminder of our day.
I draw while the kiddo watches a bedtime video. Sometimes she suggests
a moment to draw, or flips through the pages and laughs at the
memories.
I also have my text journal (occasionally with photos) and my time
tracker. It doesn't take a lot of time to update them, and I like what
they let me do.
I like this. It makes the path visible. I'm looking forward to seeing
what this is like after years
I used to draw and write monthly reviews. I'd like to get back to
those. They help with the annual reviews, too.
phone: review sketches, jot keywords on phone
computer: draw sketch, braindump, blog
Right now I put 12 days on one A5.
Week? nah, not really needed
More details? longer to review, though. Redirect drawing to monthly notes
Still working on shaping the day/week more proactively. A+ likes to
take the lead, so maybe it's more like strewing.
If you're viewing this on my blog, you might be able to click on the
links below to open them in a viewer and then swipe or use arrow keys
to navigate.
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